-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Kazunari Hirano yazmış: > Hi Reşat, > >> roughly 100 years, >> Tatars have been put thru 4 official alphabets >> (excluding all the alphabets that are in use now, >> except Jaŋalif): > > This is very interesting! It is interesting, but it is also killing the language. I don't have access to state archives from Soviet Union times, and now, but IMHO, there has been a dedicated policy of cutting the language from its heritage, splitting the language into little pieces, making the pieces look different from each other, introduce letters and sounds into language that make it sound funny, etc. I could also tell you that there is a language called Başqort, which is almost identical to Tatar. I read a scientist say that the criterion to call something a language versus a dialect is whether they are mutually comprehensible. Tatar and Başqort definitely are, and so are Idil-Ural (Qazan) Tatar and Crimean Tatar. So scientifically they should be called Qazan Tatar, Başqort (or Öfö) Tatar, Crimean Tatar (and so on, Qasım Tatar, Mişer Tatar, Síbír Tatar), or alternatively Qazan Başqort, Öfö Başqort, Qırım Başqort. But the first 3 have different language codes, and are considered 3 different languages, the next 3 are considered dialects of Qazan Tatar. So one can interact in 3 languages just by knowing 1 of them. It's like calling British English and American English separate languages, and denoting them w/ ben, and aen lang codes. > >> 1. Traditional Arabic (since about 1000). >> 2. Modified Arabic (vowels that are usually optional (kind of like >> diacritics) >> harakats in Arabic were made into non-optional letters) (around 1920). >> 3. Latin alphabet (called Jaŋalif) w/ a good mix of Cyrillic-style >> letters >> (1928). >> 4. Cyrillic (1938 (Stalin)). > > Which is the most popular? Well, these are historical alphabets. Most of them are not widely used at the momemt, except Cyrillic (which people also want to switch away from towards real Latin alphabet), although there are a few books and a little press using or teaching Modified Arabic, and Jaŋalif. > Are many Tatar people and users able to read and write Latin > alphabet (Jaŋalif)? I would not call Latin alphabet Jaŋalif. There are really 6 versions as i mentioned previously. Jaŋalif, IMHO, was a destructive step that might have been meant to simply make transition to Cyrillic look less dramatic. > How about starting your localization work with "Jaŋalif"? I do not believe Jaŋalif is a real Latin alphabet. It is mixed w/ Cyrillic letters. I would not be able to use it on my cell phone. > Can you tell us how you pronounce "Jaŋalif"? Yañalif (or in English: Yangalif) > :) > Thanks, > khirano I believe in İQTElif, as it is the only phonetically correct, pragmatic (similar orthography w/ Crimean Tatar, etc.), and conventional Latin alphabet.
Well, i think you guys are now officially introduced into the wonderland of Qazan (Idil-Ural) Tatar alphabets. ;) (: P.S. In all this confusion, perhaps we should start w/ crh, and tt-TR. Although i'd still appreciate a decision on tt-RU-iqte. Thanks. - -- My public GPG key is at: http://keyserver.veridis.com:11371/export?id=476802195259949354 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFE9kROBp3xEgSYgSoRAqLPAJ4j+CHwFOMC1s+dVnxwgXbmudNBrQCgiySF A2JJ6NwCQOnaJLhkWoHkDXY= =hi0P -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
