From: "Stefan Persson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Philippe Verdy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 5:22 PM Subject: Re: 24th Unicode Conference - Atlanta, GA - September 3-5, 2003 [OT]
> Philippe Verdy wrote: > > > I do agree: indicating "Atlanta, GA, USA" is not a big effort. > > Note that Georgia is also a Central European country, and > > saying "GA" or "Georgia" alone is not good... > > Note that the country is abbreviated GE, not GA (and that it's in Asia). The limit between Europe and Asia is not clear, especially with countries bordering the Black Sea. The most neutral way would be to say that this country is at the crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle-East. Russians will argue that their country is European, but this depends where they live: Russians in Kamtchatka consider themselves as Asians, and have more cultural affinities with Koreans and Chineses, and even Japaneses. Most Western Turkishes will argue that their country is European, but minorities in Eastern Turkey will consider themselves as Asian, with affinities with bordering Middle-East countries such as Syria, Irak and Iran. The European Convention is still discussing about whever Turkey will be included (there are a lot of opposition in Europe, because of the Human Rights abuses in Turkey, despite the US is supporting Turkey to become a EU member, and most of the Turkish territory, as well as Cyprus, is located in the Middle East). Romania is obviously in Europe, but it has a large Turkish minority, which consider themselves as Asian. The case of Cyprus is difficult: it has both a Greek and Turkish population, and the oppositionbetween cultures becomes there an opposition between people that feel European, and those that feel Middle-Eastern) Most Israelians consider themselves as European because of their past history, but not Palestinians... Some in Morocco consider themselves as Europeans, not Africans. In fact this feeling is mostly dictated by cultural affinities... Some geographs argue that the East-West limit between Europe and Asia is the Oural mountains. but the southern limit is not clear, and minority peoples in Russia living in the Oural region feel themselves as Asian.
