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Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

bbc.com

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Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#41

Post by gandhium »

emodendroket wrote: post #6

The costs are not purely economic -- you will have people struggle to read in the new script and make old texts inaccessible to young people. Additionally, this isn't a case like Chinese where Romanization has the benefit of making it easier to acquire literacy. What is the benefit of this change? I find the claim in this article that using the same script to write their language is going to bring them closer to West…

> What is the benefit of this change?

Protecting themselves from Russian insurgency, among other reasons. Kazakhstan had protected themselves before, shutting down Russian-inspired "People Republic".

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#43

Post by jsgo »

jsgo wrote: post #33
jsgo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I speak English only. I find it much easier to translate either online or via English-to-X dictionary if the other language uses Latin script. Could it be done? I'm sure it is possible, but without previously interacting with them, not easily. I'll say this, for work I travel to Montreal at moderately regular intervals. Because everything is in French, it makes it a bit harder, but I can either: a) infer based off si…

Okay, how about this then: If it is in Latin script, the tourists from countries with Latin-based languages can phonetically butcher whatever it is they're attempting to communicate with the other party. If it is in Cyrillic script, the tourists from countries with Latin-based languages can just stare at a person blankly or point at words on paper/signage if the other party is close enough. Provided they traveled at…

while I think it seems pretty reasonable to assume that their tourists are currently from countries with Cyrillic-based languages, they're making a concerted effort to draw more Western audiences. How that'll play out, not sure, but I don't think the premise is silly.

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#44

Post by [deleted] »

vbezhenar wrote: post #17

I'm ethnical Russian living in Kazakhstan and I think that it's not a very wise decision. As correctly written in the article, overwhelming majority of Kazakhstani citizens speak and write Russian well. I just don't see any point with this change, but costs are tremendous, you have to rewrite every single book including learning books, you have to replace every street plate. When overwhelming majority of people speak…

[deleted]

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#45

Post by c-smile »

jsgo wrote: post #23
emodendroket wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really make a difference to you if all the (from your perspective, as a visitor) unintelligible gibberish is written in Latin script rather than some other script?

I speak English only. I find it much easier to translate either online or via English-to-X dictionary if the other language uses Latin script. Could it be done? I'm sure it is possible, but without previously interacting with them, not easily. I'll say this, for work I travel to Montreal at moderately regular intervals. Because everything is in French, it makes it a bit harder, but I can either: a) infer based off si…

"infer based off similarities to English words"

English and French are both originated from Latin languages so are similarities.

Try to read Turkish web site: http://www.mfa.gov.tr/default.tr.mfa , will its Latin alphabet help you?

The site has English version so you can compare.

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#47

Post by singingboyo »

emodendroket wrote: post #24
jdavis703 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. When attempting to pattern match signs it's easier to match similar letters than symbols that appaear totally abstract. It probably has something to do with short term memory being able to hold 5-9 things. Also many languages use enough similar words (i.e. cognates) that you can use context to guess at the meaning.

https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ng%C3%B4_%C4%90%C3%ACnh_Di%E1%... Can you make out anything in this article other than personal names?

I think that for languages that didn't get adapted into english, the 'similar word' effect is essentially missing - it really only works for romance languages and maybe the odd germanic word. However, if I had a dictionary or something, that article would be much easier to translate than, say, Japanese (or Mandarin, or really any language where writing involves a large number of symbols).

I'm not sure that that applies very well to cyrillic vs latin though. IIRC cyrillic is still under ~50 unique characters, so a dictionary would essentially need an index to tell you what the alphabetic ordering is, and then I think you'd be set (as well as you can be with just a dictionary, at least).

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#48

Post by bitL »

adventured wrote: post #36
vbezhenar wrote: post #17

I'm ethnical Russian living in Kazakhstan and I think that it's not a very wise decision. As correctly written in the article, overwhelming majority of Kazakhstani citizens speak and write Russian well. I just don't see any point with this change, but costs are tremendous, you have to rewrite every single book including learning books, you have to replace every street plate. When overwhelming majority of people speak…

> When overwhelming majority of people speak Russian and Russia is the most important trade partner, I think that it's only logical to have Russian as one of the official languages in the country It makes perfect sense if you want to move away from Russia to dramatically broaden your national potential over time. Russia has a very modest economy versus its population size. Canada and South Korea have overtaken it, an…

> Their GDP per capita has fallen below much of Eastern Europe

I think that was the product of the 90s and you can see it still in full swing in Ukraine (African level of GDP). Since those crazy times of societal collapse their GDP PPP per capita actually rose up to the level of Turkey IIRC; without sanctions they would probably be even a bit higher and become even more threatening, which might not be in US+EU's best interests.

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#49

Post by bobthepanda »

emodendroket wrote: post #6

The costs are not purely economic -- you will have people struggle to read in the new script and make old texts inaccessible to young people. Additionally, this isn't a case like Chinese where Romanization has the benefit of making it easier to acquire literacy. What is the benefit of this change? I find the claim in this article that using the same script to write their language is going to bring them closer to West…

Turkic languages are split between Cyrillic, Latin, and Arabic-based scripts. Kazakhs in Turkey, for example, already write in Latin script.

Is there an issue with Turkish scholarship of history since Ataturk pushed Latin-based alphabet?

Re: Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

#50

Post by LifeLiverTransp »

adventured wrote: post #36
vbezhenar wrote: post #17

I'm ethnical Russian living in Kazakhstan and I think that it's not a very wise decision. As correctly written in the article, overwhelming majority of Kazakhstani citizens speak and write Russian well. I just don't see any point with this change, but costs are tremendous, you have to rewrite every single book including learning books, you have to replace every street plate. When overwhelming majority of people speak…

> When overwhelming majority of people speak Russian and Russia is the most important trade partner, I think that it's only logical to have Russian as one of the official languages in the country It makes perfect sense if you want to move away from Russia to dramatically broaden your national potential over time. Russia has a very modest economy versus its population size. Canada and South Korea have overtaken it, an…

Those dreams of glorious pasts are usually very self-defeating (lots of costly police actions in former colonys) with no visibile reward - and thus not half as dangerous as internalized past injustices.

Nazi Germany, Japan, and alot of other countrys got drunk on the injustices of the past and used them to justify atrocities in neighbouring countrys. If it were not for the nukes, alot of those nationalist movements would turn into the same pyro-clastic streaming movements we saw in WW2 spilling over borders and running away with civilization.

I raise my glass to the post los alamos world order. To a lid on the kettle, forcing dictators to thread littly on there neigbhours and house in the dragons they unleash.

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