[UA-discuss] Fwd: [Fab5] Fwd: [lg policy] Kazakhstan to change from Cyrillic to Latinalphabet

[Asmus Freytag]

Neither apostrophes, nor the lookalike character (02BC), though PVALID, 
are legal for TLDs.

Trouble...





-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	 Kazakhstan to change from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet
Date: 	Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:21:27 -0500





Kazakhstan to change from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet

The Kazakh language will change from Cyrillic to Latin script as part of 
a modernization and development effort. The move is also viewed as an 
attempt to distance the language from Russian and promote nationalism.
Kasachstan | Kasachstan wechselt zum lateinischen Alphabet 
(REUTERS/illustration/S. Zhumatov)

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev on Friday announced the 
country's alphabet will gradually switch from Cyrillic to Latin script.

Kazakh, a Turkic language, currently uses a modified Cyrillic alphabet 
with 42 letters.

The Latin alphabet will have 32 letters. Certain sounds will be covered 
by the use of apostrophes. The change over is scheduled to be fully 
implemented by 2025.

Officials said the switch is part of a modernization drive and an 
attempt to make use of technology easier. The Kazakh Cyrillic keyboard, 
for example, uses all number and punctuation keys in order to cover the 
42 letters of Cyrillic alphabet.

The Foreign Ministry said in September that the switch to Latin script 
would also benefit Kazakhstan's development.

"[Latin] is used by approximately 70 percent of all countries, making it 
an essential part of communicating across the globe, especially in terms 
of technology, business, science and education," the ministry said.

The oil-rich republic is a close ally of Russia and has the largest 
ethnic-Russian population of the former Soviet republics in Central 
Asia. Russian will remain an official language.

Modernization and nationalism
Nursultan Nazarbayev (picture-alliance/Pacific Press/J. Ratz)

Nazarbayev himself uses both Russian and Kazakh in speeches.

The switch is also seen as an attempt by Kazakhstan to distance itself 
from Russian influence and promote nationalism.

According to the 2009 census, only 62 percent of the population is 
fluent in written and spoken Kazakh.  Some 85 percent of the population 
is fluent in Russian.

Kazakh briefly used the Latin script before switching to Cyrillic in 
1940. Prior to 1929, the Arabic script had been used.

The Soviet-era change to Cyrillic was implemented in other Turkic 
speaking Central Asian states and Azerbaijan in part to distance the 
countries from Turkey, which changed from a Persian-Arabic script to 
Latin in 1928 as part of a Westernization drive. Similarly, the switch 
from Arabic script to Cyrillic was designed to distance the Muslim 
Central Asian nations from the Islamic world.

In an article published in state media in April, Nazarbayev described 
the use of the Cyrillic script as "political."

Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, other Turkic countries 
including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have also switched to 
Latin alphabets.

****

[Some irrelevant content deleted from this final section. N-Ostler]
-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

  Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
  Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email: haroldfs at gmail.com <mailto:haroldfs at gmail.com>
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/ 
<http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/>

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