On 18/07/2004 16:22, Alexander Savenkov wrote:
Hello,
(delayed response)
2004-05-12T19:37:51+03:00 Ernest Cline <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From: Alexander Savenkov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2004-05-12T03:08:59+03:00 Eric Muller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
According to <www.eki.ee>, there is a currently an effort to convert the
writing of Tatar from Cyrillic to Latin.
1. Does somebody have more information about that effort?
Perhaps it's their own effort.
Eki lists four characters as needed but missing in Unicode (see
<http://www.eki.ee/letter/chardata.cgi?lang=tt+Tatar&script=latin>).
2. The case pair for barred o is encoded (U+019F and U+0275), and it
seems that their confusion comes from less-than-perfect but annotated
name for U+019F, and from the usage remark "African". Can we authoritatively tell them that those two characters are the ones they
want? Can we add a "Tatar" usage remark to both?
Is there a need for this? You don't want to tell everyone on the net about his or her wrong assumptions. There's one sentence in the page you mentioned that gives a good description of this resource:
"The conversion from Cyrillic to Latin script is planned within years 2001-2011."
This is false.
3. The case pair n with descender is definitely not encoded, and from my
memory of the discussion of ghe with descender, we would want to encode
them as separate characters (rather than with combining descenders on
"n"). Is anybody working on that proposal?
There's no Latin Tatar script. It's the law. Full stop.
It's the Institute of Estonian language. I hope they know more about
Estonian than about other languages and Unicode.
They are numerous sites on the web about the change from Cyrillic to
Latin for Tatar that is planned for completion by 2011 by the Republic
of Tatarstan (a part of the Russian Federation).
Ernest, I fail to see how the fact that there are numerous sites about Latin for Tatar proves it really exists. There are numerous sites about Babylon 5 and Frankenstein. What are your thoughts about these?
There is legal wrangling
over wether Tatarstan can make the change back to Latin script official
for Tatar as it is used there, but no final decision has been reached and
there is probably at least several more years of legal shenanigans
before it is reached.
You're wrong and the facts you give here are outdated. Legal wrangling is over. See links below (in Russian).
...
As for the merits of the proposed change back to Latin, I think
it is silly for Tatarstan to make the change and it is silly for the
Russian Federation to oppose it.
Your clever thoughts are really helpful. I wonder what Russians and Tatars would do without them.
Links in Russian:
http://www.tatar.ru/?DNSID=0627096ec5c075004c0d219207f349de&node_id=978
An article about language on the official Tatarstan government website. Last paragraph:
Ð ÑÐÐÑÑ ÐÐÐÑÐÐÐÑÐÐÐ ÑÐÐÐÑÑÐÐÑÑÐÐÐÐÐÐÑ ÑÐÑÐÑÑÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑÐÐÐÑÐ ÐÐ ÐÑÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑÐÐÑÐÐÐ ÐÑÐÑÐÐÐ Ð ÑÐÐÐÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÐÐÐÐÑÐÑÑÐÑÑ ÑÑÐÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑ ÐÐÐ ÐÑÐÐÐÐÐÐÑ Ð ÑÐÑÑÐÐÑ ÐÐÑÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÐÐÑÐÐÐÐÑÐÐ 15 ÑÐÐÑÑÐÑÑ 1999 ÐÐÐÐ ÐÑÐÐÑÑ ÐÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑÐÑÐÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑÐÑÑÑÐÐ "Ð ÐÐÑÑÑÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐÐ ÑÐÑÐÑÑÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑÐÐÐÑÐ ÐÐ ÐÑÐÐÐÐ ÐÐÑÐÐÑÐÐÐ ÐÑÐÑÐÐÐ".
With the aim of the further improvement of the Tatar alphabet on the basis of Latin graphics and the formation of favourable conditions for its entry into the system of world communications, on 15th September 1999 there was accepted a Law of the Republic of Tatarstan "On the establishment of the Tatar alphabet on the basis of Latin graphics".
http://www.tatar.ru/00001296_c.html
This is the text of that law. Article 5:
ÐÐÑÑÐÑÑÐÐ ÐÐÐÐÐ ÐÑÑÑÐÐÐÑ Ð ÑÐÐÑ Ñ 1 ÑÐÐÑÑÐÑÑ 2001 ÐÐÐÐ.
This law will come into force on 1st September 2001.
http://www.tatar.ru/index.php?node_id=1006
The alphabet, with pronunciations in Latin and Cyrillic. This alphabet consists of Latin-1 characters plus schwa, G breve, dotless i, dotted I, N with a descender, barred O (019F/0275) and S with cedilla. The N/n with descender might cause a problem because 014A/014B do not look quite right. (But a rather different form of the same alphabet appears in the left column of http://www.tatar.ru/?node_id=2611; here the N with descender looks like 014A/014B with the alternative form of the capital looking like the small letter.) The case mapping of the i's is as in Turkish.
http://www.tatar.ru/?DNSID=0627096ec5c075004c0d219207f349de&node_id=2610
This describes Inalif, an experimental Tatar Latin alphabet for use on the Internet, based on the alphabet in the 1999 law.
http://www.tatar.ru/?node_id=2611
This gives details of Inalif, which appears to be ASCII-only and rather like the Uzbek Latin alphabet. This page dated December 2003 refers to the 1999 alphabet as "the official Latin alphabet", and is signed by many prominent Tatars at least one of whom is a top Tatarstan government official. It also mentions that the 1999 alphabet is used in some electronic newspapers and official websites.
http://peoples.org.ru/proekt.html
A Russian federal law, undated, which claims that all state languages of the Russian Federation must use Cyrillic script.
http://peoples.org.ru/stenogramma.html
A discussion of this law dated 2002.
Alexander.
Conclusion:
1) The Republic of Tatarstan passed a law in 1999 and coming into force in 2001 establishing a Tatar Latin alphabet.
2) A Russian federal law (a monstrous piece of linguistic imperialism) overrode this in 2002, so after the Tatarstan law had come into force. Therefore this Latin alphabet was in some sense officially in force for a period. And it is still considered to be officially in force by many in Tatarstan including top government officials.
3) As the people of Tatarstan are independent-minded and more likely to follow their local leaders than the linguistic imperialists in Moscow, it is highly likely that at least some of them use the published Latin script even if it is not permitted to have official status.
4) Not all speakers of the Tatar language live in the Russian Federation, and some live in countries like Azerbaijan where the official alphabets use Latin script. In such areas they are clearly likely to use the Latin script.
5) This is an alphabet which has been used, even in official websites, and very likely continues to be used by some. Decisions made in Moscow do not change this, especially because they are in practice widely ignored in Tatarstan and have no force in some other places where Tatars live. This alphabet therefore needs to be supported by Unicode. But fortunately this is not a problem as all the characters are already defined.
The only remaining issue is that this is another alphabet which uses the special Turkish case pairing for I; there are in fact several such alphabets in use other than Turkish and Azerbaijani. By the way, the government of Azerbaijan has recently officially stated that its state language should be known in English as Azerbaijani, not Azeri. Is there still a place in the standard where these two languages are named as having special case mapping? If so, I can't find it, but it needs to be reviewed.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
