From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Latin alphabet
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:19:35 GMT
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <8877@scott.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
> In article <1992Apr3.213258.1731@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:
> [in response to daliels@Xerox.com, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A
> Derzhanski) and horne-scott@CS.YALE.EDU (Scott Horne)]
>>
>>You guys are missing the point.  The topic began with discussion of an
>>appropriate orthography for a hitherto unwritten language of Taiwan.  
> 
> True, that's how it began, but not how it continued.  We were replying
> to an article in which you were saying that the Latin alphabet was the
> best choice for any language in the world, for no better reason than
> that all - well, most - typewriters and computers were equipped for it
> and for nothing else.

OK, then: I claim that Latin is the most suitable alphabet for any
new orthography of any language simply because as the world's most
widely used writing system it makes other languages and cultures
accessible to speakers of that language, and is best suited to making
that language and its culture known to the rest of the world.  Typewriters
and computers are excellent examples of this dominance of the Latin
alphabet, but hardly the only argument for its adoption.

> 
>>Cyrillic is simply not an option: it has no status there.
> 
> There's no "there".  You were making a universal claim.  And I was not
> proposing Cyrillic for any particular language, just using it as an
> illustration that typewriters and computers don't have to live on Roman.

Many of my claims are universal, but this _there_ meant 'in Taiwan'.
So there!

> 
>>By the way, what do your comments on the ASCII character set have to do with
>>anything?
> 
> Just that the character set which your computer handles is more
> correctly called ASCII, not Latin.
> 
>>The question is how the characters are displayed, not how they are
>>or will be internally represented on any computer.
> 
> Yes.  Well, this particular collection of externally displayed shapes
> is called the bloody ASCII character set.

Only on computers.  It's not ASCII on a typewriter, on a printed page,
or flowing out of a ballpoint.  So my comments stand: ASCII has nothing
to do with the case.

> 
>>Finally, I reject -- indeed, resent -- the insinuation that my proposal of the
>>Latin alphabet makes me unforgivably Eurocentric.
> 
> Then please explain what it means for someone to be "too backward to
> use a European alphabet".

I was insinuating that proponents of nonLatin writing systems for nonEuropean
languages might (but need not) be guilty of such a claim.  I maintain that
any people is capable of learning to use any writing system, but that
some systems are preferable for various reasons.

> 
>>Political correctness has nothing to do with the case.
> 
> I certainly don't want you to be politically correct, but in my
> experience it is usually native speakers of Roman-written languages
> that turn out to be too backward to handle any other writing system.

You missed the boat this time.  I can and do handle other writing systems
(Greek, Cyrillic, Devanagari).  If I take up Japanese I shall try to
learn kanji and the syllabaries.
> 
>>I will concede
>>that Cyrillic might be preferable for languages from the former Soviet Union,
>>but elsewhere?  No way!
> 
> You might be interested to learn that the Cyrillic alphabet is more
> than a thousand years older than the Soviet Union.

I knew that; what does it have to do with anything?

> As to your "no
> way", well, it is hardly the strongest argument I've heard.

I have presented a strong argument against the use of Cyrillic in most
circumstances.  "No way" is merely the logical conclusion to be drawn
from my arguments.  In fact, I'll restate the conclusion: "Hell no!"

Furthermore, I'll withdraw my concession: I don't think a new Cyrillic
orthography is reasonable even in the former Soviet Union.  Having
looked so long to Moscow, nonRussians are now looking westward.
Latin letters are the way to go in a new orthography.  At the same
time, existing Cyrillic orthographies should probably be maintained --
I say "probably", remembering that Romanian used to be written in
Cyrillic but now uses Latin.  Some other groups might want to make
the switch too -- but that's their business, not mine or yours.

--Leo Connolly
Newsgroups: sci.lang