# Polish: A Cyrillic orthography for the Polish language?



## Zmaj

Hi Poles!

As a kid I remember that Polish texts always gave me a headache! Too many letters representing each sound and complicated dots and accents everywhere. Influenced by the motto of modern Serbo-Croatian/BCS "Write as you speak and read as it is written" and "one letter one sound" I couldn't help wondering why the Polish language didn't try using the cyrillic alphabet, or simply invented completely new latin letters. Well time went on and one day, years later, yesterday to be precise, I stumbled across this:

Three attempts to make cyrillic systems for Polish
http://steen.free.fr/cyrpol/index.html#introduction (Czar Nikolai I's and Jan van Steenbergen's orthographies)

http://varpho.livejournal.com/2006/11/17/ (Szymon Pawlas' orthography)

What do you think about those three ways of writing Polish presented above? Which one would you prefer? Of course I fully understand that the script of a language has close ties to national identity and culture etc, but from a "strictly linguistic" point of view, wouldn't this suit Polish better? 
Thoughts? Feelings? Discuss!


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## LilianaB

Polish culture was strongly influenced by Latin, this is why most likely Latin alphabet was preferred. Also French was spoken by the aristocracy, which is written in the Latin alphabet. I am not sure what the Polish people would think about those alphabets. Let's see.

I love the _teleportation_ _of ogonek_. It looks really cute.


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## Ben Jamin

This attempt on creating a Polish Cyrillic orthography seems to me as a futile exercise:


It does not avoid introducing diacritics
It makes use of orthography that already has created trouble in the East Slavic languages.
It creates a barrier between the Polish language and the rest of Latin Europe.
It reminds of the “Slavofile” movement of the XIX century, with the idea that the “true Slavic heart” lies in the East, and is Orthodox.


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## Zmaj

Thanks for your answers! 

Well, I know that this might be very sensetive and that series of russification attempts from the east still stay deeply rooted in the Polish collective memory. But let's just play with the thought ! 

Liliana, do you prefer the czar's system that keeps the ogonek and much of the original orthografy or do you like "Jusowica" or even the author's proposal better?

Ben Jamin, 1. The two other systems remove all diacritics, check them too! 
                 2. Tell me more about this! Do you mean with foreign names?


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## LilianaB

Hello Zmaj. I am sorry to disappoint you but I prefer Latin Alphabet for Polish and Lithuanian and Cyrillic for Russian and other Slavic languages that use it. I really liked the _ogonki _with the Cyrillic, but more as an experiment. Maybe if you could just have an alternative spelling for Polish, as an experiment, that would be fun. It would be very hard for people used to the Latin aphabet from their childhoods to get used to the Cyrillic.  I learned both at  avery early age, but then I used mostly Latin and I read much faster in any language that uses Latin alphabet, even if I speak that language at  a much less advanced level than Russian.


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## Zmaj

Hello LilianaB! No need to apologize for anything! I'm not expecting you to have a certain opinion . My goal is not to impose this on people, just to hear your thoughts about it.

Whether you prefer latin or cyrillic I'd still like to hear what you think! Which of these three above feels the best for you?  Nikolai's, Pawlas' or perhaps Steenbergen's version?


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## LilianaB

If I had a choice I would use runes.  Just a joke. I will have a closer look at them, yes. 

Added: Out of the two alphabets, I would definitely choose His Majesty's Tsar Nikolay's version. Is the Steenberger's version the one of Tsar Nikolay with _ogonki_ added? Then I like it.


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## Ben Jamin

Zmaj said:


> Ben Jamin, 1. The two other systems remove all diacritics, check them too!
> 2. Tell me more about this! Do you mean with foreign names?



 1. The two other systems remove all diacritics, check them too! 
           May be, I didn't have time to check them, but the first one didn't fulfill the criterium you gave.

2. Tell me more about this! Do you mean with foreign names?
      No, I meant that the representation of palatal consonants in the Cyrillic script is not very consistent in the Russian language (the sample you provided was based on the Russian Cyrillic). It's even more complicated than the system Polish already has now.

I would also repeat that my argument nr. 3 is important. The historical identity and cultural bonds with other languages and countries would be weakened with an introduction of a different alphabet. Compare also the Turkish change from Arabic to Latin script in the early XX century. It gave them a cultural bond in the direction they desired (at that time at least). Today the nations using the Latin alphabet form a strong community, which is still growing. There are also people in Serbia and Byelarus that wish to switch to Latin alphabet.


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## Zmaj

Ben Jamin said:


> 1. The two other systems remove all diacritics, check them too!
> May be, I didn't have time to check them, but the first one didn't fulfill the criterium you gave.
> 
> 2. Tell me more about this! Do you mean with foreign names?
> No, I meant that the representation of palatal consonants in the Cyrillic script is not very consistent in the Russian language (the sample you provided was based on the Russian Cyrillic). It's even more complicated than the system Polish already has now.
> 
> I would also repeat that my argument nr. 3 is important. The historical identity and cultural bonds with other languages and countries would be weakened with an introduction of a different alphabet. Compare also the Turkish change from Arabic to Latin script in the early XX century. It gave them a cultural bond in the direction they desired (at that time at least). Today the nations using the Latin alphabet form a strong community, which is still growing. There are also people in Serbia and Byelarus that wish to switch to Latin alphabet.



Check them when you have some spare time! I prefer the last one which borrows alot from Serbo-Croatian cyrillic which in a very easy way avoids the problems with palatal consonants! Besides if you count the advantages and disadvantages clearly the cyrillic method is the most simple! After all the original cyrillic alphabet was made for Slavic sounds , including nasal vowels only present in Polish today,so it seems the most logical to me! 

Concerning argument number 3 I don't really want to get involved with it. To me it is pure politics when we start talking about what direction a language should develop and how we should preserve the culture and so on.  Script is just a way of getting it written down, why not use the simplest availabe. Enough on that from me.


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## LilianaB

Unfortunately what regards your last point I agree with Ben Jamin. Script can be an obstacle in creating or maintaining contact within different culture groups. Since it is easier for me to read Latin script, although I read some Russian literature in the original, especially my favorite pieces, I have a tendency to read even Portuguese texts, Norwegian, if something catches my attention -- I have basic comprehension of those languages, whereas I do not read Bulgarian texts, or other texts written in the Cyrillic, although if I really tied I would probably also understand what the text is about. I like Hebrew, but I wouldn't attempt learning it because the script seems really scary -- I mean difficult. On the other hand, I would find it strange, if Russia wanted to switch to the Latin script. I don't know what prompts Belarusia to think about changing their script. I don't really know how the dialects which constitute Belarusian now were written down, also whether the Catholic Church - with the liturgy in Latin, or the Orthodox Christian - in Old Church Slavonic had a stronger influence on the Belarusian culture.


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## BezierCurve

Hi Zmaj, 

there has been a long discussion with some interesting propositions on another forum; if you're interested it's here.


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## Zmaj

Thanks! I will take a look. Do you have any thoughts of your own?


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## Ben Jamin

Zmaj said:


> Thanks! I will take a look. Do you have any thoughts of your own?



I have seen the proposals and found them very confusing, especially concerning palatalized consonants. None of them has offered any phonetical improvement.


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## Ben Jamin

Zmaj said:


> Check them when you have some spare time! I prefer the last one which borrows alot from Serbo-Croatian cyrillic which in a very easy way avoids the problems with palatal consonants! Besides if you count the advantages and disadvantages clearly the cyrillic method is the most simple! After all the original cyrillic alphabet was made for Slavic sounds , including nasal vowels only present in Polish today,so it seems the most logical to me!
> 
> Concerning argument number 3 I don't really want to get involved with it. To me it is pure politics when we start talking
> about what direction a language should develop and how we should preserve the culture and so on.  Script is just a way
> of getting it written down, why not use the simplest availabe. Enough on that from me.



You don't want to get involved, but it is impossible to shun this question. If you want to discuss changing a script of a language of a nation it is impossible to just ignore the cultural bonds, international relations and other extralinguistic factors. Call it politics or anything else, you just can't steer clear of them.


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## dreamlike

It would prove impossible to implement this kind of script, I'm sure Polish people would take a stand against it - extralinguistic factors, as Ben Jamin so aptly put it, are extremely relevant. Besides, I see no reason to do that - I'm good with our script. That being said, I find the idea very interesting - but not viable. We can discuss it, but there's no way it could be adopted at some time.


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## BezierCurve

> Do you have any thoughts of your own?



To be honest with you - no. I followed that discussion only to see what people would come up with.


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## LilianaB

I have my own thoughts about it. It will never happen because people are used to their language in its phonetic, as well as written form. What will make it even harder for the Polish people to accept it is that Polish and Russian cultures are not that close, and Poles associate the Cyrillic with the Russian culture first of all, and Polish culture is really more Western, due to the influence of the Catholic Church, I think. No, unfortunately, it will never happen, in my opinion. I would love some pieces of Polish literature rewritten in your script, as an experiment. This might be very interesting.


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## LilianaB

What do you mean by neferious here? I did not know scripts could be neferious, even prison cryptic alphabets.


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## Ben Jamin

Instead of implementing different existing scripts to languages it would be much more interesting to develop an international script that had enough letters to correctly and unambiguously represent sounds of different languages.


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## LilianaB

That would be really boring, unless you mean it as a type of phonetic transcription just to use in dictionaries inside the brackets. Then it would be great, although I think such a system would require hundreds of signs.


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## Outsider

I think I prefer Jan van Steenbergen's proposal (though I like the current orthography of Polish the best). 
Personally, I don't see the use of diacritics or digraphs necessarily as a drawback. I tend to find it more esthetically pleasing than the creation of newfangled letters.


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## perevoditel

LilianaB said:
			
		

> Then it would be great, although I think such a system would require hundreds of signs.


By link from comment to "Yugoslavitsa" I found a "visible speech". It isn't best with 119 characters or something like that, and needs some extra work, but idea isn't worst.

And to Zmaj:
1. as a Swede you should know that "Write as you speak and read as it is written" principle doesn't work best. Compare:
Mam ochotę na pudełko lodów → mam ochotę na pudeuko loduf → mam ohotę na pudełko loduw
(I have lust for a box of ice cream)

2. From _stricte_ linguistical point of view, people from Sweden and Norway and Iceland could use runic alphabeth, and it is also better to write sounds like å or ŋ  Also, there are some historical reasons. In the same period when Swedes still pronounced 'aa' like double 'a', Poles pronounced 'ó' as long 'o', it has changed later. And I understand people who have problems with "ch" and "h" or "rz" and "ż", but those sounds have historical background, too.

3. "Too many letters representing each sound"? Take a look at German with "tsch" and "sch"


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## LilianaB

Did you find a new phonetic transcription system for all languages, Perevoditel? This is what I was referring to not to any kind of universal alphabet. As to runes, I doubt that modern Scandinavian languages could really use them. They have more of a sentimental value to Scandinavian culture.


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## Foxxionly

I don't think that using cirillic alphabet would be more "comfortable" for me. Polish alphabet and polish cirillic uses other letters for describing the same sounds (ą = ѫ) but using polish alphabet helps with contacting with western world.


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## perevoditel

Oops. Sorry, Liliana. But to that we have IPA. Sclavian languages also have something like that.
Actually, runes would be great for Icelandic and Faroese, and not worst to Swedish and Norwegian (there was a character conforming with ö/ø).


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## LilianaB

Do you like IPA? Do you think it is good for most languages? I don't think runes will be too good for Icelandic. How would you handle the quite complex Icelandic grammar in runic alphabet. Then it might be good for Swedish too.


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## 涼宮

I liked the second link the most. I already knew the first one but the second one is better. I wouldn't change the Polish alphabet for a Cyrillic one yet it's true that it would eliminate the 'ambiguity of diacritics' or 'write shorter'. One of the things that lured me to learn Polish is its writing system, that combination of consonants + those diacritics makes it beautiful to see, so I wouldn't use a Cyrillic version for stylistic reasons. And last but not least, Polish people wouldn't use that writing system even if it's easier, because it's something more related to their culture and history. The only way you could make them use that is by invading their country and imposing it on them.



LilianaB said:


> Do you like IPA? Do you think it is good for  most languages? I don't think runes will be too good for Icelandic. How  would you handle the quite complex Icelandic grammar in runic alphabet.  Then it might be good for Swedish too.



IPA can tell you how to pronounce every language with accuracy. I heard once that there is an actor that he makes all the dubs of his movies in other languages himself by reading them in IPA; no knowledge of those languages but he knows IPA, enough for reading/pronouncing very well if you have some practice.

Icelandic has 32 letters and runic 24. You could simply create digraphs by combining some letters to represent those sounds, that's easy and many languages do it. And I don't see what grammar has to do with an alphabet


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## LilianaB

I don't think you could make Polish people use Cyrillic, even if you invaded the country-- why anyone would invade it anyhow. They would just stop writing I think. It happened in the past, Tsar Nikolay wanted to change the alphabet and nothing came out of it. I don't like IPA too much -- this is why I asked. I think a better system can be invented. As for runes, I don't think it would be natural to create some letter representations artificially. I mentioned runes more as a joke. I like them but not for everyday use. The have a lot of mystery behind them and look nice.


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## Ben Jamin

涼宮 said:


> IPA can tell you how to pronounce every language with accuracy.
> I heard once that there is an actor that he makes all the dubs of his movies in other languages himself by reading them in IPA; no knowledge of those languages but he knows IPA, enough for reading/pronouncing very well if you have some practice.



I have all the reasons to doubt that story. One of them is that IPA is not accurate enough to render the correct sound of many phonemes. The IPA doesn’t give you a clue to correct intonation either. You can hear the result of using the method you described at Google translator. For the most popular (mostly) European languages you have the possibility of listening to the pronunciation synthesized from actual recorded phonemes of a language (English, French, German) and these have a very good quality. For other languages (for Instance Macedonian) you will only have a “robot” pronunciation made of 100% synthetic sounds. The use of IPA alone would give a similar results if used by a living person.


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## 涼宮

If by intonation you mean where we should rise/lower our voice and make the pauses, then that's possible with the IPA. There are 3 arrows for that, I don't know the names in English but they're called in Spanish: cadencia (down), anticadencia (up) and entonema (not up not down). And the pauses are indicated with 2 bars.

I can't write it here but you can see my notes from my linguistic class, that was the last topic we studied:

http://imageshack.us/f/33/jkjlm.jpg/


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## Ben Jamin

涼宮 said:


> If by intonation you mean where we should rise/lower our voice and make the pauses, then that's possible with the IPA. There are 3 arrows for that, I don't know the names in English but they're called in Spanish: cadencia (down), anticadencia (up) and entonema (not up not down). And the pauses are indicated with 2 bars.
> 
> I can't write it here but you can see my notes from my linguistic class, that was the last topic we studied:
> 
> http://imageshack.us/f/33/jkjlm.jpg/



I have listened to recordings of the sounds represented in the IPA sign table, and I must say that thay often differ quite a lot from what they are supposed to represent in different languages. The pause and (especially) pitch symbols are also far from giving enough information. It is the same with music notation, if you give the same melody notes to two different musicians they will perform very differently.


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