3 ms·

> What will be interesting to see is if Bulgaria, Serbia, and Ukraine continue to use Cyrillic or gradually switch to Latin. Turkmenistan of all places is curr

by vsnf 2y ago

> What will be interesting to see is if Bulgaria, Serbia, and Ukraine continue to use Cyrillic or gradually switch to Latin. Turkmenistan of all places is currently undergoing a gradual switch to Latin, which has happened in fits and starts with various mandates to do so, and then to stop doing so. But the culture seems pretty undeniably to be trending to romanization.

sampa 2y ago
but they have a Turkic family language there, not a Slavic one
- vsnf 2y ago
  Right, but like a sibling poster pointed out, they've been using Cyrillic, so the migration is similar, at least.
  - kgeist 2y ago
    Not quite - several Slavic languages have so called contrastive palatalization, i.e. almost all consonants come in palatalized/non-palatalized pairs, and they're hard to express using unmodified Latin alphabet. Some Slavic languages lost most of the contrastive palatalization (say, Serbian), and Turkic languages never had it to begin with, so they're easier to switch. In Europe, Polish and Irish are two examples of a language with extensive contrastive palatalization which uses the Latin alphabet, and they're probably among the least readable/elegant writing systems in Europe.
    - culebron21 2y ago
      Turkic languages do have constrastive palatalization system, going together with "soft" & "hard" vowels. (Example from German: a, e, o, u would be "hard", ä, ö and ü would be "soft" vowels for Kazakh speaker) In Kazakh, kerek (need) is palatized completely, while in kara (black) consonants are not. In "shanyrak" (yurt roof top window) consonants aren't palatized and "k" is fricative, in shelek (bucket) "k" is palatized and non-fricative. Since palatized consonants go together with "soft" vowels, one may omit this distinction in writing. But the difference is still there. N.B. Some Turkic languages have lost this feature.
      - kgeist 2y ago
        >Since palatized consonants go together with "soft" vowels, one may omit this distinction in writing. But the difference is still there. Sure, many languages have palatalized consonants, influenced by surrounding phonetic context (such as, vowel harmony in Turkic makes surrounding consonants "softer" too). The true "contrastive palatalization" I was referring to is about having minimal pairs where words have totally different meanings based on whether the consonants are palatalized or not. For example, in Russian (where I specify the palatalization of a preceding consonant with ʲ): mer "a mayor" mʲer "of measures" mʲerʲ "measure!" (imperative) Latin alphabet has no means to express it naturally, while in Cyrillic there're already all the required letters for it. Just omitting it in writing will introduce confusion.
331c8c71 2y ago
Kazakhstan as well if I understand correctly. These languages are Turkic though so cyrillic script is not such a natural fit.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > These languages are Turkic though so cyrillic script is not such a natural fit. What do you mean? It's a set of symbols. No different from any other set, except potentially in size. What would a "natural fit" between a script and a language look like?
- culebron21 2y ago
  I'd disagree that Cyrillic is not a natural fit. No writing system was a natural fit for Turkic languages. Arabic script? Turkic languages have lots of vowels, which are very important, and a lot less fricative consonants. You must add a lot of "diacritics" (points above or below). Latin adapted for Turkish has same issues: a lot of diacritics, and also the infamous i/I distinction (like peek & pick in English) that causes typos. Cyrillic for Turkic languages simply introduced more letters. For example, in Kazakh the vowels а, о, у, э, е, ы were extended with ә, ө, ұ, ү, і. Consonants got their fricative counterparts: к, г => қ, ғ. The only inconvenience I see is Latin "h" (e.g. жиhаз, furniture) which can't be capitalized -- it will collide with Cyrirllic Н (N). I actually find it easier to transcribe German in Kazakh letters than in pure Russian ones. The flip side is you need a bigger keyboard, the number row gets used for letters too. In Kazakhstan, the transition to Latin lost traction even in the state organs: every legal document is written in Cyrillic. In Uzbekistan the attempt was made ~25 years ago, IIRC, and still even state organs print a lot in Cyrillic. They allowed writing in both systems as legally equal for 10 years, but had to extend the transition period for another 20, IIRC. So supposing it's the cultural trend is quite disputable -- I'd say only nationalists with decolonization agenda may want it (but then why not the old Arabic writing system?). The majority doesn't care nor want to switch.
Koshkin 2y ago
Cyrillic was not a bad choice for Tajik. In any case, I think it is better (than Arabic script) suited for Indo-European languages like Persian. (On the other hand, it would have been fun to see Spanish also use Arabic script. :)

by vsnf 2y ago

sampa 2y ago

but they have a Turkic family language there, not a Slavic one

vsnf 2y ago
Right, but like a sibling poster pointed out, they've been using Cyrillic, so the migration is similar, at least.
- kgeist 2y ago
  Not quite - several Slavic languages have so called contrastive palatalization, i.e. almost all consonants come in palatalized/non-palatalized pairs, and they're hard to express using unmodified Latin alphabet. Some Slavic languages lost most of the contrastive palatalization (say, Serbian), and Turkic languages never had it to begin with, so they're easier to switch. In Europe, Polish and Irish are two examples of a language with extensive contrastive palatalization which uses the Latin alphabet, and they're probably among the least readable/elegant writing systems in Europe.
  - culebron21 2y ago
    Turkic languages do have constrastive palatalization system, going together with "soft" & "hard" vowels. (Example from German: a, e, o, u would be "hard", ä, ö and ü would be "soft" vowels for Kazakh speaker) In Kazakh, kerek (need) is palatized completely, while in kara (black) consonants are not. In "shanyrak" (yurt roof top window) consonants aren't palatized and "k" is fricative, in shelek (bucket) "k" is palatized and non-fricative. Since palatized consonants go together with "soft" vowels, one may omit this distinction in writing. But the difference is still there. N.B. Some Turkic languages have lost this feature.
    - kgeist 2y ago
      >Since palatized consonants go together with "soft" vowels, one may omit this distinction in writing. But the difference is still there. Sure, many languages have palatalized consonants, influenced by surrounding phonetic context (such as, vowel harmony in Turkic makes surrounding consonants "softer" too). The true "contrastive palatalization" I was referring to is about having minimal pairs where words have totally different meanings based on whether the consonants are palatalized or not. For example, in Russian (where I specify the palatalization of a preceding consonant with ʲ): mer "a mayor" mʲer "of measures" mʲerʲ "measure!" (imperative) Latin alphabet has no means to express it naturally, while in Cyrillic there're already all the required letters for it. Just omitting it in writing will introduce confusion.

331c8c71 2y ago

Kazakhstan as well if I understand correctly. These languages are Turkic though so cyrillic script is not such a natural fit.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> These languages are Turkic though so cyrillic script is not such a natural fit. What do you mean? It's a set of symbols. No different from any other set, except potentially in size. What would a "natural fit" between a script and a language look like?
culebron21 2y ago
I'd disagree that Cyrillic is not a natural fit. No writing system was a natural fit for Turkic languages. Arabic script? Turkic languages have lots of vowels, which are very important, and a lot less fricative consonants. You must add a lot of "diacritics" (points above or below). Latin adapted for Turkish has same issues: a lot of diacritics, and also the infamous i/I distinction (like peek & pick in English) that causes typos. Cyrillic for Turkic languages simply introduced more letters. For example, in Kazakh the vowels а, о, у, э, е, ы were extended with ә, ө, ұ, ү, і. Consonants got their fricative counterparts: к, г => қ, ғ. The only inconvenience I see is Latin "h" (e.g. жиhаз, furniture) which can't be capitalized -- it will collide with Cyrirllic Н (N). I actually find it easier to transcribe German in Kazakh letters than in pure Russian ones. The flip side is you need a bigger keyboard, the number row gets used for letters too. In Kazakhstan, the transition to Latin lost traction even in the state organs: every legal document is written in Cyrillic. In Uzbekistan the attempt was made ~25 years ago, IIRC, and still even state organs print a lot in Cyrillic. They allowed writing in both systems as legally equal for 10 years, but had to extend the transition period for another 20, IIRC. So supposing it's the cultural trend is quite disputable -- I'd say only nationalists with decolonization agenda may want it (but then why not the old Arabic writing system?). The majority doesn't care nor want to switch.

Koshkin 2y ago

Cyrillic was not a bad choice for Tajik. In any case, I think it is better (than Arabic script) suited for Indo-European languages like Persian. (On the other hand, it would have been fun to see Spanish also use Arabic script. :)