Cyrillic encodings

[Richard Robin]

David Powelstock is absolutely right.

For those with Cyrillic e-mail issues, using UTF-8 is superior to
"automatic," because some e-mails come or are sent out with with an improper
metatag. "Good" e-mail programs can tell when a person is sending mail in
Cyrillic. Properly Cyrillicized mail has a proper metatag that tells the
e-mail program: "This is Cyrillic!"

Alas, not all e-mail programs deal with metatags correctly. By specifying
UTF-8, you have a better shot at getting your own Cyrillic read and being
able to read others' Cyrillic. (Even so, it doesn't always work.)

Since UTF-8 encompasses ALL languages, you are not losing anything.

If mail sent to you under UTF-8 comes out in weird letters, try changing the
character set.
If you get nothing but question marks in an e-mail sent to you, give up. The
Cyrillic (or any other non-Roman alphabet) has already been lost in
transition.

Best wishes,
Richard Robin

2008/4/1, Robert Chandler <kcf19 at dial.pipex.com>:
>
> So are you saying I should always set 'Character Set' in my email
> programme
> to 'UTF-8' rather than to 'Automatic'? This won't cause other problems?
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Robert
>
>
>
>
> > Yes, and to the extend your computer savvy (or that of someone you know)
> > allows, please try to set your keyboard and email programs to use UTF-8
> > ("8-bit Unicode"). This is the standard toward which everything is
> going,
> > and so you'd be doing yourself (and everyone else!) a favor by moving
> toward
> > it.
> >
> > Best wishes to all,
> > David
> >
> > David Powelstock
> > Asst. Prof. of Russian & East European Literatures
> > Chair, Program in Russian & East European Studies
> > Brandeis University
> > GRALL, MS 024
> > Waltham, MA  02454-9110
> > 781.736.3347 (Office)
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
> > [mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Philip Robinson
> > Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 11:18 AM
> > To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] a possibly minority position
> >
> > While we're on this subject, I am probably not the first person to make
> this
> > request on SEELANGS, but it would be most helpful if those who post
> > something in Cyrillic would also  provide a Latin transliteration.  As
> much
> > as I prefer to read Russian and other languages in Cyrillic, about a
> third
> > of the Cyrillic text in SEELANGS postings does not render correctly, and
> I
> > use a variety of web-based and fat-client email readers with different
> > encoding schemes to try to parse them.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Phil Robinson
> >
> > At 09:08 PM 3/30/2008, you wrote:
> >> Dustin Hosseini wrote:
> >>
> >>> John,
> >>> Could you transliterate the Russian words?  They came out garbled; or
> >>> at least on my end they are all question marks ????
> >>
> >> Not your fault.
> >>
> >> John's Outlook Express 6 sent his message with the following parameters
> >> (I've omitted the irrelevant parts):
> >>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
> >> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >>
> >> Seven-bit encoding will always convert Cyrillic to question marks, and
> >> the information is cannot be recovered at the receiving end.
> >>
> >> I have no idea why OE decided that this message required only Western
> >> encoding, and 7-bit to boot -- I don't use the program. Sorry.
> >>
> >> --
> >> War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
> >> --
> >> Paul B. Gallagher
> >> pbg translations, inc.
> >> "Russian Translations That Read Like Originals"
> >> http://pbg-translations.com
> >>
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>


-- 
Richard M. Robin, Ph.D.
Director Russian Language Program
Technical Adviser, GW Language Сenter
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-7081
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Russkiy tekst v UTF-8