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.