Talk:Tajik alphabet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of the "Writing systems" set of articles nominated for Version 0.7. Discuss this nomination, or see the set nominations page for more details.
Good articles Tajik alphabet (reviewed version) has been listed as a good article under the good-article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do.
If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a review.
"Book" This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Writing systems, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to writing systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project’s talk page.
Good article GA This article has been rated as GA-Class on the Project’s quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the Project’s importance scale.
Peer review Tajik alphabet has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Contents

[edit] Aligned samples

From [1] [2]

  • "Игор Иванов, раиси шурои амнияти миллии Русия дар Техрон бо Алии Лоричони музокиркунандаи аслии хастаии Эрон, дар бораи барномаи хастаии бахсбарангези ин кишвар дидор ва гуфтугу кардааст"
  • "ايگور ايوانف، رييس شورای امنيت ملی روسيه، در تهران با علی لاريجانی، مذاکره کننده اصلی هسته ای ايران، درباره برنامه هسته ای بحث انگيز اين کشور ديدار و گفتگو کرده است."

Although it looks like the BBC isn't using the special characters in the alphabet, "хастаии" should almost certainly be "ҳастаии". - FrancisTyers 20:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I wrote a crappy transliterator, you can find it here. - FrancisTyers 20:27, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dates

In April 1928, the Decree on Romanization was adopted and published; it worked until 1940, when Cyrillic letters replaced the Latin alphabet. See, for instance, Gesu Jahangiri, “The premises for the construction of a Tajik National Identity,” pp.14–41 and M. Bazarov, “Sovetskaya religioznaya politika v Sredney Azii 1918-1930gg.,” in Etnicheskie i regionalnie konflikti v Evrazii (Moskva: Ves Mir, 1997), pp. 46–72.

Khudonazar, Anaita (2004) The Other

The transliteration of Central Asian language into a uniform and linguistically precise Latin orthography is a vexed problem. From 1917 to 1941 the Soviets changed Turkic and Tajik scripts three times: they simplified the traditional Perso-Arabic script in 1923, switched to a Latin-based alphabet in 1927-1930 and finally adopted a Cyrillic-based alphabet in 1941.

Keller, Shoshana (2001) To Moscow, Not Mecca: The Soviet Campaign Against Islam in Central Asia, 1917-1941

[edit] Opinion piece

Many optimists in the 1990s believed that the Arabic alphabet would make a comeback to Tajikistan in some ten or fifteen years. Debates were in progress focusing on the great time and resources it would take. Champions of the Arabic alphabet laid special emphasis on the fact that once Tajik scientific, historical and religious literature was wholly written in Arabic the transition to the Arabic alphabet would be vital, otherwise part of the culture would be irretrievably lost. Also, there were quite a lot of skeptics and pessimists maintaining that the Arabic alphabet was too difficult to learn. Even now there appear from time to time articles by prominent figures flatly opposing the adoption of the Arabic alphabet. For example, Bozor Sobir, a notable Tajik poet who has stayed in the USA for the past eight years, has recently written that it would be a great mistake of the Tajiks to adopt the Arabic alphabet as it is very difficult and not everyone can master it. In the early 1990s, though, such protests were disregarded, and the Arabic alphabet was being gradually introduced into schools along with Persian that was taught as a special discipline. Books by Tajik and Iranian authors using the Tajik Arabic alphabet came to be printed. All previous billboards, announcements and street name plates were removed and replaced with those written in the Arabic alphabet. Newspapers and television began to give lessons in the Persian language and Arabic writing. But, still, there was one important aspect the reformers neglected. In 1992 and in the years that followed, when opposition led by the Islamic Party of Revival was forced to emigrate from Tajikistan, the introduction of the Arabic alphabet slowed down. People didn’t risk keeping books based on the Arabic alphabet at home because of rumors that such literature would be confiscated and the owners arrested. So, books based on the Arabic alphabet were being destroyed again – just as they were after the October Revolution. The Arabic alphabet, too, began to disappear from billboards, announcements, street signs and magazines. In 1999, a parliament session, on the initiative of the deputies, removed the word “Farsi” from the name of the law on the state language. However, only time will show whether a parliament resolution can suppress an alphabet that came to us, without the permission of the reigning Shah, about one thousand, four hundred years ago.

http://www.cimera.org/files/camel/en/27e/MICA27E-Siddikzoda.pdf

Sukhail Siddikzoda "TAJIK LANGUAGE: FARSI OR NOT FARSI?" Media Insight Central Asia # 27, August 2002

[edit] References

Would be good to dig up the following:

  • Lazard, Gilbert (1970) "Persian and Tajik." In Current Trends in Linguistics, 6, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok. The Hague, Netherlands, and Paris: Mouton, 64–96.
  • Lazard, Gilbert (1975) "The Rise of the New Persian Language." In The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 4, edited by R. N. Frye. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 595–633.
  • Shorish, M. Mobin (1984). "Planning by Decree: The Soviet Language Policy in Central Asia." Language Problems and Language Planning 8.35-49.
  • Weryho, Jan W. "Modern Tajiki Persian: Gharbzadagi of a Different Kind". Nationalities Papers. Vol. 11, No. 1. Spring 1983

- FrancisTyers 14:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore:

  • Perry, J. R. “Script and Scripture: The Three Alphabets of Tajik Persian, 1927-1997.” Journal of Central Asian Studies II/1 (1997), pp. 2-18.
  • Perry, J. R. “Comparative Perspectives on Language Planning in Iran and Tajikistan,” Language and Society in the Middle East and North Africa: Studies in Variation and Identity, ed. Yasir Suleiman (London: Curzon, 1999). pp. 154-74.
  • Perry, J. R. “From Persian to Tajik to Persian: Culture, politics and law reshape a Central Asian language.” NSL.8. Linguistic Studies in the Non-Slavic Languages of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics , Ed. Howard I. Aronson (University of Chicago, 1996), pp. 279-305.

- FrancisTyers · 14:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I would welcome different images, the current ones appear to clash somewhat (at least it so appears to me). - FrancisTyers 13:58, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox

I'm not sure if the infobox ({{Persian language}} really belongs here, especially in its incomplete form. - FrancisTyers · 21:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Looking much better now... - FrancisTyers · 13:53, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about the Latin alphabet

I'm a little confused about the representation of /dʒ/ in the Latin alphabet. Assuming the name of the language is pronounced /tɒdʒikiʲ/, the lead suggests this is spelled toǧikī. But the section on the Latin alphabet indicates that ç is used for /dʒ/ and makes no mention of a letter ǧ at all. Furthermore, if the Latin alphabet is supposed to be parallel to the Turkic languages, the values of c and ç are reversed: in Turkish, c is /dʒ/ and ç is /tʃ/. Are they really reversed in Tajik, or is this just a mistake in the article? User:Angr 15:47, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

In all the references I can find (that is Tajik Persian Reference Grammar), c is /tʃ/ and ç is /dʒ/, you're right though, the Azeri alphabet is also reversed. Also note, if you look at the image, Tajikistan is spelt toçikston. The lead needs to be fixed, I'll do that. - FrancisTyers · 16:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, the Azeri alphabet was reversed from 1929-39. Since 1992, they switched them and now use c and ç with the same values as Turkish. User:Angr 16:08, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Aha, that may explain it. The Latin alphabet is no longer in use today, indeed hasn't been in use since the adoption of Cyrillic. Nowadays only the Cyrillic and Arabic are in use. - FrancisTyers · 16:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Really? That definitely needs to be made clearer in the article. User:Angr 16:25, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Done. - FrancisTyers · 16:28, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transliteration of Cyrillic

Would it be worth merging Transliteration of Tajik Cyrillic into this article? Which transliteration system is being used at the bottom of the "Samples" section? Is there one transliteration system that has any sort of official approval? User:Angr 16:06, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, I think that the Transliteration deserves its own article. For one, the table is pretty wide anyway, and also many other articles have separate Transliteration ones, e.g. Category:Romanization. I'm not aware of a single official standard, although there may be one. With regard to the transliteration in the samples section I'm using the IBM transform demo. This may or may not be appropriate, but I was trying to draw a distinction between the Cyrillic (with vowels) and the Arabic (without). Compare this with the omniglot page where the transliteration of Arabic is given with vowels.
I'm not entirely sure this is worth doing, but I think it provides a useful example to the note in the history section, "The Perso-Arabic alphabet in use does not provide sufficient letters for representing the vowel system of Tajik." - FrancisTyers · 16:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] GA Review

There are six main GA criteria, all of which I think this article passes:

  1. Well-written: Easy and quick read, despite all the information therein. Clear pass.
  2. Accurate and verifiable - I'm presuming so. Certainly it's heavily referenced, which makes it verifiable.
  3. Broad in coverage: Check. One thing, however: A bit more history of Tajikistan would be useful to put things in context, but doesn't seem that necessary.
  4. NPOV: Check
  5. Stable: Check
  6. Images (if relevant): Check. And worthy of praise for their variety and clever selection.

Congratulations! Adam Cuerden talk 15:02, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks :) - Francis Tyers · 18:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)