Random memory

[pne]

I once sent a letter to my friend Petra in Poland for which I wrote the address completely in Cyrillic (except for the country line, which was biscriptal/bilingual in Cyrillic/Greek / Russian/Greek: ПОЛЬША/ΠΟΛΩΝΙΑ), because I was curious whether it would still arrive. (I didn't include anything "important" in the letter, just in case it wouldn't.)

I imagine that pretty much every Pole old enough to be working for the postal service will have had sufficient Russian at school to have learned the Cyrillic alphabet, so it was more a question of whether they want to deliver such a letter; I didn't have much doubt that they could.

The letter did arrive; I wonder whether this had to do with the fact that I sent it from Greece, a country that does not use the Latin alphabet—whether they gave me extra leniency points because of that.

Comments

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

When you said you wrote the country name bilingually, I imagined you meant Cyrillic/German (or Cyrillic/English). I think you did well to post it in Greece - I know that if you posted an address written completely in Cyrllic over here, it'd probably never get past the local sorting office - not sure how many Germans would understand it, though.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I think you did well to post it in Greece - I know that if you posted an address written completely in Cyrllic over here, it'd probably never get past the local sorting office - not sure how many Germans would understand it, though.

*nods*

Chances are higher in eastern Germany, where people used to have to learn Russian at school. But it would still be difficult.

But if I write "Polen" in Latin letters, they can expect me to be able to write the rest of the address in Latin letters as well, since that's what they use in Poland. So it was kind of sneaky being able to put all the non-Cyrillic stuff in Greek :)

[nik-w.livejournal.com]

Yeah - very sneaky! I didn't even know Cyrillic was used at all in Poland - I can spot Polish at 100 paces (lots of cz combinations and so on, as well as quite a few accented characters). I suppose the whole Russian link makes sense when you think about it, but it would never have occured to me!:)

[pne.livejournal.com]

I didn't even know Cyrillic was used at all in Poland

I highly doubt Cyrillic is used in Poland at all outside Russian lessons at school :)

[thebrokentj.livejournal.com]

thanks for answering my background picture question in support... background picture doesnt move anymore! thanks again

[pne.livejournal.com]

Thanks for saying thank you!