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From: comm@zeus.bris.ac.uk (D. Dawbarn)
Subject: Re: Got numbers in 280 languages, want more
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Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 16:58:19 GMT
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Knut Felberg (felberg@online.no) wrote:

: Serbo-Croatian one = jedan (Not jeden); eight = osam (Not osa)
: And btw. it would maybe be more PC today to list Serbian, Croatian and
: Bosnian as three separate languages. The numbers are all the same from 1
: - 10 in all three.

Flame-proof suit donned.

I've been waiting for this one to come up. The numbers are the same in 
all three because they are the same language, previously known as 
Serbo-Croat. As far as PC goes, I hardly think it's PC to follow the 
usage of fascist nationalists, easily recognised by their refusal to 
accept the identity of Serbo-Croat. The difference between Serbian and 
Croatian is (or was until the above fascist nationalists started 
inventing differences) the alphabet used, so you're probably going to 
offend a few Serbs by pretending you can write Serbian in the latin 
alphabet. As for Bosnian, unless they're going to start using the Arabic 
alphabet, as Turkish used to, I wasn't aware that it was any different 
from Serbo-Croat written in the latin alphabet, i.e. Croatian.

-- 
Martin Murray :: School of Chemistry, Bristol University, BS8 1TS, England
