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> Instead of all-out alphabet reform for Russian, the early Soviet Union mandated spelling reform, wiping the language clean of archaic or redundant Cyrillic ch

> Instead of all-out alphabet reform for Russian, the early Soviet Union mandated spelling reform, wiping the language clean of archaic or redundant Cyrillic characters. Overall poor quality article with a bunch of issues already pointed out. I’ll throw in one more - the reform was originally proposed during early 20th century and was viewed as idiotic and a hack job on the language. Soviets realized that they could make old text almost unreadable to the newly educated people and ceased on that as a way to break with the past. Soviets instituted a near monopoly on print after and eventually enforced the monopoly with oppression. See for more info https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforms_of_Russian_orthography https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforms_of_Russian_orthograp... While I find Cyrillic letters to better represent sounds found in Slavic languages (latin scripts require more combinations of letters and special symbols, where Cyrillic has a dedicated letter), switching between say Polish and English reading is a bit easier/faster mentally.

Koshkin 4y ago
> a bit easier I don't know about that... W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie / I Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. / Wół go pyta: „Panie chrząszczu, / Po cóż pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu?” (In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle sounds in the reeds / And Szczebrzeszyn is famous for this. / An ox asks him: "Mister beetle, / What are you buzzing in the bushes for?")
inkyoto 4y ago
> […] switching between say Polish and English reading is a bit easier/faster mentally. How so? Specifically with Polish «szcz», «cz» and «ź» – for which English has no approximants; with the devilish «y» and with «ą» and «ę» causing the consonant mutation. It is akin to saying that Welsh «ymddwyn» or Icelandic «hvort» are easy to mentally switch to by virtue of both making use of the same alphabet that English does. Good luck getting a unsuspecting English speaker to mentally grasp the Polish «szlachta».
- sologoub 4y ago
  Not quite what I meant. I don’t expect a non-Polish speaker to either be able to understand or pronounce words you used or some of the other classic examples like “Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz”. In fact, while letters look the same, the rules for pronouncing are different. All I was saying, mentally for me after reading English for a day, “szlachta” clicks faster than шляхта. It’s just personal experience, may not generalize for all I know.

Koshkin 4y ago

> a bit easier I don't know about that... W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie / I Szczebrzeszyn z tego słynie. / Wół go pyta: „Panie chrząszczu, / Po cóż pan tak brzęczy w gąszczu?” (In Szczebrzeszyn a beetle sounds in the reeds / And Szczebrzeszyn is famous for this. / An ox asks him: "Mister beetle, / What are you buzzing in the bushes for?")

inkyoto 4y ago

> […] switching between say Polish and English reading is a bit easier/faster mentally. How so? Specifically with Polish «szcz», «cz» and «ź» – for which English has no approximants; with the devilish «y» and with «ą» and «ę» causing the consonant mutation. It is akin to saying that Welsh «ymddwyn» or Icelandic «hvort» are easy to mentally switch to by virtue of both making use of the same alphabet that English does. Good luck getting a unsuspecting English speaker to mentally grasp the Polish «szlachta».

sologoub 4y ago
Not quite what I meant. I don’t expect a non-Polish speaker to either be able to understand or pronounce words you used or some of the other classic examples like “Grzegorz Brzęczyszczykiewicz”. In fact, while letters look the same, the rules for pronouncing are different. All I was saying, mentally for me after reading English for a day, “szlachta” clicks faster than шляхта. It’s just personal experience, may not generalize for all I know.