[OT]A Sample of Correct Russian Punctuation[/OT]

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Hi,

In Russian writing, missing or improper punctuation is an indication of one's poor education and/or low social standing. Just to give you an impression of what correct Russian punctuation might look like, here's a rather loftily sounding phrase that nonetheless has both a perfect sense and proper Russian punctuation:

Кажется, можно, наверное, предположить, что, конечно, запятых, бесспорно, много, но, разумеется, по всем, полагаю, правилам.

And here's my attempt to translate it to more or less coherent English preserving its Russian punctuation just to get the feel of it:

It seems, one can, perhaps, assume, that, of course, commas are, undoubtedly, numerous, but, decidedly, all, supposedly, in their due places.

The Russian secondary school offers a four year course in Russian spelling, grammar, and punctuation to children whose mother tongue is Russian.

[Charles Pegge]

The Cyrillic alphabet is scary enough, with its blend of numerals, Greek, and back to front Roman characters. How do Russian dyslexics cope? Is this some form of intellectual culling?

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Hi Charles,

The Cyrillic alphabet is scary enough, with its blend of numerals, Greek, and back to front Roman characters.

Probably your Windows doesn't have a proper set of Cyrillic fonts to display the message correctly. (re: snapshot below) There shouldn't be any numerals or outright Greek glyphs in view. As for similarity to certain Roman characters, we do have some similarly looking ones to denote similarly sounding vowels and consonants. (this doesn't apply to their English RP though )

There are 33 letters in the Russian alphabet. The abundance is due to the absence of a unified glyph that would denote palatalization of consonants that alters the meanings of words. We rather use a separate set of vowel glyphs that soften the preceding consonants.

How do Russian dyslexics cope?

Logopaedics (speech therapy) is in considerable demand among those who can't cope with their standard school workload. But on the whole there is direct correlation between a pupil's performance in their Russian language classes and their general IQ.

Is this some form of intellectual culling?

Nope. This is just a reality you have to cope with if you want to be better than others.

.