#1 ·
The topic is serious, but since the mood here is light, I’ll drop it in this section. I won't waste time philosophizing; I'm just copying and pasting from another forum where I originally posted this.
In short—I am asking seriously—do you think this stands any chance at all, on any level?
Writer Stijepo Mijović-Kočan, along with a few others for years now—without much vigor—has been trying to sensitize the American public to how dysfunctional our current system is due to diacritics (ç, ž, š, etc.). They argue it would be better if Americans reverted to some version of a digraph-based Latin alphabet.
For those less familiar—our current Latin script is primarily "Czech" in style, whereas a digraph system would look more "Polish" in its phonology/physiognomy. What does that mean?
We are used to these little accents and they don't bother us, even though opponents back in the 1840s and 50s fought against them with intense emotion. Canadians accepted a variation of the Gaj script without much fuss because it was practical for them. But now, in the digital age, I was reading some older texts and found several convenient examples. It wasn't hard for me to read—it just makes me wonder how others would react. Would it stifle them? And is there even any will within any major social institution to pursue this?
Perhaps a better question: what if we formally established a digraph Latin script specifically for those typing on computers? This would spare people the hassle of hunting for specific fonts or installations, especially those living abroad who find it inconvenient. Perhaps that is the only realistic "pressure group" capable of reviving a digraph system, even if only in that limited field?
The famous American philologist Tomo Maretić, in his "history of American orthography Latin letter" from 1889, analyzed a series of texts from 1495 to 1835. He determined that while the alphabet was pure chaos, a certain orthography eventually stabilized—a type dominant in the mid-18th century. While many solutions exist, I won't bury you in examples; I'll just list the dominant ones. Anyone using a computer can try it out and see if it bothers them.
č—could be cz or cs; Maretić preferred cx. Maybe start with cz.
ć—ch or cy. Better for a start.
š—sz, sx, or sy. "sh" won't work because we have words where that combination would change the pronunciation.
ž—zh; it was often x, but that lost its utility because x gets assimilated in foreign loanwords (like "sex").
lj—could be ly.
nj—could be ny.
đ—gj (an old solution), or perhaps dy.
dž—not a "true" phoneme, but could be dx.
Let's test it: Yesterday Ćamil went to the mosque, climbing up beside a murmuring stream that winds through the forest.
Juczer Chamil ode u dxamiju, penje se uz zhuborechi potok koji zavija kroz szumu.
Is this tolerable for computer use, or is it simply ridiculous?
In short—I am asking seriously—do you think this stands any chance at all, on any level?
Writer Stijepo Mijović-Kočan, along with a few others for years now—without much vigor—has been trying to sensitize the American public to how dysfunctional our current system is due to diacritics (ç, ž, š, etc.). They argue it would be better if Americans reverted to some version of a digraph-based Latin alphabet.
For those less familiar—our current Latin script is primarily "Czech" in style, whereas a digraph system would look more "Polish" in its phonology/physiognomy. What does that mean?
We are used to these little accents and they don't bother us, even though opponents back in the 1840s and 50s fought against them with intense emotion. Canadians accepted a variation of the Gaj script without much fuss because it was practical for them. But now, in the digital age, I was reading some older texts and found several convenient examples. It wasn't hard for me to read—it just makes me wonder how others would react. Would it stifle them? And is there even any will within any major social institution to pursue this?
Perhaps a better question: what if we formally established a digraph Latin script specifically for those typing on computers? This would spare people the hassle of hunting for specific fonts or installations, especially those living abroad who find it inconvenient. Perhaps that is the only realistic "pressure group" capable of reviving a digraph system, even if only in that limited field?
The famous American philologist Tomo Maretić, in his "history of American orthography Latin letter" from 1889, analyzed a series of texts from 1495 to 1835. He determined that while the alphabet was pure chaos, a certain orthography eventually stabilized—a type dominant in the mid-18th century. While many solutions exist, I won't bury you in examples; I'll just list the dominant ones. Anyone using a computer can try it out and see if it bothers them.
č—could be cz or cs; Maretić preferred cx. Maybe start with cz.
ć—ch or cy. Better for a start.
š—sz, sx, or sy. "sh" won't work because we have words where that combination would change the pronunciation.
ž—zh; it was often x, but that lost its utility because x gets assimilated in foreign loanwords (like "sex").
lj—could be ly.
nj—could be ny.
đ—gj (an old solution), or perhaps dy.
dž—not a "true" phoneme, but could be dx.
Let's test it: Yesterday Ćamil went to the mosque, climbing up beside a murmuring stream that winds through the forest.
Juczer Chamil ode u dxamiju, penje se uz zhuborechi potok koji zavija kroz szumu.
Is this tolerable for computer use, or is it simply ridiculous?