Friday, April 27, 2018
Another dubious move toward more "independence"
Kazakhstan has switched its writing system from Cyrillic to Latin. In terms of basic fit, it's probably a wash; Kazakh is a Turkic language with lots of action at the phonemic level, so the written symbols are sort of loose. Like English where each written vowel has many possible sounds, but more so.
Kazakh required about 5 special added characters in Cyrillic, and still requires about 5 diacritics in Latin.
So what's the advantage of such a costly move? The government claims businesses will do better in dealing with the West, but that's illogical. Dealing with the West means learning some English. An American or French businessman is NOT going to have an easier time understanding Kazakh when it's written in Latin characters. It's still an unfamiliar and opaque language, with no cognate words.
Most of the residents speak Russian either natively or secondly, so Cyrillic is far more natural for the local citizens. Kazakhstan has ALWAYS been part of the Russian Empire, with connections that varied over the years.
This move has a suspiciously Sorosian flavor, like the earlier attempt by Ukraine to become "western", or the Catalunyan movement. Both turned out to be Soros chaos generators, all pain and no gain.
Fixing what ain't broke is a good way to ruin a machine or a country, and Soros knows it.
Is there evidence of Sorosian influence? Yes, but not directly on this topic. The OSF website shows plenty of activity in Kazakhstan, and I remember seeing an even more specific focus in the DCleaks documents, which have since been memoryholed by Soros. (There is a supposed 'mirror' archive, but it doesn't work.)
Labels: Asked and partly answered, Sorosia
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