CAMOBAP MIP

TorgoX on 2004-10-06T07:08:08

Dear Log,

«Judges deliberated whether a [CIS] federal law that stipulates that Cyrillic must be used throughout the country - including regions that use languages other than Russian - was constitutional.

Lawmakers and the Supreme Court of the republic of Tatarstan, a central Russian region where ethnic Tatars outnumber ethnic Russians, have challenged the constitutionality of the 2002 legislation.»

--"Russian Court Weighs Regions' Alphabet"

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Hy u 4TO?

avik on 2004-10-06T17:28:16

In the former USSR Stalin's own nationality (Georgian people) use their own alphabet, Armenians managed to keep their own alphabet... Only people that never had their own writing before had to adopt either Cyrillic or Latin alphabet. Turkic languages used to use Arabic script for a while, which also wasn't the best for their language...

Other strange uses:

Farsi is an indo-european language, but uses Arabic script...

Kurds living in Armenia write in their language using Armenian language. By the way, Turkish speaking Armenians surprisingly used Armenian letters, not in Arabic or Latin to write in Turkish...

Abkhaz people use their own very modified version of Cyrillic alphabet ... Russians, for example, would not have a clue on how to read some of Abkhazian stuff, although it looks as Cyrillic at a first glance...

Cherokee alphabet ... I don't even want to go there ...

Re:Hy u 4TO?

TorgoX on 2004-10-07T00:14:36

Only people that never had their own writing before had to adopt either Cyrillic or Latin alphabet.

Hm. What about the Mongolians then? They had a writing system (or two or three!) that the Russians replaced with Cyrillic.

Linguistically: there's no reason for anyone to use Latin script over Cyrillic tho, or vice versa. They're both equally adaptable to any language.

Aesthetically: I adore Mongolian Old Script; I'm neutral on Latin script; and I think Cyrillic looks horrible in every way for every language. Arabic script and Hebrew script are passable (at best) for Arabic and Hebrew, but they produce linguistic hell when used for any other languages.

Practically: switching to Latin script probably makes technical things a lot easier.

Pedagogically: Mongolian Old Script was moderately difficult for learners, because it simply omitted some important data. However, that could have been easily fixed.

Cherokee! I've done linguistical work for the Cherokees! And Neil Kandalgaonkar made a great new Cherokee font... which we should release, in fact.

What you said about Kurds writing Turkish in Armenian script is fascinating! I never knew that! Asia Minor is such a wonderfully syncretic place.

Re:Hy u 4TO?

avik on 2004-10-07T04:22:31

This might be of some interest to you:

http://www.unesco.kz/qypchaq/Main-En.htm

Re:Hy u 4TO?

TorgoX on 2004-10-07T00:26:10

While I'm rambling about my aesthetic notions, I will add that I think that modern Hebrew and Arabic scripts are a total failure at the task of doing something sane with Phoenician. When I am appointed cruel Kommissar of Asia Minor, all will be compelled to convert their letterforms to Phoenician, under penalty of vaporization.

Although one good thing did come of Arabic -- an authentic improvement, in fact: Divehi, which I wrote about here. Too bad global warming will probably put every last user of Divehi into some wretched Indian refugee camp in the next twenty years or so.

Re:Hy u 4TO?

jhi on 2004-10-07T13:20:13

Maltese, a Semitic language, is written with Latin alphabet.