Kazakhstan is changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin-based • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by azangru » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:43 PM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #168

azangru wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have easier time learning English, and it eases the communication a lot Is this really so? Are you sure having a different alphabet would make it harder for people to learn a western language? I am Russian, and I can safely say that pretty much every literate adult in Russia who has at least a basic school education can read Latin letters just fine, because there is no way around it; the alphabet is taught a…

The Cyrillic alphabet is a major barrier to learning Russian for Americans. I can only imagine it makes Kazakh even more daunting. I don't think Cyrillic letters pervade American culture in quite the same way that Latin letters pervade Russian culture, so it's not quite the same.

> The Cyrillic alphabet is a major barrier to learning Russian for Americans.

It may be a barrier, sure, but it is a microscopic barrier (33 letters, mostly Greek-based, many in common with the Latin alphabet) compared to the complexity of a language (any language) itself. Would you say that Americans would more readily pick up Danish? Or Finnish? Or Latvian? Or Polish?

Just as a side note: I once had to take a course in classical Greek. It took us one lesson (or maybe two) to learn the Greek alphabet. Compared to the rest of the course it was... I am finding it hard even to say 'peanuts', for it would be an offense to peanuts.

(I am more inclined to think that it's up to us to standardize on an international language — and I would much rather it were English — than for different nations to learn each other's languages. But that's, of course, just my opinion.)

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

#192

Post by delinhabit » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:45 PM UTC

gajomi wrote: post #172

cpursley wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visited Ukraine (Kyiv) last summer. I spoke a little Russian with them; nobody seemed to mind.

Honest question from a less than A1 level Russian student... Is there really a significant difference between the two? I have no doubt that there is different vocabulary etc. and of course that there are political reasons to count them as different languages but are they effectively mutually intelligible?

I have an anecdote. I speak Russian proficiently (I can speak it since I've been 6, even though my native language is Romanian), and I always found understanding Ukrainian hard (not to say speaking it). I can infer a lot of words and expressions, but I would say they're fairly different.

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

#193

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:45 PM UTC

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 alphabet regardless of Kazakh itself still being written in Cyrillic.

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

#194

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:47 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #92

c-smile wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

No, but a Latin alphabet would help a Turkish tourist in Kazakhstan.

Maybe not. The Latin alphabet that Kazakhstan is moving to, is deliberately far from the Turkish alphabet. A Turkish tourist would need to spend some time especially learning Kazakh’s new alphabet (plus, different sound values and loads of faux amis await him).

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

#195

Post by shard » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

gsich wrote: post #143

jsgo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cyrillic is not hard to learn.

Neither is the basics of the Korean writing system (I memorized the writing and pronunciation system in about a day). However, if you want to look up what a word means, is it easier to type in the Latin alphabet or hunt and peck the Korean text? I expect that for most visitors to Korea, they are not going to spend the time to learn the Korean writing system, and rely on the faith that the basic English skills of the locals will get them through the trip.

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

#196

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #73

jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I speak English only. That's the problem right there. Speaking only one language is super limiting.

If you are going to pick just one, English is a pretty good choice, because there are few places you can go where absolutely nobody speaks it.

> there are few places you can go where absolutely nobody speaks it.

I can only assume you have never been to francophone or lusaphone Africa or many Latin American countries. Yes, if you search you might be able to find an intelligentsia that can manage some English, but the majority of people you meet will expect to communicate in French, Spanish or Portuguese.

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

#197

Post by disordinary » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:50 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #73

jacquesm wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I speak English only. That's the problem right there. Speaking only one language is super limiting.

If you are going to pick just one, English is a pretty good choice, because there are few places you can go where absolutely nobody speaks it.

You'd think that, but it's not true. Or, people learn it at school which is quite different from being able to convey even basic conversation in it.

With a language if you don't use it you forget it.

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

#198

Post by titanix2 » Wed, Apr 25, 2018, 11:54 PM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #168

azangru wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have easier time learning English, and it eases the communication a lot Is this really so? Are you sure having a different alphabet would make it harder for people to learn a western language? I am Russian, and I can safely say that pretty much every literate adult in Russia who has at least a basic school education can read Latin letters just fine, because there is no way around it; the alphabet is taught a…

The Cyrillic alphabet is a major barrier to learning Russian for Americans. I can only imagine it makes Kazakh even more daunting. I don't think Cyrillic letters pervade American culture in quite the same way that Latin letters pervade Russian culture, so it's not quite the same.

It’s more likely the problem of these people or the American education system because learning a new alphabet as close as the cyrillic is only a matter of days for a motivated person. It’s even the closest to the Latin one (with Greek), not something like the Davanagari with complex ligature rules or that looks totally foreign like thai or that have multiples letter forms like arabic.

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

#199

Post by petre » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #168

azangru wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have easier time learning English, and it eases the communication a lot Is this really so? Are you sure having a different alphabet would make it harder for people to learn a western language? I am Russian, and I can safely say that pretty much every literate adult in Russia who has at least a basic school education can read Latin letters just fine, because there is no way around it; the alphabet is taught a…

The Cyrillic alphabet is a major barrier to learning Russian for Americans. I can only imagine it makes Kazakh even more daunting. I don't think Cyrillic letters pervade American culture in quite the same way that Latin letters pervade Russian culture, so it's not quite the same.

I learned to read basic cyrillic out of boredom while travelling through Bulgaria, from road signs. They have bi-alphabet road signs, just like Greece). So I guess the alphabet is not such a major barrier.

Anyway, from what I heard Kazakh is a Turkic language and most of them are written using the Latin alphabet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_Alphabet

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

#200

Post by bobthepanda » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 12:02 AM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #139

bobthepanda wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but existing Latin scripts have their own equivalents; your everyday person probably could not read Fraktur, for example, and you'd be hard pressed to find a person who can read the original Beowulf: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Be... . Even scripts that haven't changed all that much, like Classical Chinese, are hard to read for modern readers without training because it is so archa…

There's a difference between being unable to read ancient texts and being unable to read anything published before 2018. Most materials will never get the lavish treatment given to universally-recognized classics like Beowulf and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

All literature and formal documents were written in Classical Chinese until the May Fourth movement in 1919. All ROC documents were written in Classical Chinese until the '70s. Turkish went Latin in the '30s. Hanja has been effectively dead for only a few decades. That doesn't mean that any of those cultures lost context for the time periods before their switch to modern writing systems.

Before things were ancient, they were contemporary. Not teaching older scripts to everybody =/= no one knows older scripts.