Re: More orthographic miscellanea (was: Chinese Romanization)

On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 9:30 PM, Ray Brown wrote:


> The change to
> Roman script was the result of a Latinist movement, dating from the late
> 18th century, which sought to deepen relation with the Romancelang
> countries.
Yep. That's what I meant too.

> I understood that when the Moldavian principality became a Soviet
Republic,
>   it was a modified form of Russian Cyrillic that was introduced, not a
> revival of the earlier Romanian Cyrillic which had been based on the Old
> Bulgarian Cyrillic.
True. I might use a hyperbole while saying "returned" ;)) But anyway I meant
there was nothing strange to write in Moldavian with Cyrillics.

> Since 1989, Moldavian has adopted the Roman alphabet.
Yep. And I miss the old script. Btw, AFAIK, Cyrillics are still in use in
Transnistria (a rebel region on the left bank of Dniester).

> Yes, I know Azeri & Turkish are closely related, but I really don't see
> much resemblance between Turkish Romanization and the Azeri Roman alphabet
> of 1922 to 1933
I see. I must be misinformed - I heard this information from an Azeri friend
of mine in 1997, and had no chance to check if it was true.

> Since obtaining independence, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan has
> abandoned Cyrillic and reverted to the Roman alphabet.
That is essentially Turkish with three extra letters: q, x and schwa.

> > -- Yitzik
> > (from ex-USSR,
>
> ...in which the policy regarding orthographic reform changed. In the 1920s
> Romanization was the norm. IIRC Lenin is recorded as saying to comrade
> Agamaly-Ogly, president of the Central Pan-Soviet Committee of National
> Alphabets: "Romanization, there lies the great revolution of the east."
Romanization was done even for many of those langs that had already a
certain period of using Cyrillics :((

> Wasn't there some talk even of Romanizing Russian?
There was such an idea in 1929-1930, as I heard from one guy at an
Esperantists forum a year ago, but it was quickly abandoned. I think those
rumors have certain ground, since Ilf & Petrov made a joke about it in their
famous novel "The Golden Calf" published in 1930.

> But, of course, things changed under Stalin and all these new
> Romanizations were swept away in 1939-1940 and Cyrillic replaced all
> earlier alphabets with the exception of Gerorgian & Armenian.
Yes.

> But I believe the pre-1939 Romanized alphabets have been re-established
> everywhere now.
AFAIK no. Some nations of the ex-USSR (Azeri, Turkmen, Uzbek) have moved to
using Romanized alphabets. But those are new, not the original ones from
pre-1939, as Jown Cowan said:

> Sometimes with changes, as in Turkmenistan.
Azeri and Turkmen have smth Turkish-based, and Uzbek (probably failing to
get a good keyboards and/or fonts) uses a diacritic-free translit a la
Swahili. Kazak and Kyrgyz have no plans to latinize :)
As for RF, the situation is different. It is ***forbidden by the federal
law*** to use any other alphabet than based on Cyrillics, for the languages
that have any official status in Russian Federation. Kazan Tatars want to
change to Turkish-based Latinics, but Moscow does not permit to do it
officially. The same is with Karelan - being written in Latinics, it demands
official status (for now they use Finnish and Russian as official langauges
of Republic of Karelia), bu it cannot be given until they change to
Cyrillics. The others are silent. I don't know much about situation with
spelling problems in other lgs, but, gathering material for my Turkic
conlang, I got acquainted with orthographies of all Turkic lgs of ex-USSR.
They all seem nice and convenient (even a bit strange but etymologicly safe
Azeri), tho often totally incompatible with each other. I think it was done
for hardening mutual understanding between Turkic ethnoi.

> Was there
> someone on the Pan-Soviet Committee of National Alphabets familiar with
> the Volapük use, I wonder.
Ghu knows. At least there were some Esperantists there...

---------
On Sat, Sep 11, 2004 3:03 PM Tamas Racsko wrote:

> And "suprisingly"
> Moldovans returned back to their "native" orthography just in the
> same time. I do not feel this sudden Pan-Soviet change a natural,
> spontaneous process...
I do not say it was natural process. There were no natural processes in the
Soviet Union, you know. But there was also Moldavian Autonomous S.S.R. in
Transnistria as a part of Ukrainian S.S.R. since 1924.

>   Rumanian was no a literary language (there was nor a common
> standard) until the middle of 19th century (i.e until Vasile
> Alecsandi).
...
>   Therefore there was no Rumanian "orthography" until 1859, at all.
My sources give a different info:
"Since establishment of indepenent Moldovan state in 1359 and till nowadays
(with short breaks) Moldovans have been using Cyrillic alphabet. The first
Moldovan printing shop was found in Yassy in 1640. Printing was abundant in
later years that provided solid ground for formation of literary language"
(M.Isayev, O yazykakh narodov SSSR, Moscow, 1978)

I think the question is strongly influenced by political issues, so let us
stop. I'm neither a Moldovan nor a Communist, let them write as *they* want.
I just said I find Moldovan Cyrillics nice looking and easy.

> Moldavian orthography
> was a mutation of the post-1917 Russian script.
Indeed it was.

--------------
On Sat, Sep 11, 2004 7:03 PM Tamas Racsko wrote:

>   Finno-Ugric languages kept Cyrillic orthography, even Zyrien
> which had its own "Abur" script.
Komi (both Zyrian and Permiak) didn't use Abur for at least 200 years when
they got Cyrillic script. The same source (M.Isayev) gives such periods for
those lgs:
- mid 18th c. till 1920 - Cyrillics, chaotic, close to modern;
- 1920 - early 1930s - so called "Molodtsov alphabet" - strongly modified
Cyrillic letters, see Cyrillic Supplementary in Unicode;
- early 1930s - late 1930s - Latin-based;
- since late 1930s - Cyrillics.
I don't this this promulgated literacy in native lang among Komis...

> AFAIK Chuvash uses still Cyrillic.
They do.

> (And what about Kazakh, Kirghiz? My book does not mention that they
> would return to Latin in contrast with Turkmen, Tatar.)
No plans AFAIK.

-- Yitzik

Reply