Appendix talk:Index/Serbian

Special issues with Serbian
Out new Serbian contributor, Dijan, has been doing some very nice work but I've been a little concerned about how to treat the dual-script nature of this lanuage. I'm moving the conversation here so especially Stephen, and also Ec and everybody else can have a thing what solution will work best for us without upsetting any of the various groups of Serbian speakers.

Perhaps this topic is better served on its own page such as Policy Think Tank on Serbian Issues - please move it there if you feel this is appropriate. &mdash; Hippietrail 05:52, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

About Serbian latin and cyrillic entries
Hey, I saw your comment on the entry ravnoteža, and I just wanted to say that I've been adding entries in Serbian and Bosnian and when I add an entry in Serbian latin, I also try to add one in cyrillic. When I do add one, I link the cyrillic one to the latin one, or other way around, by putting the ====See Also==== tag. I decided to put that tag under the ===Noun=== tag beacause the word in latin is the same word in cyrillic and is still the same noun, just a different entry. I do this because sometimes there is an entry that is a noun and an adjective, and if a person wants to see just the noun in cyrillic they can find it easier on the table of contents easier. Now, if there is a ===Related Words=== tag, then we can put it as a tag under the language, but not under the noun. If you think that there is a better idea, please feel free to leave a message on my talk page. Keep up the good work! --Dijan 07:13, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Dijan. You're doing excellent work. We've been short on Serbian and Bosnian entries and translations for a long time. Serbian in particular is very interesting because of its dual-script nature. The only other language in a similar situation is Chinese. In fact we should really try to treat both in the same way. Way can also use as a guide other languages which have two spellings of the same word in the same script.


 * In the case of Chinese we show the traditional script first and the simplified script second. This order is because both are currently used but the traditional is older and also less prone to ambiguity. We do not put these on separate lines because they deal with the same language. For other languages which use Cyrillic we put the Cyrillic first (because it is native), followed by the Latin in brackets and not wikified - also on the same line. My recommendation for Serbian is to also put both spellings on the one line, separated by a comma but both without brackets and both wikified. As far as which script comes first I guess you are the best judge. Perhaps the one with the oldest tradition, perhaps the one which currently has more users. So where you are currently doing such:

Translations

 * Serbian:
 * cyrillic: Македонија f (1, 2)
 * latin: Makedonija f (1, 2)


 * I would recommend this:

Translations

 * Serbian: Македонија, Makedonija f (1, 2)


 * It takes less space, it does add any confusion, it matches how we treat Chinese and also British vs US spelling, and the difference between Cyrillic and Latin are visibly apparent anyway.


 * As for the articles in each script, I think "See also" is too general. How about the "Alternative spelling" section or a dedicated section. Another option is to include it in the headword like this for the Cyrillic article:

Noun
Македонија f (Latin script: Makedonija)




 * And this for the Latin article:

Noun
Makedonija f (Cyrllic script: Македонија)




 * It might also be interesting to see if there is a dual-script Serbian dictionary and note their treatment. Please keep up the fine work. &mdash; Hippietrail 11:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On Serbian again...
Hi again. I just wanted to explain why I wouldn't suggest that we write Serbian entries as Serbian: Македонија, Makedonija f (1, 2), that is, why we should separate them. Here are a few reasons why. First of all, I think that because they're different scripts, and are never used at the same time together, they should be separated. Another reason is that many people from the Balkans that speak Serbian might prefer, or accept, one script, but not the other. (For example, my family is from eastern Bosnia, not far from the Serbian border, and we say that we speak Serbian or Serbo-Croatian, but we try to stay away from the cyrillic alphabet, prefering the latin/roman one. Some people might also get offended if we try to say that cyrillic and latin one are the same, or on the same line (or same level).  Another reason for this is that almost all Serbs from Serbia prefer and only accept cyrillic as their script.  However, there are millions of Serbs living outside of Serbia in Bosnia, Macedonia, Croatia, etc. that prefer latin script or both.  I know that this sounds a little bit ridiculous and weird, but it's true.)  Another reason is that it's easier to see the distinction between the two scripts. Another reason is that sometimes I try to add translations in different Serbian dialects (there are a few actually) and that would just add more confusion and would take up space and would look irregular and unaligned. Another is that for some words, especially adjectives, there are many cases (m s, m pl, f s, f pl, n s, and n pl), unlike English in which you can use one adjective for all noun cases. If you put all of these cases on the same line along with the two scripts, you'll get a lot of confusing text. It's better to separate them and see the difference. I also don't see the reason why we should write in the headline whether the text is in latin or cyrillic. I think that's pretty obvious. I do like your idea about ==See Also== being changed to ==Alternative spelling==, however, again, this might work fine on words like country names, but it will not work when you translate a common English word into Serbian that has more than one meaning (or one meaning, but many words). Alternate spelling, would then have to be changed to Alternate meaning, and Synonyms, etc. just adding more text on the page. So, I think that See Also might just be the best thing. I haven't seen any dictionaries in Serbian that spell in cyrillic and latin, and this is because it would create a lot of confusion and would take too much space. Plus, almost all published dictionaries from Serbia will be in cyrillic. Dictionaries from Bosnia will be very likely in latin script. Cyrillic is used in Bosnia (in the Serb Republic) only for government purposes, book publishings, etc. I'm sorry if this is a little bit long and confusing. I'm running out of things to say now...hehe. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll see what I can do to improve this. I'll try to work on a few entries and see how they turn out. --Dijan 03:46, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)