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Long time ago, I wrote a book about my adventures in Bosnia, in French. I wanted to share it with English friends, and started to use google trans. The result was a disaster... So, the book being more than 100 pages, I just stopped,:laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
It is amazing to see how a thread on terrorism in Britain has devolved into discussing the shortcomings of Cyrillic alphabet and Google translator.
You didn't translate it yourself?Quote:
Originally Posted by Brenus
I wanted to read it :(
Send it to Martin Windrow? :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Brenus
There are no shortcomings of Cyrillic alphabet. It is the Rolls Royce of alphabets. If there was an Olympics for alphabets, Cyrillic would dominate.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilrandir
Cyrilic is great: that's the only thing I did not forget from five years learning russian (well, 30 years ago)Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilrandir
Just too many threads on terrorism... Throwing a "ж" or a "ч" starts the alphabetic war? My bet on the Thai one. I wonder why we keep starting threads for every terrorist act in western europe: motivations are the same, reactions are the same, blood is blood, and orphans, orphans.
SFTS has started a spree of alphabetic brutality: that's most refreshing and I'd love it to keep us happy until the next (true) slaughter. No motivations, no blood, no orphans. Just plain conflict on an abstract matter*.
Thinking about it another way would kick it out of the backroom anyway.
*damn, just like wars of religion, but without tears normally.
Alphabets are passe. Character sets are where it's at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
It's neither Latin, nor Greek, nor Hebrew, nor Han Chinese.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
:rtwno:
:knuddel:
All inferior cultures. Proof? If they weren't inferior, they would have developed Cyrillic alphabet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
Waiiit a second...Quote:
If they weren't inferior, they would have developed Cyrillic alphabet.
Actually, the Greeks DID develop it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
To teach the Slavs about God.
They developed Glagolitic alphabet, on which Cyrillic is based.
Greeks are slightly better than the rest of you barbarians.
Chinese doesn't use alphabet. The latter is a haphazard number of symbols representing sounds (or combinations of sounds). Chinese characters represent words.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
Generally, seeing the ardour of the discussion in this thread I would assume that Cyrillic alphabet is a literal attack on British democracy.
You think so because they don't owe your country anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
It depends on how the alphabet is arranged. There is a (probably apocryphal) story about British bombers dropping leaflets on Germany during the early stages of WWII. An absent-minded bombardier forget to undo the strings of one package before shoving it out of the door, and another crew member admonished him, "Careful, you might hurt somebody like that."Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilrandir
Traditionally, alphabet has no systematic arrangement. There is no reason why A is followed by B and the latter by C and so on. An attempt to turn it into reasonable system was made by Tolkien when he created Tengwar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
http://www.omniglot.com/conscripts/tengwar.htm
Chinese characters are broken down into both phonetic and semantic components. The forms are not un-analyzable. As for whether the system is "more" phonetic than semantic, or vice-versa, is debated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilrandir
Like in the example I gave. If you bundle 5 lbs of leaflets written in the Cyrillic alphabet, tie it all up with a bit of string, and chuck the bundle out of an airplane at 10,000 ft, to land on the Houses of Commons, it can be construed as a direct attack on British democracy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilrandir
There is the Shavian Alphabet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavian_alphabet
Effectively it is to give each sound its own letter within the English language. Though someone decided on those shapes to represent the letters, on the basis that it could be done with a single written stroke.
I love the irony of this, since we have that word thanks to the ancient Greeks....Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
Does Keeping up with the Kardashians also constitute such an attack or does it represent a more broadly targeted terrorist effort?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
If the bindings hold, then it constitutes a targeted terrorist strike. If the bindings come undone, so the pages fly out all over London, then it's the equivalent of a dirty bomb, with a wide area of contamination.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh
Damn it, if I only had three legions I'd show you what for!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarmatian
#MakeRomeGreatAgain
Are you trying to make yourself a king? Consuls make do with two legions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
Maybe he was channeling his inner Varus.
They used 8 at Cannae....albeit not well enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
Not all characters are complex, there are simple ones, unanalyzable. But even in the two-component hieroglyphs the phonetic element doesn't represent a sound or a combination of sounds, but rather shows the way the whole symbol is pronounced. Moreover, the number of characters (several dozens thousands) is definitely greater than alphabetical systems include (several dozens). So in no way Chinese script can be counted among alphabetic ones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Montmorency