I learned to read and write the Cyrillic alphabet as a kid, a fine trick
to annoy your friends and amaze your enemies. It's still cool to watch
movies or TV shows and read the Russian words (at least those close
enough to English, which covers a lot).
Later as a kid I put together my own alphabet, borrowing from Cyrillic
and Greek and Latin, using single characters for common diphthongs (like
"th"), markings to indicate exact vowel sounds, etc. I used to regularly
take notes in class using this alphabet. This annoyed/amazed the other
kids even more (don't ask me why).
I've always thought it would be amusing to learn to read rot-13, but
I've never gotten around to it.
On a more serious note, there's a good article about Azerbaijan
switching from Cyrillic to Latin
(http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/issues/97jul/alphabet.htm).
"Zealous reformers in Turkmenistan, possibly getting carried away by the
Latin alphabet's financial promise, proposed that $ and ¢ be the upper-
and lower-case letters for the "sh" sound."
- Joe
Joseph S. Barrera III <joebar@microsoft.com>
<http://research.microsoft.com/~joebar/>
Phone, Office: (415) 778-8227; Cellular: (415) 601-3719; Home: (415)
588-4801
The opinions expressed in this message are my own personal views and do
not reflect the official views of Microsoft Corporation.