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Russkij jazyk na latinitse
<<Ed, there is "J" in Serbo-Croatian too, even when written in Cyrillic alphabet. How do you write it in Bulgarian? >>
We use a letter called "i kratko" (short i) which is the Cyrillic letter for "i" with a dot or a tilde on top. They have the same letter in Russian, too.
The only other language using Cyryllic is Mongolian (of course I am not mentioning all those nations that are or used to be part of Russia like Kazakhs, Udmurts, Tartars etc.) How come the mongols adopted Cyryllic? I believe they used to write in their own alphabet prior to this. And they are definitely NOT a part of pravoslav-orthodox culture :)))
Easterner,
Romanian is not the only language to change alphabets. Here are a few others: Turkish: Arabic to Latin Korean: Chinese characters to Hangul Vietnamese: Chinese characters to Latin Malay: Arabic to Latin Swahili: Arabic to Latin Moldovan: Cyrillic to Latin And to make things interesting: Uzbek: Arabic to Latin to Cyrillic--and now back to Latin Azeri: Arabic to Latin to Cyrillic--and now back to Latin I'm sure there are others, especially with the other countries and regions of the former Soviet Union.
<<I think you have touched the nerve here. This is where all the irritation of Bulgarians or Russians at the mere suggestion of introducing Latin script comes from. It's a clash of civilizations.>>
It doesn't have to do with religion at all. If someone said that we should start using the Greek alphabet (Greeks are also Orthodox), you would have the same reaction.
You are right, Ed. It has little to do with religion but everything to do with a big nationalistic (or should I say - culturalistic) EGO. It's more to it than mere irritation at the suggestion of using another alphabet. I know this all too well because the Baltic States are on the frontline of two civilizations: the Cyrillic and the Latin. And boy that's hard - just look at all those silly things in latvia...
Vytenis, what's wrong with holding on to your own national identity and traditions?
Romanian is not the only language to change alphabets. Here are a few others>
Not Romanian but Moldavian (a dialect or Romanian) they were forced to use cyrilic during the USSR era but now they returned to they original latÃn alphabet. It's stupid to try to use an cyrilic alphabet in a latin language and it's stupid to try to use an latina alphabet in a cyrilic (slavic) alphabet.
Ed, nothing wrong of course, as long as it does not grow into the outright animosity and mistrust. Why for example Russia stupidly think that NATO is the threat to them, why do they hate Europe and the Western culture. This was the cause of their self-isolation for centuries. They could have used some aspects of western civilization, especially relating to human rights...
I know I know, I'm a flamer :)
<<Romanian is not the only language to change alphabets. Here are a few others:
Turkish: Arabic to Latin Korean: Chinese characters to Hangul Vietnamese: Chinese characters to Latin Malay: Arabic to Latin Swahili: Arabic to Latin Moldovan: Cyrillic to Latin>> It seems to have been a pragamatic tendency to change some traditional scripts into Latin, or an attempt to get rid of an imposed script. The exception are generally those countries which perceive their writing as a distinctive charecteristic of their cultural legacy (all Cyrillic-writing countries, Greece, most Muslim countries <varieties of Arab script>, Israel, India <devanagari and other scripts>, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, the Thai, etc.). This tendency is reinforced by the fact that languages that have been recently given a writing use an adapted form of Latin script rather than a script of their own.
Being a Ukrainian and using mostly Russian in everyday communication, I can say that the system of Latin transliteration of Eastern Slavic sounds is pretty cumbersome. In fact it's so irritating that if I get a message longer than just a few words written in Russian "Translit", I wouldn't normally even bother to read it.
(Have to admit though, that I use Translit myself when texting on my mobile - trying to type in Cyrillics without a proper keyboard is even more irritating) In Ukrainian, Latin transliteration even more messy. Some Ukrainians use the Latin transliteration system coined on the Polish one, some coined on the Russian one; I think them both pretty trashy. I personally quite like the Serbo-Croatian Latin script and think it could easily be adapted to Ukrainian and Russian needs should there be will to switch to Latin, which I can't see in any foreseeable future.
of course, you have a point that it is difficult to transliterate a particular language into a new alphabet once we are so much used to its old one. but look at moldova for example. or central asian states. or turkey. they have been swithching alphabets allright. and in case of turkey they seem to have become much more western as a result of switching from arabic to latin alphabet. although while staying there i personally got the impression of turkey being a weird mixture of two civilizations... "neithet meat nor fish' as we say in lithuania... ;)
Been to Turkey, too. I don't think the country has become any more 'western' as a result of adopting the Latin script. The Greeks still write using their whatever-it's-called alphabet and are a lot more 'western' than the Turks. Or look at Uzbekistan - they write in Latin, but are they any more 'western' than, say, us Ukrainians?
Naturally, it's a lot easier to change the alphabet when half your population do nothing but overlook their goats on the pastures and can barely write their own names. No offence, please.
"although while staying there i personally got the impression of turkey being a weird mixture of two civilizations... 'neithet meat nor fish' as we say in lithuania... ;) "
That's what I noticed too, even though, in my experience, it is still more "eastern" than "western". But I like that, people are much warmer and more open than in those "western countries", where nobody even notices you. |