Re: Google Translator treatment of Bulgarian and Macedonian

On Oct 11, 1:16 am, Panu <craoibhi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 5, 10:36 pm, Dušan Vukotić <dusan.vuko...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Oct 5, 1:35 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 5, 1:39 am, Dušan Vukotić <dusan.vuko...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 3, 11:50 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 3, 2:13 pm, Dušan Vukotić <dusan.vuko...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 3, 6:01 pm, "Peter T. Daniels" <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 3, 11:48 am, Du¹an Vukotiæ <dusan.vuko....@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Oct 3, 4:08 pm, garabik-news-2005...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:
Panu <craoibhi...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I wouldn't say that it is bad for the eyes, and I don't think Latin
letters are particularly good for calligraphy. However, I get the
point of the poster. Myself, I have never become as good at Russian as
at Polish, and the reason is that I read Cyrillic so badly that I
can't read a Russian book for fun - it is already work.

Yes - I am reasonably fluent in Russian, more than in Italian.  Yet,
reading a good book in Italian feels easier than in Russian.  It is
especially visible on a computer screen, at low DPI or using suboptimal
typefaces - the cyrillic letters, and consequently the words, are just
too similar in their shape and I have to strain my eyes more. In
Italian, I can skim the page to get a gist of the paragraphs; not so
well in Russian.

Are you really so stupid? Anyone who has learned some alphabet in his
older age needs more energy to read that "new" letters than those he
used ti read from his childhood. Personally, I see no difference in
readability between Latin and Cyrillic script. Even I wouldn't be able
to say what script the book I read a minute ago was originally written
in.

Assuming that like any good Yugoslav, you were raised a perfect
biscriptal, have you ever taken a reading-speed test designed to
discover whether you read more quickly or more accurately in one
script or the other? Presumably psycholinguists have undertaken such
studies.  Can you tell us where their findings have been published?

I do not believe that any one has ever undertaken similar studies.
However, who knows, I will try to find something in the city library,
and if I find I'll let you know.

It's simply a fact that the Cyrillic letters are less distinctive from
each other than the Roman letters,

For those who didn't learn both scripts at young age it is quite
possible, but, if so, it wouldn't be because of weaker readability of
the Cyr alphabet itself. For instance, I learned Hebrew script many
years ago; neverthless, even today, I have slight problems in
distinguishing a few of their characters.

No, I'm not talking about subjective readability assessments (of the
sort that can easily be tested by psycholinguists, and which you'll
probably find in the library), but rather the physical shapes of
letters. The Russian alphabet is more self-similar than the English
alphabet. The Serbian alphabet is more self-similar than the Croatian
alphabet.

You are talking about Croatian alphabet again and again! Your
ignorance is infinite. There are two scripts in Serbia: Serbian Latin
and Serbian Cyrillic and both of this alphabets are equally treated in
school. In fact, the South-Slavic Latin alphabet was adjusted for the
Serbian language, simple because Croatian language didn't exist in
those timeshttp://www.rastko.rs/filologija/vuk/bukvar/002.jpg

Once again, Latin letters were adapted for the Serbian/Illyrian
language (later called Serbo-Croatian language; the genuine Croatian
language was Kajkavian, similar to the modern Slovenian) and it was
done by Vuk Karadžić, Ljudevit Gaj and Đura Daničić (two of them, Vuk
and Đura, were the Serbian linguists).

We are really getting sick of your hypernationalist, hyperchauvinist
Serb paranoia.

Croatian is written with a form of the Roman alphabet, namely the
Croatian alphabet.

Just as English is written with a form of the Roman alphabet, namely
the English alphabet.

Just as Serbian is written with a form of Roman alphabet.

The historical facts have nothing to do with chauvinism.

I am far less a nationalist than, for instance, an average
(brainwashed!) American citizen who is obliged to keep his hand on his
bosom (close to the heart), while the US anthem is played.

That is not nationalism, but patriotism, which is an entirely
different thing, as George Orwell pointed out in his "Notes on
Nationalism". But I grant you one thing: every textbook on Serbo-
Croatian, or as I prefer to say, cultured Shtokavian, will point out
that Serbian standard language is ekavian and shows certain lexical
preferences that differ from Croatian. It is perfectly possible to
write a distinctly Serbian form of literary Shtokavian in Latin
letters. Moreover, there is no technical or linguistic reason why we
couldn't write Croatian - i.e. ijekavian with a Croatian lexicon - in
Cyrillic. The reason why it is not done is political or social, not
linguistical.

For the truth's sake:
Both Shtokavian variants (Ekavian and Ijekavian) are Serbian. Vuk
Stefanivić Karadžić wrote the Serbian Dictionary using its Ijekavian
variant.

In 1818, when Vuk published the Serbian Dictionary, there were in use
two scripts for Serbian language, Latin and Cyrillic (graec.) see
below
www.skolalukicevo.com/images/alph_vuk.jpg

Croatian alphabet here was the one used by the Kaikavian Croates
(before their name was accepted among the Serbs Catholics), those
Slavs whose language was quite different than Serbian and much closer
to the modern Slovenian.

Nevertheless, Serbs accepted the proposition that Croats (a fresh-
composed ethnos) could name their language ― the language they have
previously borrowed from Serbs and called Illyrian ― Serbo-Croatian
and that name should stay unchanged in the future, and the new-
invented "languages", Bosnian and Montenegrin should be banned by the
international law, because those two have stolen and renamed Serbo-
Croatian according to their thief--political and quasi-scientific
reasons.

DV

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: History of French
    ... Kind of prevailing position among Serbian linguists (which I'm ... not, so it's just my observation) is that it's ONE language, which every ... erases/weakens the dialect diferences b) defines/distinguishes ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: History of French
    ... Another point in favor of "difficult language learning by ... > English-speaking foreigners who try to learn Serbian are pretty rare ... > | relative Croatian? ... All this mutability of nation states is entirely alien to the English ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: HP 50G, the real deal
    ... Now we must learn to distinguish Slovenian, Croatian, ... Croatian and Serbian language were very similar. ... "Kosovian" language don't exist because ...
    (comp.sys.hp48)
  • Re: Breakfast in London?
    ... >>I want to know Serbo Croat for Don Jewan. ... >Serbian and Croatian are two separate languages ... Croatian) the Southern Slavic language ... Serbian, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, and Croat, written ...
    (rec.travel.europe)
  • Re: For DoD: Jews and Serbs
    ... Croatian dominated Partisans, led by the Croatian Josip Broz Tito which ... sentiments of the Serbian controlled Yugoslav government. ... March 30 the Yugoslav Foreign Minister made a formal statement to the German ...
    (soc.culture.israel)