Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based

Post by tile » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 3:19 AM UTC

gerdesj wrote: post #216

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…

I've read one or two comments here about "we should conform to the standard". I'm a Brit, speak English and disagree. It is handy to have a "Lingua Franca" (Frankish language or "French") and at the moment that is generally considered to be English (unless you happen to live in the rather large bits of the world where it isn't). @vbezhenar is bloody close to fluent in my language. "I'm an ethnic Russian" is better th…

Post by yosito » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 3:32 AM UTC

disordinary wrote: post #175

yosito wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't learn a new alphabet just to go on vacation though, so this change will remove a lot of friction.

You're just backing up the stereotype of an English speaker unfortunately. Cyrilic is extremely easy to learn, you can do it in under an hour, and even in Russia most places that tourists interact will have latin and cyrilic versions of the same text (on the metro, etc). Countries like China are tougher to travel in, but it's not exactly difficult.

Post by dennisgorelik » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 3:59 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #193

niftich wrote: post #16

Hearts and minds. The immense monetary cost and hassle of doing so is weighed up against developing a closer connection to Turkey and Azerbaijan, ostensibly [1]; but the cultural subtext of easing consumption and learning of other latin-script media and art from the wider world. There's an element of sticking it to the Russians, an element of exploiting a generational divide unlike other leaders who stuck with their…

> The cultural subtext of easing consumption and learning of other latin-script media and art from the wider world. That’s not really the motivation here. English learning has boomed in Kazakhstan for many years now even without a script reform, the younger generations have no problem with the Latin alphabet. Kazakh-language texts on social media are often liberally sprinkled with English phrases in the Latin alphabe…

Post by fusiongyro » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 4:20 AM UTC

kingofhdds wrote: post #93

fusiongyro wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a purely linguistic standpoint, I think Kazakh is a better fit for Cyrillic than the Latin alphabet. Look at all the diacritics they have to use to make this work. But we both know the real motivations here probably do not include cleaning up the orthography.

This standpoint is not linguistic at all. Cyrillic too had to be changed, in fact, to become suitable for Kazakh.

Post by codentropy » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 4:21 AM UTC

kolinko wrote: post #137

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…

The difference is that there is little political/military threat from France towards Canada. I'm Polish, and thanks to the latin alphabet we're using, the country has it much easier to be close to the west. People have easier time learning English, and it eases the communication a lot. If we were using cyrylic, the country would be naturally leaning more towards Russia - which, considering the history, wouldn't be go…