Battle of Vukovar

[LastPoet]

Anyway, hezbollah are pretty nasty.  I don’t understand people’s obsession with resistance groups being “the good guys”.

Yeah, well, originally Portugal originated when our first king rebelled against... his mother. Brave guy.

[FlatAssembler]

And, what do you guys here think, should Croatia change its alphabet? The Glagolitic alphabet, which Croatia used to use until the 17th century, seems rather nice. The Devanagari "alphabet", if you ask me, looks even nicer, and it seems to me it doesn't need to be modified much to fit the Croatian language well.
Glagolitic alphabet: ⰁⰋⰕⰍⰀ ⰈⰀ ⰂⰖⰍⰑⰂⰀⰓ ⰐⰉⰅ ⰔⰅ ⰄⰑⰃⰑⰄⰋⰎⰀ!
Devanagari alphabet: ब्इत्कअ ज़ व्उक्ओवर् न्इय्ए स्ए द्ओग्ऑद्इलअ!
The Korean "alphabet" (Hangul) is also interesting, however, it seems to me it should be modified quite a bit to fit Croatian well.
비ᄐ카 ᅀᅡ 우코와ᄅ 니예 세 도고디라!
There is no difference between 'r' and 'l', and there is also no sign specifically for the 'z' sound (though there is a sign for 'dz', which I suppose can be used instead). Not to mention the Croatian-specific 'č' and 'ć' sounds, or even the 'sh' sound.

[downbeatplumb]

And, what do you guys here think, should Croatia change its alphabet? The Glagolitic alphabet, which Croatia used to use until the 17th century, seems rather nice. The Devanagari "alphabet", if you ask me, looks even nicer, and it seems to me it doesn't need to be modified much to fit the Croatian language well.
Glagolitic alphabet: ⰁⰋⰕⰍⰀ ⰈⰀ ⰂⰖⰍⰑⰂⰀⰓ ⰐⰉⰅ ⰔⰅ ⰄⰑⰃⰑⰄⰋⰎⰀ!
Devanagari alphabet: ब्इत्कअ ज़ व्उक्ओवर् न्इय्ए स्ए द्ओग्ऑद्इलअ!
The Korean "alphabet" (Hangul) is also interesting, however, it seems to me it should be modified quite a bit to fit Croatian well.
비ᄐ카 ᅀᅡ 우코와ᄅ 니예 세 도고디라!
There is no difference between 'r' and 'l', and there is also no sign specifically for the 'z' sound (though there is a sign for 'dz', which I suppose can be used instead). Not to mention the Croatian-specific 'č' and 'ć' sounds, or even the 'sh' sound.

Just use English.

[FlatAssembler]

And, what do you guys here think, should Croatia change its alphabet? The Glagolitic alphabet, which Croatia used to use until the 17th century, seems rather nice. The Devanagari "alphabet", if you ask me, looks even nicer, and it seems to me it doesn't need to be modified much to fit the Croatian language well.
Glagolitic alphabet: ⰁⰋⰕⰍⰀ ⰈⰀ ⰂⰖⰍⰑⰂⰀⰓ ⰐⰉⰅ ⰔⰅ ⰄⰑⰃⰑⰄⰋⰎⰀ!
Devanagari alphabet: ब्इत्कअ ज़ व्उक्ओवर् न्इय्ए स्ए द्ओग्ऑद्इलअ!
The Korean "alphabet" (Hangul) is also interesting, however, it seems to me it should be modified quite a bit to fit Croatian well.
비ᄐ카 ᅀᅡ 우코와ᄅ 니예 세 도고디라!
There is no difference between 'r' and 'l', and there is also no sign specifically for the 'z' sound (though there is a sign for 'dz', which I suppose can be used instead). Not to mention the Croatian-specific 'č' and 'ć' sounds, or even the 'sh' sound.

Just use English.

You mean like this:
Beet-kah zah Voo-kaw-vahr nee-yay say daw-gaw-dee-lah!
Damn, that's even worse than the current Croatian writing system.

Or do you mean giving up Croatian language in favour of English? Why English?
Is there anybody else here who thinks it would be better if English hadn't replaced Latin as the language of international communication? While Latin isn't completely politically neutral (it has its descendants that are alive today, it's easier for Italians or Romanians to learn Latin than it is for Croatians or Germans), it's quite a bit more neutral than English is, since it's no man's native language. And Latin is, unlike English, frozen in time: if you speak Latin, you don't need any special education to read 2000 years old texts (the same is true, although to a much lesser extent, for Greek). That's also why, in Latin, words are pronounced exactly as they are written (and Latin alphabet was specifically made for Latin, not adapted to it, as it is to English and Croatian). That's not quite true for Croatian, and is completely false for English (in English, if you speak as you spell, you likely won't even be understood). Latin also doesn't have sounds that are difficult to pronounce (with the possible exceptions of the "gn" in "agnus" and "sc" in "scientia", but those complications only exist in traditional pronunciation, not in classical pronunciation), and English does. I don't know about you, but to me "three", "free" and "tree" sound the same, and so do "pan" and "pen". Latin grammar appears to be harder than English grammar at first, because of the declensions and the conjugations. However, once you get deeper into the language, you see that it really isn't. When you write complex sentences in English, you need to put the words in the right order or you risk not being understood. The same is not true for Croatian or Latin, which have declension and conjugation systems. And quite often, in English, it's impossible to make the words fit the order, so you need to insert new words (it, to, do, that, then, than, there...), which don't mean much, just to fill the gaps created by the grammar rules. I think that Latin, when everything is taken into account, is actually easier than English. I have studied Latin for two years in high-school, then I haven't written in it or spoken it for three years. And now I've written an essay about vegetarianism in it (you can read it at the bottom of this web-page), an essay about anarchism (you can read it at the bottom of this web-page), a short essay about atheism (you can read it at the bottom of this web-page), and I had an on-line discussion about Vukovar (I've linked to it in this thread). Tell me you can do that with English without having seriously studied it!
Of course, Esperanto is even better suited for being an international language, it was specifically designed for that. It has only two cases and only one declension for nouns and one for adjectives, and the verbs are similarly all conjugated the same way. That's probably just enough morphology to prevent confusion in long sentences, but not enough to be intimidating to new learners or to be difficult to remember. And words being pronounced exactly as they are written was one of its design goals.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

I'd just like to point out that Latin, as such, is indeed a 'Norwegian Parrot' now only good for pining for the fjords or describing technical jargon.

Go learn/look up 'Esperanto' for a wonderful attempt at artificially creating a linguistic panacea.

Why cultures speak what they do harkens back to "Woe the vanquished".
Civil aviation is in English.
Music is in Italian.
Whom ever does it firstest with the mostest pretty much gets to set the ground rules.

Cheers.

[FlatAssembler]

So, what do you guys think, is it reasonable to believe that the Battle of Vukovar (in 1991) actually happened? I am a Croatian 18-year-old from Donji Miholjac (not very far from Vukovar), and I can't help but wonder how it's possible that it left so little evidence (at least as far as I am aware), when more than three thousand people were supposedly killed there.

I have studied quite a bit of Croatian history. I had to do that not only for school, but also for my interpretation of the Croatian toponyms:
Croatian Toponyms
If there is evidence to justify such an extraordinary claim of Vukovar being burned to the ground and rebuilt again completely in, well, a decade, how it is that I don't know anything about that evidence?

As an atheist, how will I justify my disbelief in the Jesus's resurrection if I believe that the Battle of Vukovar happened? One of the reasons other atheists usually give for their disbelief in Jesus's resurrection is that our understanding of history has to be in line with our understanding of how the universe works. However, the Battle of Vukovar is also not in line with my understanding of how the universe works, because I have won the school physics competition two years in a row and I still have no bright idea how the bombs might work.

I know at least one person who was there around that time, I suppose I could ask them. 



Your part of the world is so mired in horror that I wouldn't doubt it if I were you.

Croatia is mired in horror? Then how come nearly all the statistics show that Croatia is far safer than the USA?

[The Grand Nudger]

We confiscated a lot of your guns.

That and...I don’t know if you knew this, but a lot of the trouble starting assholes in the region are dead.

We’re still full up.

[FlatAssembler]

We confiscated a lot of your guns.

That and...I don’t know if you knew this, but a lot of the trouble starting assholes in the region are dead.

We’re still full up.  

I don't think gun ownership has much to do with that. It's way easier to get a gun legally in Switzerland than in the USA, yet there are many more mass shootings per capita in the USA than in Switzerland.
And Željko Ražnatović was killed by one of his own soldiers, not by NATO.

[FlatAssembler]

And what do you guys here think, how should people from Vukovar be called in English? Should they be called "Vukovarians"? Or, considering they call themselves "Vukovarčani" in Croatian, should they be called "Vukovarchanis"? Or considering that the singular form of "Vukovarčani" is "Vukovarčanin", should they then be called "Vukovarchanins"?

[FlatAssembler]

So, is the dude who wanted help with his website some kind of fascist? Is that what's going on here?

Why would I be a fascist? Fascists are denying the Holocaust, or, in Croatia, Jasenovac, they are far-right. Fascists are dignifying Vukovar, they are celebrating it. I am denying Vukovar Massacre. Denying Vukovar Massacre, in Croatia at least, is far-left. So, I am the exact opposite of a fascist, am I not? Vukovar denial goes well together with Bleiburg denial, rather than with Jasenovac denial, right?