User talk:Sergivs

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[edit] Italics

Hi. Please see WP:MOSITALICS#Foreign terms; the bottom line is, it's fairly irrelevant what's the status of the Latin alphabet in Serbia—since "Beograd" is a foreign title to English speakers, it should be italicized. In the past, we also italicized Cyrillic, Greek and similar alphabets in those contexts, but that practice was abandoned, for reasons of accessibility. Regards. Duja► 11:02, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

But, "Београд" is also a foreign title to English speakers. "Београд" should also be italicized. If you italicize only "Beograd" and leave "Београд" un-italicized, you imply that Latin alphabet does not have equal status as Cyrillic, which is not true. So, either italicize BOTH "Београд" and "Beograd" or NONE. Can't have only Latin italicized and Cyrillic not.

No, you're looking at it from a wrong perspective: you're examining officialdom of alphabets in Serbian language, which isn't the issue at all. Look at it from the perspective of English (and common writing style in any language). Or, let me put that from Serbian perspective::
Atina (Grčki: Αθηνα, Athina) je glavni grad Grčke.
Vašington (Engleski: Washington) je glavni grad SAD.
Peking (Kineski: 北京, Běijīng ) je glavni grad Kine.
Foreign spellings generally go to italic. However, when a foreign term is not in Latin alphabet, the convention is not to italicize it. Why? Because foreign alphabets are already difficult for English speakers, and their italicization only further obscures the original spelling. Yes, it's only a Wikipedia convention or "in-house style" — it might have been chosen differently, and other publication probably have their own rules. But it wasn't. Duja► 07:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


I understand the point and I have always been aware of it.
However, I am talking about changing this policy, because it does not seem correct to me. In this special case, when the native language uses two alphabets of equal status, the alphabets should not be one italicized and the other not, simply because it implies that Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are not equal. And they are.
It may be small and irrelevant point for some, but it is actually very important.
However, if the policy stays as is, then, I agree with you, it should be used. Thank you for your thoughts, anyway. Sergivs