Latin alphabet reform in Uzbekistan moves to the Senate: Letters Ğ, ö, ş, and ç are coming

The lower house of parliament in Uzbekistan has approved a new draft law aimed at completing the transition to the Latin alphabet and has sent it to the Senate. The regulation is seen as a significant milestone in the alphabet transformation that began in the country in 1993 but has remained incomplete for many years.

If the proposal is accepted by the Senate and approved by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the Uzbek alphabet will consist of 28 letters. In the current system, three letter combinations are used alongside 26 letters.

With the new regulation, the letter 'ö' will be used instead of 'o'', 'ğ' instead of 'g'', 'ç' instead of 'ch', and 'ş' instead of 'sh'. This aims to represent certain sounds in Uzbek with a single letter.

To ensure the transition does not place an additional burden on the public budget, written documents prepared with the old letters are planned to remain valid for a certain period. Therefore, it will not be mandatory to renew all documents at once.

THE FOURTH MAJOR ALPHABET CHANGE

If the regulation is implemented, this will be the fourth major change to the Uzbek alphabet in the last 100 years. The country switched from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet in 1929, and the Cyrillic alphabet began to be used during the Soviet Union era in 1940.

After gaining independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan passed a law in 1993 for the transition to the Latin alphabet. Starting from the 1994-95 academic year, children began to be taught the Latin alphabet in schools; however, the transition process progressed quite slowly.

Some countries that gained independence during the same period completed their alphabet transformation in a shorter time. For example, Azerbaijan completed its transition to the Latin alphabet in 2001. In Uzbekistan, the reform gained momentum again after Mirziyoyev was elected president in 2016.

In addition to Uzbekistan, the Organization of Turkic States, of which Azerbaijan and Turkey are also members, prepared a Common Turkic Alphabet consisting of 34 letters in 2024. In this alphabet, in addition to the letters used in Turkey, the letters ä, ñ, q, x, and w were also included.

News Source: 12punto