On Thu, 12 Oct 2006 08:56:51 -0400, David Starner <prosfilaes@...>
wrote:
[...]

> anyone with any interest in Slavic issues has little reason not to learn
> the basics of a simple 33-letter alphabet that's closely related to
> Latin.

I'm just terrible about fastening myself down and learning such; I have
been putting off learning even the katakana, as much fun as it can be, but
nevertheless have pretty well learned all of Cyrillic over a span of
years. I was quite surprised a while ago to read a word at once, not
working it out letter by letter. Plainly, an awareness and knowledge of
the Greek alphabet helps, as well.

My father was Russian (Bessaraboff), which encouraged me a bit. (Bodley
was my mother's maiden name; onset of the Cold War, and marginal literacy
of many Americans for any unusual name longer than four letters were
factors. Whole family...)

It's interesting to see extensions of Cyrillic for other languages.

Regards,

--
Nicholas Bodley /*|*\ Waltham, Mass.
Commentator at Howthingswork@yahoogroups.com
Micro-blog: A book to watch for -- _The Poor
Always Pay Back: The Grameen II Story_