Altered Maps V: The Molotov-Threadentropp Pact
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aronnax
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MS Paint. Lots of it.
TheLastOne36
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All European countries except for Eastern Europeans and Greece/Caucasus should switch to Latin Alphabet. Romania did it, They have much less problems, likewise with Turkey.
It is just simply much easier nowadays since all the big businesses are in the West and everything.
IMO they should teach both in school, so that Cyrillic doesn't go extinct for some languages, and they get to keep tradition and all that, not to mention it isn't that hard to learn another alphabet for the same language, a few years of learning it in school and everyone is good.
RedRalph
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Maybe Latin could be used as a business alpahabet asd English is used as a business language? Seems unlikely that the Cyrillic counttries are going to drop the alphabet altogether...
TheLastOne36
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Why not? They did it in Romania and Turkey. The only countries I would expect to not completely adopt it would be Russia and Ukraine.
I think my way is the best way, teach both alphabets in school, so if they want, they can continue using their primitive alphabet in everyday life, but when it comes to Business and dealing with the West/Westerners, they have the ability to use Latin Alphabet.
I think my way is the best way, teach both alphabets in school, so if they want, they can continue using their primitive alphabet in everyday life, but when it comes to Business and dealing with the West/Westerners, they have the ability to use Latin Alphabet.
The change in Romania was gradual, and only happened because it was a Romance language and people thought it should be spelt with Latin like every other Romance languages.
In Turkey it was introduced by decree, in special circumstances.
Yeah, but then in fifty years or so we'll have to adopt Chinese.
Heretic_Cata
We're gonna live forever
Dunno about Turkey's reasons but Romania switched alphabets because some people noticed that our language is closer to italian (at that point) and other latin languages instead of the ones the slavic plauge brought with them.
EDIT: crosspost
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Diverse in Unity
They do that in Serbia (and are apparently planning a full switch to the Latin one, although I'm sure they've got bigger problems right now), but I agree, especially when it comes to the Balkan countries, I really don't see what they've got to lose from this. It's amazingly inefficient and doesn't really have any point. No alphabet is superior to another, but it's just pointless to be against such a huge majority if there's nothing to gain from that. Tradition/religion might play a part, although I doubt it.
Tradition/cultural imperatives are about the only thing that can explain it.
An ability which is useless if the reader doesn't know Russian or Ukrainian, and if they're writing in English or French it will be in the Latin alphabet anyway.
And really why can't Westerners just learn another alphabet when communicating with Eastern Europeans? It's really not that hard.
TheLastOne36
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Because Westerners in tend to be very lazy when it comes to language learning? (Or maybe just the brits and frenchies)
Also because they should be coming to us, not us coming to them.
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Diverse in Unity
Mostly because transliteration of anything into English is messy
Cyrillic used in many Slavic countries could be easily replaced with a slightly modified Latin script, similar to that used in Czech Rep. (which was BTW adopted (with further modifications) by the Slovaks, Slovenians and Croats too). Transliteration of Russian names/words, for example, is pretty accurate in Czech. I usually laugh when I see the English transliterations of the same names/words ("Khrushchev", "Yushchenko", "Yanukovych" - what the hell 
)
Mirc
Not mIRC!!!
And it happened ~150 years ago, when it was a lot easier. But still:
No, it's definitely not useless. Think about this - every Russian/Bulgarian/Ukrainian/Belarussian/etc student who learns a foreign language in school has to learn the alphabet first. Why? It doesn't really make sense.
But most importantly - they are part of a language family. A guy from Croatia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland, etc, would learn, say, Russian much faster if he can recognize the words on the spot - and sometimes, even without knowing the language, some connections can be made. I'm talking about an instant recognition of vocabulary.
Croatia for example has the same language as Serbia (let's keep nationalistic crap outta this, the two "languages" are virtually identical). So a Croat who comes to Serbia won't understand any of the written text he sees, although it's his own freakin first language! Does that seem normal?
I can read Cyrillic, and I don't really know anyone else that can, apart from native Russians/Bulgarians/etcetcetc (I learned it as a "secret alphabet" in school, we were playing games in two "warring teams" - one of them learned the Greek one and we learned the Cyrillic). It's really not hard to learn. The problem is why?
Well then, their fault.
That's why people learn English or any other foreign language. After all that effort they shouldn't have to change the way their own languages are written in just because Westerners are too pathetic to learn a new alphabet when they try to learn that language.
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Diverse in Unity
Because the relationships is (economically/politically/culturally) pretty asymmetric? It's too much of a hassle and you don't need it most of the time. Even if you know it and you don't have a working knowledge of the Slavic languages, it's mostly useless to you. I am a Czech so I can at least grasp the basic meaning of texts written in most West/South Slavic languages, but for non-Slavs who don't travel to Eastern Europe or Balkans very often, it is next to useless.
On the other hand, Eastern Europeans need it if they want to interact/integrate with the Western world (or even use the Internet properly).
Heretic_Cata
We're gonna live forever
Yea, what i dont get is why would non-communist westerners would need to learn any slavic language in the first place. Usually poor countries learn the languages of rich countries.
But anyway i think they should ditch their alphabet because it's ugly and communist.
EDIT: you guys suck, this thread is going too fast
It's about choice. If EEs (Eastern Europeans) want to communicate with the West, then they learn a Western language, along with the Latin alphabet. Most I imagine would do this anyway as they learn, say, English at a young age, so it's not difficult.
As for their native language, there's really no good reason for them to have to switch to another script. Its their language, they should be able to write it with any damn script they choose.
If Westerners ever want to learn an EE language, then EEs should not have to adjust their script for them. It's not hard to learn a new script, and besides it's not fair.
And, I like variety.
As for their native language, there's really no good reason for them to have to switch to another script. Its their language, they should be able to write it with any damn script they choose.
If Westerners ever want to learn an EE language, then EEs should not have to adjust their script for them. It's not hard to learn a new script, and besides it's not fair.
And, I like variety.
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Diverse in Unity
If they want to be part of the EU and thus a part of the Western civilization they should try to remove the most obvious cultural obstacles. Cyrillic is definitely an obstacle to communication and free flow of ideas.
Plus, it's already ridiculous that Greek alphabet is used on Euro bills, although it's used just by two small EU member states.
Quackers
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Diverse in Unity
Is this supposed to be original?
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