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Re: How can I setup right collating sequence in GridCtrl? [message #21217 is a reply to message #21166]

Sun, 10 May 2009 08:26

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

mr_ped wrote on Wed, 06 May 2009 12:39

Then again, if my personal opinion would count, there would be no Russian alphabet at all, because I said in school once at Russian lesson: "a nation which is unable to learn+use English 26 letter alphabet will vanish in future". Smile

(I was 10 years old at that point and I was so glad ASCII standard existed, so I hope you will understand it a bit)

Excuse me for little offtopic.
National features topic is a delicate one. It all depends on a balance. You may always choose between simplicity and possibilities. For example, when we talk about language, we all know about international, or basic English. It is a subset of common English language (rather tiny comparing to Britain English). Basic English is an example of simplicity. But it has no way to say anything beyond the scope of anything common (i.e. you can`t translate any national object or any specific thing, feeling except of those predefined subset).
Contrary each national language has unique features but less simple. This unique information is commonly contained in writing system itself and turning it into basic English alphabet will petrify 90% of this information.
Let`s take Chinese as an example. It has a number of delicate definitions which have no equivalents not only in basic English but in many other languages too. More of that. Hieroglyphic system contains information on national mentality. For example there`s hieroglyph "woman". And hieroglyph "woman" under "roof" means calm, peace of mind. Hieroglyph consisting of two "woman" hieroglyphs mean "scandal" Very Happy

(IMO it`s cool!). Even more, hieroglyph consisting of three "woman" means even greater scandal or debauch (cool!). I consider this writing system very logical and intuitive. And it is certainly worth keeping.
Some languages have 5-10 words describing love (with delicate differences each other), or even many-many words describing beauty of nature.
When we talk about cyrillic writing system we have even more delicate information layer based on radicals and other parts of a word. More interesting is these radicals are common between most of slavonic languages. For example when you know 2 or 3 of them, you may possibly translate text from i.e. Polish or Chech. It is closely related to cyrillic letters which introduce logical system of radicals (with their geographic/historic variations) keeping some kind of unity between any slavonic language (and mentality as consequence).
As a conclusion I`d say that basic English is a good tool for me if I want anyone from outside to understand me. But each nation has something unique which is closely related with their language and writing system. IMO it is worth keeping especially comparing to the alternative of petrifying process of thinking with switching to basic English. Again, Britains themselves use English which is more complex and rich than basic one.

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