OT: City Names

From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
Date: Fri Apr 16 14:47:31 1999

----- Original Message -----
From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke_at_mch20.sbs.de>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 1999 5:03 AM
Subject: Re: OT: City Names

> > What? Have we found in the Aussies a nation who are even worse at
foreign
> > languages than the British? I never thought I'd live to see the day!
;-)

Probably. We do have an excuse though. :^) The Brits are close enough to
France and Spain to throw rocks at 'em.

> Maybe, since if he counts in large, non primary english speaking
> parts of australia just as english ?

Large, non-primary English speaking parts of Australia????
Where? The Tanami Desert?? Pidjantjara is possibly more prevalent, but
with a density of 1 person per 20 Square miles, it doesn't make a lot of
difference.

In major cities the only things that spring to mind are places like
Cabramatta which is predominantly Vietnamese.

> (The experiance of driving
> some hunderts of kilometers thru the outback and then getting
> 'Schwarzbraun ist die Haselnuss' as the first song on the first
> radiostation is like beeing hit by a 1000 ton hammer)

I believe that. Where did you come out? The Barossa Valley?

> > Watch out! The Serbian alphabet is as different from the Russian
alphabet (the
> > de facto standard for Cyrillic) as the Polish alphabet is from the
English
> > alphabet...

Good Grief.

> AFAIK only 5 additional letters (DJE, JE, LJE, TSCHE and DSCHE)
> but you're right.
>
> > (I have somewhere a Yugoslavian banknote. Everything is written on it
in four
> > local languages - two using Cyrillic and two using Latin characters.
The
> > languages are similar enough that AFAIK nothing needs to be said more
than three
> > times...)

Only 3. Right. And I thought the Canadians had problems. :^)
>
> 3 Language 4 scripts:
> Slovenian (Latin)
> Serbocroatian (Latin)
> Serbocroatian (Kyrillic)
> Macedonian (Cyrillic)

Ouch.

> (*) This is a kind of a once a lifetime job ... or when do you get
> a chance to develop a new characterset system :)) The task is to
> enhance an 20 year old (still new releases and development) EBCDIC
> mainframesystem to support not only some umlauts, but rather all
> main European languages _and_ some foreign scripts like Cyrillic,
> Greek or Arabic - I havn't had so much fun since a long time

How long does it seem likely this will take? 60 years? Or only til you
retire? ;^)
EBCDIC is in good company it seems. Best of luck..

Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Received on Fri Apr 16 1999 - 14:47:31 BST