keystrokes: to speak or not to speak

[propaine]

Greetings!  I'm new to this list.  I can't really say I'm "new" to Linux,
but I'm sure in the early stages of learning to use it.  In case it helps
with my questions, I'm using Fedora 2 with the Speakup-modified kernel,
installed for me in the fall of 2004 where I bought the computer.  (Upgrade
matters may be for another time.  The Linux box is not yet on the Internet.)

I've taken to using VIM lately.  At the moment, my main complaint about it
is that, when I use the backspace key, I rarely hear what I'm deleting, so I
have to check where I am with the Speakup reading keys.  I say "rarely,"
because a few times I did hear what I was backspacing over, but have not
figured out what cause it to happen in the hope of getting it all the time.
Does anybody know whether or how I can do this?

In Emacs, I do hear what I'm backspacing over, but notice another keystroke
silence.  When I use, say, control-f or control-n to move the cursor to the
next character or line, I hear nothing most of the time:  only the arrow
keys talk for such moves.  I do hear the new screen with control-v, and I
think sometimes enough changes on the screen from time to time for control-n
to produce speech, but otherwise these supposedly handy keystrokes don't
look real handy with speech.  Could the root of this be similar or related
to the root of my VIM keystroke question?

Thank you very much for whatever anybody can tell me.

Propaine

p.s.  The name I use here is a way of expressing my regard for Tom Paine.  I
bet he'd have been at least in sympathy with the free software movement.