Kazakh alphabets

The Kazakh Cyrillic alphabet is used in Kazakhstan and the Bayan-Ölgiy Province in Mongolia. It is also used by Kazakh populations in Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as diasporas in other countries of the former USSR. It was introduced during the Russian Empire period in the 1800s, and then adapted by the Soviet Union in 1940.[2]

In the nineteenth century, Ibrahim Altynsarin, a prominent Kazakh educator, first introduced a Cyrillic alphabet for transcribing Kazakh. Russian missionary activity, as well as Russian-sponsored schools, further encouraged the use of Cyrillic in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The alphabet was reworked by Sarsen Amanzholov and accepted in its current form in 1940. It contains 42 letters: 33 from the Russian alphabet with 9 additional letters for sounds of the Kazakh language: Ә, Ғ, Қ, Ң, Ө, Ұ, Ү, Һ, І (until 1957 Ӯ was used instead of Ұ). Initially, Kazakh letters came after letters from the Russian alphabet, but now they are placed after Russian letters similar in sound or shape.

The letters В, Ё (since 1957), Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Щ, Ъ, Ь and Э are not used in native Kazakh words. Of these, Ё, Ц, Ч, Щ, Ъ, Ь, Э, are used only in words borrowed from Russian or through the Russian language which are written according to Russian orthographic rules. The letter Х in conversational speech is pronounced similar to Қ. The letter Һ is used only in Arabic-Persian borrowings and is often pronounced like an unvoiced Х (as /h/, or a voiceless glottal fricative).

The letter И represents the tense vowel [i] obtained from the combinations ЫЙ /əj/ and ІЙ /ɪj/. The letter У represents /w/ and the tense vowel [u] obtained from the combinations ҰУ /ʊw/, ҮУ /ʉw/, ЫУ /əw/ and ІУ /ɪw/. Additionally, И and У are retained in words borrowed from Russian, where they represent the simple vowels [i] and [u] respectively.

Keyboard

The standard Windows keyboard layout used for Cyrillic Kazakh in Kazakhstan is a modification of the standard Russian keyboard, with characters found in Kazakh but not in Russian located on the number keys.

The Kazakh keyboard.

A Kazakh newspaper Socialist Kazakhstan (Sosııaldy Qazaǵstan) in Latin script (1937)

Selected works of Mao Zedong in Latin-script Kazakh, published in Beijing in 1977

A number of Latin alphabets are in use to write the Kazakh language. A variant based on the Turkish alphabet is unofficially used by the Kazakh diaspora in Turkey and in Western countries and Kazakhstan. As with other Central Asian Turkic languages, a Latin alphabet, the Uniform Turkic Alphabet, was introduced by the Soviets and used from 1929 to 1940 when it was replaced with Cyrillic.[2][4] Moreover, a Latin alphabet was used for the Kazakh language for Kazakhs in China during 1964–84. Later, the use of the Kazakh Arabic alphabet was restored in China.[5]

As part of a modernization program, Decree 569 from Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev ordered the replacement of the Cyrillic script with a Latin script by 2025.[2][6][7] In 2007, Nazarbayev said the transformation of the Kazakh alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin should not be rushed, as he noted: "For 70 years, the Kazakhstanis read and wrote in Cyrillic. More than 100 nationalities live in our state. Thus we need stability and peace. We should be in no hurry in the issue of alphabet transformation".[8]

Initial proposed Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language, implemented by Presidential Decree 569 (26 October 2017).[6] Later revised by Presidential Decree 637 of 19 February 2018, replacing the apostrophe with diacritics and digraphs

In 2015, the Minister of Culture and Sports Arystanbek Mukhamediuly announced that a transition plan was underway, with specialists working on the orthography to accommodate the phonological aspects of the language.[9] On April 12, 2017, President Nazarbayev published an article in state newspaper Egemen Qazaqstan announcing a switchover to the Latin alphabet by 2025,[4][9] a decision implemented by decree.[6] Nazarbayev argued that the "Kazakh language and culture have been devastated" during the period of Soviet rule, and that ending the use of Cyrillic is useful in re-asserting national identity.[4] The new Latin alphabet is also a step to weaken the traditional Russian influence on the country, as the Russian language is the country's second official language.[10] The initial proposed Latin alphabet tried to avoid digraphs (such as "sh", "ch") and diacritics (such as "ä" or "ç"). In fact, President Nazarbayev had expressly stated that the new alphabet should contain "no hooks or superfluous dots".[11] Instead, the new alphabet, which is based on a transliteration of Cyrillic into Latin letters, would have used apostrophes to denote those Kazakh letters where there was no direct Latin equivalent. It is similar to the Karakalpak Latin alphabet and the Uzbek alphabet.

2018 revision of the Kazakh Latin alphabet, in current official use.[12]

2021 revision of the Kazakh Latin alphabet, to be officially used starting 2023.[13]

A revised version of the 2017 Latin alphabet was announced in February 2018. Presidential Decree 637 of 19 February 2018 amends the 2017 decree and the use of apostrophes was discontinued and replaced with diacritics and digraphs.[14][15] Notably, the new alphabet uses the acute accent. A few web applications and sites were launched to facilitate the switch to the Latin-based alphabet. One of them is a new web-based portal, Qazlatyn.kz, that uses the new Latin alphabet to report news and other information about Kazakhstan.[16]

Latest developments

Kazakh Latin alphabet "Resmı Nusqa 3.0"

A a	Á á	B b	D d	E e	F f	G g	Ǵ ǵ
H h	I i	I ı	J j	K k	L l	M m	N n
Ń ń	O o	Ó ó	P p	Q q	R r	S s	T t
U u	Ú ú	V v	Y y	Ý ý	Z z	Sh sh	Ch ch

In 2020, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for another revision of the Latin alphabet with a focus on preserving the original sounds and pronunciation of the Kazakh language.[17][18] This revision, presented to the public in November 2019 by academics from the Baitursynov Institute of Linguistics, and specialists belonging to the official working group on script transition, uses umlauts, breves and cedillas instead of digraphs and acute accents, and introduces spelling changes in order to reflect more accurately the phonology of Kazakh.[19] This revision is a slightly modified version of the Turkish alphabet, dropping the letter C and having four additional letters that do not exist in Turkish: Ä, Q, Ŋ and W.

Proposed new version of the Kazakh Latin alphabet presented in 2019.

While awaiting approval for this version, linguists are still in discussion of which Latin-based letters are to be used in place of the specific Cyrillic-based letters Ә, Ғ, И, Й, Ң, Ө, У, Ұ, Ү, Ы, Ч, Ш, and І. An alternative to the introduction of accented characters is to make greater use of digraphs.[20]

In January 2021, a revised version of the Kazakh Latin alphabet was presented, introducing the letters ä, ö, ü, ğ, ū, ŋ, and ş, which correspond to the Cyrillic letters ә, ө, ү, ғ, ұ, ң, and ш respectively. This version will be officially implemented starting 2023.[21]

The Arabic script is the official alphabet for Kazakhs in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region[5] of China. It was first introduced to the territory of Kazakhstan in the eleventh century and was traditionally used to write Kazakh until the introduction of a Latin alphabet in 1929. In 1924, Kazakh intellectual Akhmet Baitursynov attempted to reform the Arabic script to better suit Kazakh. The letters ۆ‎, گ‎, ڭ‎, پ‎ and چ‎ are used to represent sounds not found in the Arabic language.

A modified Arabic script is also used in Iran and Afghanistan, based on the alphabet used for Kazakh before 1929.

The Kazakh Arabic alphabet contains 29 letters and one digit, the 'upper hamza' used at the beginnings of words to create front vowels throughout the word. The direction the alphabet is written in is right to left. Unlike the original Arabic script, which is an abjad, the Kazakh Arabic script functions more like a true alphabet, as each sound has its own letter and every sound in each word is spelt out in the written form of the language. The reform of the Arabic script from an abjad to an alphabet was carried out by the early 20th-century linguist Akhmet Baitursynov.

Correspondence chart of official and most widespread writing scripts

Symbols in parentheses are for bi-directional transliteration only; See Meniń Qazaqstanym.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:[26]

• Kazakh alphabet (in Russian)
• Kazakh language, alphabet and pronunciation
• Kazakh Cyrillic–Arabic–Latin converter
• (ALASH Cyrillic–Latin–Arabic–Runic online converter
• Cyrillic–Latin 2018 online converter
• Official Kazakh version (in Arabic script) of the People's Daily Online