[REBOL] Re: UTF-8 revisited
From: jan:skibinski:sympatico:ca at: 28-Nov-2002 11:10
When doing some tests on Latin-2 scripts I came
across the term BIELARUSIAN "Lacinka", get somehow
surprised (I was assuming the predominance of
the Cyrillic script over there), searched the web
and found this article entitled <<BIELARUSIAN "Lacinka">>:
[ http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~np214/lacin.htm ].
Written by a Bielarus, Mikalaj Packajeu
[The name is spelled with some hats and slashes].
I found it quite interesting, but that's me.
This is about historical develoment of two systems
of writing in Bielarusian: a Latin based script
- Lacinka, and a Cyrillic script - Kirilica.
And this is also about the political and cultural paranoia:
....
First of all, it is necessary to establish who is more
interested in the reform of alphabets on the basis of the
Latin script: the proletariat or the bourgeoisie?..
- insisted Uladzimier Dubouka, a promenent Soviet Belarusian
writer, in his "Kirylica ci Lacinika?" brochure of 1926.
....
The post-1933 Soviet Belarus publications categorically
declared that sympathies to Lacinka constituted
the highest degree of counter-revolutionary activity
.
...
In the post-war USSR, the use of Belarusian Lacinka
would be regarded as something deeply subversive,
nationalist and anti-Soviet.
....
Since Belarus became independent in 1991, however,
some efforts were also made to revive Lacinka, this
original script of the modern Belarusian literary language.
....
Still, the revival of Lacinka lost some momentum after 1995,
when the regime of Lukashenka re-introduced the Russian
language as official and began effectively to expel the
Belarusian language, in any form, from every area of official
and public use in Belarus.
...
The same Lukashenka, who complains that EU countries
decided to start treating him as a persona non grata
and who threatens in response to unleash a flood of
illegal immigrants and drugs.
Jan
