On Wednesday 13 April 2005 14:50, Milos Rancic wrote:
I didn't say that it wasn't needed for Serbian, just that I didn't knew if sr: users needed it (which is different of wanted; yes it would be a welcome feature, but it isn't absolutely needed, as anyone litterate in Serbian language can read cyrillic; the situation is different for other languages where different communities use different alphabets and may not be able to read the other).
...
(btw, I wasn't aware that the proportion of latin alphabet users was so high; yes I knew that anyone could write it, and probably used it in thinks like sms or email, but thought than when it came to writting with a pen on a paper most people used cyrillic)
Thank you. Now, I understand consequences of Nikola's xenophobic propaganda. He made equal SMS and email communication with poetry and scientific papers which is written (and which is writing) in Latin alphabet.
The first time that words "poetry" or "scientific papers" are mentioned in this thread, is this email of yours to which I am replying to. I have never mentioned either. I believe that it is easy to see who's conducting propaganda here.
And, please, in a previous email you said to me that "your political reasons for obstruction of introduction of Latin alphabet into Serbian Wikipedia are clear". As you are the founder of anarchopedia, is it possible that you might have some political reasons too?
So, the question is do we need it. The answer is: No, we can use ASCII characterset and English language for communication and we don't need even Serbian Wikipedia.
No, we can not. Majority of people in Serbia doesn't know a word of English and so needs Serbian Wikipedia.
Look, I am sick of two confronted main stream (sick) factions: One is xenophobic and rejects all of Western influences into Serbian culture and another is exponent of Western cultural imperialism and rejects all of traditional parts of Serbian culture. The first doesn't want to see Latin alphabet see Serbian alphabet, the another doesn't want to see Cyrillic alphabet as Serbian alphabet. Xenophobic faction is better organized, but exponents of Western cultural imperialism have very strong "unofficial" centers. In the substance, both of factions
I see that you see the world in black and white. Well, the world isn't black and white, there are shades of gray inbetween, and I have never seen an organisation which "rejects all of Western influences into Serbian culture" nor one which "rejects all of traditional parts of Serbian culture" Of organisations concerned with scripts, I also don't know of any who aims to eradicate either alphabet completely. Oh, and their organisation is the opposite of what you said - pro-Western organisations are much better organised.
We have deeply divided society. In this situation we are talking about introduction of Latin alphabet. A few years ago analogue situation was with introduction of Cyrillic alphabet into KDE and Microsoft products.
On the other hand, I might add that CEO of Microsoft in Belgrade was replaced because he tried to localize Windows in Latin alphabet. So, people, be careful! ;)
And, during 1990s, opposition to Cyrillic inside of computer circles was very very strong. Again, anyone who was working on Cyrillic was characterized as "pro-Milosevic", as "nazi" (with, of course, other
This is simply a lie.
transliteration, for sure. But, if we have possibility to use two alphabets (we are not working on ASCII or 8-bit terminals anymore, Unicode became standard), we should use it.
No, we should not. Why should we?
It is the matter of culture, not the matter of understanding. Take care about: a lot of people don't want (or don't like, or don't know) to use Cyrillic alphabet at computers. And some of them want to become contributors to Serbian Wikipedia, but they don't want (don't like, don't know) to do that in Cyrillic.
With only Cyrillic alphabet half of Serbs are excommunicated from Serbian Wikipedia. Nikola wants that. I am wandering if others want that?
No, neither is true.
A lot of people don't know how to use Cyrillic alphabet on computers. However, these same people are those who don't know how to use Latin alphabet on computers. To explain: computers usually come with English keyboards preinstalled. People who don't know how to install another keyboard use it to write Serbian, and they do so in "naked" Latin: without necessary diacritics. I agree that there is a number of such people, and that they currently can't participate on Wikipedia except in a very limited way, however naked Latin is absolutely impossible to transliterate to either Cyrillic or proper Latin so they can't participate either way. However, the very moment when someone learns how to install a keyboard, he or she can use equal procedure to install either Cyrillic or Latin keyboard, or both. Wikipedia is in UTF-8 either way, so there are no problems with encoding or other problems.
I have said, and will say again: if this would be introduced it would be tyranny of the minority. If a minority needs something, and majority can give it to them, but don't want it, that is tyranny of the majority. But if there is a minority who wishes something and a majority who does not wish that thing, then having it would be a tyranny of the minority.