Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!news-res.gsl.net!news.gsl.net!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in3.uu.net!mack.rt66.com!pmh11 From: kalmoth@rt66.com (Peter Vorobieff) Newsgroups: soc.culture.russian,soc.answers,news.answers Subject: [soc.culture.russian] SCR and Cyrillization FAQ: parts (2+3)/4 (Cyrillization) Followup-To: soc.culture.russian Date: Mon, 05 Aug 96 01:01:00 GMT Organization: The Pit of Shoggoths Lines: 567 Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Expires: 06 Sep 1996 23:59:59 GMT Message-ID: <4u3h4c$99g_003@pmh11.rt66.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pmh11.rt66.com X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #3 Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu soc.culture.russian:58603 soc.answers:5796 news.answers:78549 Archive-Name: cultures/russian/cyrillization Posting-Frequency: monthly Last-Modified: 1996/08/04 Version: 2.0 URL: http://www.rt66.com/~kalmoth/scrFAQ.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- This part of SOC.CULTURE.RUSSIAN FAQ answers the questions: 2.1 - What are the ways to write and read in Russian on Internet? 2.2 - What is necessary to install Cyrillic fonts/drivers on my computer? (PC/Windows, OS/2, Mac, Xwindows, Sun) 2.3 - How to use FTP, Gopher, WWW cruisers to download the necessary files? 2.4 - How to make my Netscape WWW browser work with Cyrillic? 3.1 - What are relcom newsgroups and how to get them? 3.2 - What places on Usenet other than s.c.r have information about Russia? 3.3 - Are there any Russian mailing lists? 3.4 - What are the FTP, Gopher and WWW sites with Russian resources? 2.1. Representations of Cyrillic alphabet - ----------------------------------------- All the material below pertains only to the Russian version of Cyrillic alphabet (32 or 33 letters). There are four ways to enter Cyrillic texts on Internet - transliteration (matching Cyrillic letters with Latin letters and letter combinations), phonetic matching (emulation of the pronounciation of words in Russian with English letters), use of Cyrillic code page (one of the standard schemes that allows one to see and type in _real_ Cyrillic fonts) and "visual" matching (matching Cyrillic letters with letters/numbers/special symbols that look alike). Cyrillic code pages (there are several in existence, but one almost exclusively used on Internet is RFC-1489 KOI-8 - called KOI-8 for brevity from now on in this text) allocate the letters of Cyrillic alphabet to the characters nubmered from 128 to 255 in a standard 256-character set. Normally these characters are used for pseudographics and special character symbols. Setting up Cyrillic fonts and drivers takes some time, but this is the task entirely within the reach of an ordinary user, and the reward is instant access to all the vast Russian KOI-8 resources currently available on Internet. Transliteration is the easiest way for a computer-clueless newbie to write/read Russian texts, as it requires no messing with the software. However, it may also turn out to be the most difficult way, especially for the non-native speaker, because there is more than one transliteration scheme in existence and users often mix these schemes and mix transliterated and phonetic representations as well. Some of the more common transliteration matches for Cyrillic alphabet are listed in Table 1, one column being the traditional one and the other based on KOI-8 characters with the 8th bit stripped. Table 1. Russian alphabet in various representations KOI8|Trans-|Trans-|Visual |lit 1 |lit 2 | - ----+------+------+------ á A A A â B B 6 ÷ V,W W B ç G,Gh G |~,r ä D D D å E,ye E E ö Zh,j V >|< ú Z Z 3 é I I |/|,u ê J,y J none ë K K K ì L L /| í M M M î N N H ï O O O ð P P n,|~| ò R R P ó S S C ô T T T õ U U y æ F F [|] è H,Kh H X ã Ts,C C U, þ Ch ~ 4 û Sh { W ý Sch } W, ÿ ' | ~b ù Y Y b| ø ' X b ü Eh,E | none à Yu ~ |-O ñ Ya Q q Phonetic matching is seldom used - it is really lame to spell "I love you"(English) - "ñ ÌÀÂÌÀ ÷ÁÓ"(KOI-8 Russian) - "Ya lyublyu Vas"(transliterated Russian) as "Yaah lyooblyoo Vaahs" (phonetic matching). Visual matching (the last column of Table 1) is used mostly by jerks who think they are cool, is considered ill-mannered and is almost impossible to read. 2.2. Locations of fonts, drivers and installation instructions for KOI-8 - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Detailed and easy-to-follow instructions on Cyrillization _together_ with all the necessary resources (fonts, etc.) are currently available for several platforms. If you have access to WWW, you can Cyrillize your computer by following the links below: MS-DOG: URL: http://www.siber.com/sib/#russify-ms-dos MS Windows and MS Windows 95: URL: http://www.rt66.com/~kalmoth/howtocyr.html URL: http://www.siber.com/sib/#russify-ms-windows UNIX: URL: http://www.siber.com/sib/#russify-x-windows OS/2: URL: http://www.siber.com/sib/#russify-ms-dos Mac: URL: http://www.pitt.edu/~mapst57/rus/russian.html URL: http://www.relcom.ru:80/Russification/MacKoi8-r/ More resources are listed below, subdivided according to platforms (X, MS WinDoze, Mac, OS/2) and according to servers (FTP, Gopher, WWW). Minimal instructions on use of FTP and Gopher clients are provided (see 2.3.2, 2.3.3). General starting points that can be recommended, besides this page and URL: http://www.siber.com/sib/ are: URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/sergei/Software/Software.html URL: http://solar.rtd.utk.edu/~slovar/fonts.html URL: http://mars.uthscsa.edu/pub/RuSoftware/ 2.2.1. X Cyrillic Resources - --------------------------- FTP: Site ftp.cs.msu.su Directory /pub/russification Fonts (in subdirectory Xfonts), instructions, editors... Site ftp.cs.umd.edu Directory /pub/cyrillic Cyrillic for TeX Gopher: Type=0 Path=0/russian/unix Host=infomeister.osc.edu Port=74 Cyrillic X-fonts plus installation instructions, emacs Cyrillization patches. WWW: URL: http://sunsite.oit.unc.edu/sergei/cy/x.html XWindows and OpenWindows Cyrillic installation - detailed instructions. URL: http://camelot.rockfeller.edu/~manin/cyr.el A definitive cyrillic patch for emacs with description. URL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~cema/Code/corpora2koi8.c A simple KOI-8 -> transliterated Cyrillc C code. URL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~cema/russia.html Cyrillic for TeX. 2.2.2 WinDoze - ------------- Gopher: Type=0 Path=11/russian/windows Host=infomeister.osc.edu Port=74 Cyrillic TT fonts + installation tips. FTP: Site nic.funet.fi Directory /pub/culture/russian/comp/windows Some Cyrillic stuff, in particular cyrwin.zip with keyboard driver. 2.2.2a. Windoze 95 - ------------------ A very nice page maintained by Andrey Chernov contains Windows 95 Cyrillization tips: URL: http://deep-thought.demos.su/~ache/koi8.html#win95_prop 2.2.3. Mac - ---------- Gopher: Type=0 Path=0/Russian/macintosh Host=infomeister.osc.edu Port=74 Fonts, drivers, russification instructions. WWW: URL: http://www.pitt.edu/~mapst57/rus/russian.html A complete Mac-Cyrillization Guide. 2.2.4. OS/2 - ----------- FTP: ftp://ftp.cs.jhu.edu/pub/klm/mi/OS2_Cyr.zip 2.2.5. Linux - ------------ WWW: URL: http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Cyrillic-HOWTO This document contains detailed instructions on Cyrillic installation for Linux boxes - with links to fonts and drivers. Highly recommended. 2.2.6 Sun OpenWindows - --------------------- WWW: URL: http://mars.uthscsa.edu/pub/RuSoftware/ 2.3. Hints on downloading - ------------------------- You really shouldn't need any, but just in case... 2.3.1. File naming conventions - ------------------------------ Most suffixes in file names are meaningful. The commonly used suffixes relevant for this FAQ are: Z Compressed file. Use "uncompress file.Z" to uncompress it. The program uncompress is originally from UNIX, but an MS-DOG version exists. tar These are several files packed into one file by TAR. Use "tar -xvf file.tar" to untar it. Again, tar is UNIX stuff, also available for MS-DOG. ASCII text. txt ASCII text. koi8 Cyrillic text file in KOI-8. c Program in C h Include file for C program dvi This is file produced by Knuth's TeX. It can be printed on any dot printer or viewed on graphic screen with one of DVI drivers. You have to know TeX/LaTeX to use it. ps PostScript file. tex TeX source. sty TeX style. def TeX definitions (same as style). zip File/directory compressed by ZIP. Use unzip to uncompress it. com,.exe MSDOS executables. 2.3.2 Instructions for FTP - --------------------------- To use FTP according to the information provided in this FAQ, namely: - - you should run your FTP client in UNIX, Windows or whatever operating system you are using, following the guidelines below that will work for most cases: ftp When the prompt Name: appears, type anonymous When the prompt Password: appears, type cd If your file is a text file (extensions: none, txt,.tex,.c,.h,.def,.sty), type ascii Otherwise type binary get quit 2.3.3 Instructions for Gopher - ----------------------------- The Gopher directions are given in the form: To utilize this information, you should start your gopher client as: gopher , travel down the directory tree as specified in and use Gopher save ("s") command to save the file. Some gophers (hgopher in Windows environment, xgopher in X) open a dialog window allowing you to enter all the information prior to connecting. 2.3.4 Instructions for WWW cruisers - ----------------------------------- If you need instructions for these, you are probably too dumb to be able to read anyway. 2.4 Cyrillic for Netscape - ------------------------- 2.4.1 Netscape for Windows - --------------------------- After you have installed KOI-8 Cyrillic fonts for Windows, edit NETSCAPE.INI file to make the [fonts] section look like: [Fonts] Fixed Base Size=10 Fixed Family=iso-8859-1,K8 Kurier,12 Proportional Base Size=12 Proportional Family=iso-8859-1,K8 Arial,12 The names of the fonts in this example correspond to the fonts from the file 3KOI8TTF.ZIP available for download from many sites, some of which were listed above. You can try using other fonts, as long as one of them is fixed (Courier-like) and the other proportional. 2.4.2 Netscape for Sun - ----------------------- URL: http://www.rt66.com/~kalmoth/netscr.html (courtesy of Roman Kostin) - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Russian news and resources on Internet - ----------------------------------------- 3.1 Relcom - ----------- Relcom.* news hierarchy is now just another news hierachy of USENET that carries news in Russian (coded using KOI-8). So if you want to get this hierarchy, you should follow the standard procedure: ask your sysadmin to get a feed of relcom.* newsgroups. Distribution field controversy: due to historical reasons 30-50% of news articles originated in Russia and CIS carry a "Distribution: xxx" line where xxx is su or russia or msk. Of course, articles with these distributions are killed om the way to your site. This happens because most sites carry news with "world" and local distributions. Officially users who put in Distribution line want to restrict pool of readers, but some news posting programs add "Distribution: su" automatically, so it's not clear when this restiction is voluntary and when it is imposed by much too zealous posting program. What to do? You can ask your sysadmin to get relcom.* newsgroups wirh all distributions. Your request is likely to be denied, since not all sysadmins understand history of Russia and Relcom. So you will get not all news or will find another way to get the complete feed. If you can not get NNTP feed of relcom.* then you can try news servers. There are several news servers in Moscow. They make NNTP look like a regular mailing list. To get an idead of how it works and whther it works for you, send a message containing one word "HELP" to one of the following addresses: news@kiae.su news@demos.su 3.2. Usenet newsgroups other than soc.culture.russian - ----------------------------------------------------- soc.culture.soviet talk.politics.soviet alt.current-events.russia The "official" language used is English. However mesasges in latinized cyrillic appear quite often. Pishut lyudi i po-russki, ispol'zuya latinskie bukvy -- vot kak v etom predlozhenii. The problem with these groups is that they are flooded by a number of irrelevant messages posted by net terrorists and artificial stupidity programs. To get rid of these "white noise" messages people use KILL files that automatically junk messages that contain certain keywords. You can use them if you are reading news with rn, nn, trn, xrn, etc. Typical kill file for soc.culture.soviet is: /.turkish/h:k /.mideast/h:k /.romanian/h:k Please note that this is not a recommendation but rather a technical example of kill file and no conclusion about political preferences of FAQ authors can be made from this example. soc.culture.russian.moderated This group covers approximately the same topics as soc.culture.russian, but its robomoderator and human moderating board filter out hate posts, spams and off-topic materials. As the result, the traffic there is a bit lower, and the atmosphere is more friendly. 3.3. Mailing lists - ------------------ Gregory Steshenko quest for a freedom of speech brought a number of joyful moments to net.community. One of them is closure of most Russian-related mailing lists. The survivors are: RUSTEX-L To subscribe send a message SUBSCRIBE RUSTEX-L Your Name to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu This list discusses cyrillic extensions of TeX and some other topics. There's a number of other lists that have some relation to Russian theme. Get EASTERN-EUROPEAN OF ELECTRONIC (COMPUTER-ACCESIBLE) RESOURCES from (for example) ftp.cs.umd.edu:pub/cyrillic/relcom_and_internet/EEuropeLists. It is a largest list of East Europe related mailing lists known to me. Don't be surprised if you find out that some of these lists do not exist -- everything's changing. 3.4. Russian FTP, WWW and Gopher sites - -------------------------------------- This part of the list is grossly incomplete. If you have additions, you are most welcome to mail them to pv02@lehigh.edu. 3.4.1 Anonymous FTP - ------------------- This is standard Internet serveice that allows you to download files that you need from distant computers. === International FTP sites related to Russia/ex-USSR === ftp.cs.umd.edu:/pub/cyrillic by Vadim Maslov sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/academic/russian-studies by Sergey Naoumov ftp.funet.fi:/pub/culture/russian this one's in Finland kekule.osc.edu:/pub/russian by Jan Labanowski eskimo.com:/GlasNews Issues of GlasNews 3.4.2 FTP sites in Russia - ------------------------- surplus.demos.su 192.91.186.130 not accessible moscvax.demos.su ??? not accessible ftp.kiae.su sometimes works fagot.turbo.nsk.su 192.188.187.30 ??? ncc.free.msk.su 193.124.3.1 accessible ftp.pczz.msk.su 193.124.24.129 accessible ftp.izhmark.udmurtia.su not accessible info.elvis.msk.su 192.153.171.60 still accessible Here "not acessible" means not accessible from the US. 3.4.3 Gopher/WWW: - ----------------- Some Cyrillic stuff is available at URL URL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/ftp/pub/cyrillic/ A nice site ("Little Russia, San Antonio, TX") with lots of interesting tidbits is at URL URL: http://mars.uthscsa.edu/Russia/ A must-see: Sergei Naoumov's Dazhdbog's Grandsons site. Be warned that it's got TONS of graphics and responds slowly: URL: http://sunsite.oit.unc.edu/sergei/Grandsons.html Simon Hawkin's home page is another nice place to visit with lots of useful stuff at URL URL: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~cema/russia.html Of course, this list is far from completion. Additions are most welcome. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMgVN/oGFfGJmeuwpAQG8TgL+N8jRJ8wiGh/k9Adesu1CyrhUbF7Pmd0x DxN8DjDVGOwrnCBDhhAItxYffpuGxdwQ/BjyokjAg2mR7YeTtzOLaRsKjpe7iGgt 7qKMszbLGjagtFAHepbWc/yOLr2sEngc =efX0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- There is no me but me, and pv02@lehigh.edu and kalmoth@rt66.com are my only true addresses. All my articles are PGP-signed. My PGP public key is at URL: http://www.lehigh.edu/~pv02/pgpkey.txt