The Common Turkic alphabet [a] is a project of a single Latin alphabet for all Turkic languages based on a slightly modified Turkish alphabet, with 34 letters recognised by the Organization of Turkic States. [1]
Its letters are as follows:
Common Turkic alphabet | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Upper Case | A | Ä | B | C | Ç | D | E | F | G | Ğ | H | I | İ | J | K | L | M | N | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | Ş | T | U | Ü | V | W | X | Y | Z | |||||||||||||||||
Lower Case | a | ä | b | c | ç | d | e | f | g | ğ | h | ı | i | j | k | l | m | n | ñ | o | ö | p | q | r | s | ş | t | u | ü | v | w | x | y | z | |||||||||||||||||
IPA | ɑ | æ | b | dʒ | tʃ | d | e | f | g | ɣ | h | ɯ | i | ʒ | k | l | m | n | ŋ | o | ø | p | q | r | s | ʃ | t | u | y | v | w | x | j | z |
Long forms of vowels are shown with a Circumflex (in Turkish): Â, Ê, Î, Ô, Û . Note that Î is considered as a version of İ, and not of I.
The 2024 modified version, as devised at the Turkic World Common Alphabet Commission in September 2024 replaced ä with ə (already used in the Azerbaijani Latin alphabet) and added Ū to represent the ʊ sound. [2]
Common Turkic alphabet (2024) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Upper Case | A | B | C | Ç | D | E | Ə | F | G | Ğ | H | I | İ | J | K | L | M | N | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | Ş | T | U | Ū | Ü | V | W | X | Y | Z | ||||||||||||||||
Lower Case | a | b | c | ç | d | e | ə | f | g | ğ | h | ı | i | j | k | l | m | n | ñ | o | ö | p | q | r | s | ş | t | u | ū | ü | v | w | x | y | z | ||||||||||||||||
IPA | ɑ | b | dʒ | tʃ | d | e | æ | f | g | ɣ | h | ɯ | i | ʒ | k | l | m | n | ŋ | o | ø | p | q | r | s | ʃ | t | u | ʊ | y | v | w | x | j | z |
In connection with the collapse of the USSR, in the newly formed republics in which the Turkic languages were the main ones, the ideas of Pan-Turkism became popular again, and, as a consequence, so did the movement for the restoration of the Latin alphabet. In order to unify, and at the initiative of Turkey in November 1991, an international scientific symposium was held in Istanbul on the development of a unified alphabet for the Turkic languages. It was completely based on the Turkish alphabet, but with the addition of some missing letters: ä, ñ, q, w, x. As a result, the alphabet consisted of 34 letters, 29 of which were taken from Turkish.
Azerbaijan was the first to adopt this alphabet in December 1991 and Uzbekistan proposed its adoption in September 1993, while continuing to use Cyrillic. In September 1993, at a regular conference in Ankara, representatives of Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan officially announced the transition to the new alphabet.
However, already in 1992, Azerbaijan was reforming its alphabet and replacing the letter ä with ə , taken from old Cyrillic and Yañalif. Starting from 2000, the government decreed that Azerbaijani publications and media should use the Latin script only, officially discontinuing the Cyrillic alphabet in the country.
In May 1995, the government of Uzbekistan decided to adopt a different proposal, based only on the standard 26-letter Latin alphabet. This same proposal was implemented for the Karakalpak language.
Although Turkmenistan committed itself to adopt the original alphabet, it officially adopted a different proposal in 1993 with some unusual characters as letters such as the pound sign (£), the cent sign (¢) and the dollar sign ($). This was later replaced by a different alphabet in 1999, which is only partially similar to the general Turkic one, but differs from it in a number of letters. Due to this uncertainty with the Latin alphabet proposals employed by the government, opposition political forces[ who? ] continue to employ the Turkmen Cyrillic alphabet.
As a result, only Azerbaijani (1991, with one letter changed in 1992), Gagauz (1996), Crimean Tatar (1992, officially since 1997), Tatar in the Tatar Wikipedia (since 2013) and some mass media have used the common Turkic alphabet with minor changes (since 1999). [3] [4]
The Tatar Latin script, introduced in September 1999 and canceled in January 2005, used a slightly different set of additional letters (ŋ instead of ñ, ə instead of ä), and the letter ɵ instead of Turkish ö. Since December 24, 2012, the common Turkic alphabet has been officially used as a means of transliterating the Tatar Cyrillic alphabet. [6]
In 2019, an updated version of the Uzbek Latin alphabet was revealed by the Uzbek government, with five letters being updated; it was proposed to represent the sounds "ts", "sh", "ch", "oʻ" and "gʻ" by the letters "c", "ş", "ç", "ó" and "ǵ", respectively. [7] This reverses a 1995 reform, and brings the orthography closer to that of Turkish and also of Turkmen, Karakalpak, Kazakh (2018 version) and Azerbaijani. [8] [9]
In April 2021, a revised version of the Kazakh Latin alphabet was presented, introducing the letters Ä ä (Ə ə), Ö ö (Ө ө), Ü ü (Ү ү), Ğ ğ (Ғ ғ), Ū ū (Ұ ұ), Ñ ñ (Ң ң), and Ş ş (Ш ш). This version will be officially implemented starting 2023. [10] [11]
The 3rd Meeting of the Turkic World Common Alphabet Commission was held in Baku, Azerbaijan, on September 9-11, 2024 in cooperation with the Turkic Academy and the Turkish Language Association. At the meeting attended by the commission members of the Organization of Turkic States (OST) member countries, a consensus was reached on the Common Turkic Alphabet proposal. The 34-letter Common Turkic Alphabet was designed taking into account the different dialects and language needs of the Turkic world. [5] [12]
The orthographies of Turkic languages are largely phonetic, meaning that the pronunciation of a word can usually be determined from its spelling. This rule excludes recent loanwords such as proper names. The letters representing vowel sounds in Turkic dialects are, in alphabetical order, ⟨a⟩, ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨e⟩, ⟨ ı ⟩, ⟨ i ⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨ö⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨ü⟩. [b] [13]
Primary graphemes of Turkic languages in alphabets based on the modern Common Turkic alphabet (CTA) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Common | A | Ä | B | C | Ç | D | Ḑ | E | F | G | Ğ | Ģ | H | Ħ | I | İ | J | K | L | Ļ | M | N | Ņ | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | Ś | Ş | T | Ț | U | Ü | V | W | X | Y | Z | Ź | ||||
IPA | [ ɑ ], [ a ] | [ æ ] | [ b ] | [ d͡ʒ ] | [ t͡ʃ ] | [ d ], [ dˠ ] | [ d͡z ] | [ ɛ ] | [ f ] | [ ɡ ], [ ɟ ] | [ ɣ ], [ ʁ ] | [ ʕ ] | [ h ] | [ ħ ] | [ ɯ ] | [ i ] | [ ʒ ] | [ k ], [ c ] | [ l ] | [ ɫ ] | [ m ] | [ n ] | [ ɲ ] | [ ŋ ], [ ɴ ] | [ o ] | [ ø ] | [ p ] | [ q ], [ ɢ ] | [ r ] | [ s ], [ sˠ ] | [ θ ] | [ ʃ ] | [ t ], [ tˠ ] | [ t͡s ] | [ u ] | [ y ] | [ v ] | [ w ] | [ x ], [ χ ] | [ j ] | [ z ], [ zˠ ] | [ ð ] | ||||
Azerbaijani | A | Ə | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | - | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | - | U | Ü | V | - | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Bashkir | A | Ä | B | - | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | Ŧ | Ş | T | TS | U | Ü | V | W | X | Y | Z | Đ | ||||
Crimean Tatar | A | - | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | - | U | Ü | V | - | - | Y | Z | - | ||||
Gagauz | A | Ä | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | - | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | - | O | Ö | P | - | R | S | - | Ş | T | Ţ | U | Ü | V | - | - | Y | Z | - | ||||
Karachay-Balkar | A | - | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | Ţ | U | Ü | V | W | - | Y | Z | - | ||||
Karaim | A | E | B | DŽ | Č | D | DZ | Ė | F | Ď | G | - | H | - | Y | I | Ž | Ť | L | Ľ | M | N | Ń | - | O | Ö | P | K | R | Ś | - | Š | T | C | U | Ü | V | - | CH | J | Ź | - | ||||
Karakalpak | A | Á | B | J | CH | D | - | E | F | G | Ǵ | - | H | - | Í | I | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ń | O | Ó | P | Q | R | S | - | SH | T | C | U | Ú | V | W | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Kazakh [c] | A | Ä | B | J | Ş | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | Y | I | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | TS | Ū | Ü | V | U | H | İ | Z | - | ||||
Kumyk | A | Ä | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | Č, Ţ | U | Ü | - | W | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Kyrgyz | A | - | B | DJ | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ŋ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | C | U | Ü | V | W | H | Y | Z | - | ||||
Nogai | A | Ä | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | Ţ | U | Ü | - | W | - | Y | Z | - | ||||
Salar (TB30) | A | E | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | - | U | Ü | V | V | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Salar (UYY) | A | E | B | J/ZH | Q/CH | D | - | E | F | G | G | - | H | - | I | I | R | K | L | - | M | N | - | NG | O | Ö | P | K | R | S | - | X/SH | T | - | U | Ü | V | W | H | Y | Z | - | ||||
Tatar | A | Ä | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | - | U | Ü | V | W | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Turkish | A | - | B | C | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | I | İ | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | - | O | Ö | P | - | R | S | - | Ş | T | - | U | Ü | V | - | - | Y | Z | - | ||||
Turkmen | A | Ä | B | J | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | - | - | H | - | Y | I | Ž | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ň | O | Ö | P | - | R | - | S | Ş | T | - | U | Ü | W | - | - | Ý | - | Z | ||||
Uyghur (ULY) | A | E | B | J | CH | D | - | Ë | F | G | GH | - | H | - | - | I | ZH | K | L | - | M | N | - | NG | O | Ö | P | Q | R | S | - | SH | T | - | U | Ü | V | - | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Uzbek | A | - | B | J | CH | D | - | E | F | G | Gʻ | - | H | - | - | I | J | K | L | - | M | N | - | NG | Oʻ | Oʻ | P | Q | R | S | - | SH | T | TS | U | U | V | - | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Uzbek (2021) | A | - | B | J | Ç | D | - | E | F | G | Ğ | - | H | - | - | I | - | K | L | - | M | N | - | Ñ | O | Õ | P | Q | R | S | - | Ş | T | C | U | - | V | - | X | Y | Z | - | ||||
Cyrillic script | А | Ә | Б | Җ, Ҹ, Ӌ, Дь | Ч | Д | Ѕ | Э, Е | Ф | Г | Ғ, Ҕ | Һ | Ҳ | Ы | И, І | Ж | К | Л | Љ | М | Н | Њ, Нь | Ң, Ҥ | О | Ө | П | Ҡ, Қ, Ӄ | Р | С | Ҫ | Ш | Т | Ц | У, Ұ | Ү | В | Ў | Х | Й | З | Ҙ | |||||
Arabic script | ـَ | ط، ,د ض | غ | اۍ | ای | ڬ | ص ,س | ط ,ت | او | اۊ | ظ ,ز | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Uyghur Arabic alphabet | ا،ئا | ە،ئە | ب | ج | چ | د | ې،ئې | ف | گ | غ | ھ | ى،ئى | ژ | ك | ل | م | ن | ڭ | و،ئو | ۆ،ئۆ | پ | ق | ر | س | ش | ت | ۇ،ئۇ | ۈ،ئۈ | ۋ | ۋ | خ | ي | ز | |||||||||||||
The New Turkic alphabet (Jaꞑalif, 'Yañalif') was a Latin alphabet used by non-Slavic peoples of the USSR in the 1920-1930s. The new alphabet utilised the basic Latin letters excluding "w", as well as some additional letters, with a number of them being based on Cyrillic letterforms. The correspondences between the Soviet Yañalif and modern CTA are given below.
Yañalif | CTA | Cyrillic | Yañalif | CTA | Cyrillic | Yañalif | CTA | Cyrillic | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A a | A a | А а | I i | İ i | И и | R r | R r | Р р | ||
B ʙ | B b | Б б | J j | Y y | Й й | S s | S s | С с | ||
C c | Ç ç | Ч ч | K k | K k | К к | Ş ş | Ş ş | Ш ш | ||
Ç ç | C c | Җ җ | L l | L l | Л л | T t | T t | Т т | ||
D d | D d | Д д | M m | M m | М м | U u | U u | У у | ||
E e | E e | Е е | N n | N n | Н н | V v | V v W w | В в Ў ў | ||
Ə ə | Ä ä | Ә ә | Ꞑ ꞑ | Ñ ñ | Ң ң | X x | X x | Х х | ||
F f | F f | Ф ф | O o | O o | О о | Y y | Ü ü | Ү ү | ||
G g | G g | Г г | Ɵ ɵ | Ö ö | Ө ө | Z z | Z z | З з | ||
Ƣ ƣ | Ğ ğ | Ғ ғ | P p | P p | П п | Ƶ ƶ | J j | Ж ж | ||
H h | H h | Һ һ | Q q | Q q | Қ қ | Ь ь | I ı | Ы ы |
The standard Turkish keyboard layout for personal computers is as follows:
Kazakh or Qazaq is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan, and has official status in the Altai Republic of Russia. It is also a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China, and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of western Mongolia. The language is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union, Germany, and Turkey.
Turkmen is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers in Turkmenistan, and a further 719,000 speakers in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in northwestern Afghanistan, where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and by diaspora communities, primarily in Turkey and Russia.
Ğ is a Latin letter found in the Turkish and Azerbaijani alphabets as well as the Latin alphabets of Zazaki, Laz, Crimean Tatar, Tatar, and Kazakh. It traditionally represented the voiced velar fricative or the voiced uvular fricative. However, in Turkish, the phoneme has in most cases been reduced to a silent letter, serving as a vowel-lengthener. In Dobrujan Tatar it represents the voiced palato-alveolar affricate.
Bashkir or Bashkort is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by around 750,000 native speakers in Russia, as well as in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other neighboring post-Soviet states, and among the Bashkir diaspora. It has three dialect groups: Southern, Eastern and Northwestern.
Three scripts are currently used for the Tatar language: Arabic, Cyrillic and Latin.
The Azerbaijani alphabet has three versions which includes the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets.
U is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It commonly represents the close back rounded vowel, somewhat like the pronunciation of ⟨oo⟩ in "boot" or "rule". The forms of the Cyrillic letter U are similar to the lowercase of the Latin letter Y, with the lowercase Cyrillic letter U's form being identical to that of small Latin letter Y.
Jaꞑalif, Yangalif or Yañalif is the first Latin alphabet used during the latinisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the Turkic languages. It replaced the Yaña imlâ Arabic script-based alphabet in 1928, and was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1938–1940. After their respective independence in 1991, several former Soviet states in Central Asia switched back to Latin script, with slight modifications to the original Yañalif.
Karakalpak is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southwestern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Nogai and neighbouring Kazakh languages, being markedly influenced by both. Typologically, Karakalpak belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, thus being closely related to and highly mutually intelligible with Kazakh and Nogai.
Kumyk is a Turkic language spoken by about 520,000 people, mainly by the Kumyks, in the Dagestan, North Ossetia and Chechen republics of the Russian Federation. Until the 20th century Kumyk was the lingua franca of the Northern Caucasus.
Karachay–Balkar, or Mountain Turkic, is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachays and Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia, European Russia, as well as by an immigrant population in Afyonkarahisar Province, Turkey. It is divided into two dialects: Karachay-Baksan-Chegem, which pronounces two phonemes as and and Malkar, which pronounces the corresponding phonemes as and. The modern Karachay–Balkar written language is based on the Karachay–Baksan–Chegem dialect. The language is closely related to Kumyk.
Schwa is a letter of the Cyrillic script, derived from the Latin letter schwa. It is currently used in Abkhaz, Bashkir, Dungan, Itelmen, Kalmyk, Kazakh, Khanty, Kurdish, Uyghur and Tatar. It was also used in Azeri, Karakalpak, and Turkmen before those languages switched to the Latin alphabet. The Azeri and some other Latin-derived alphabets contain a letter of identical appearance (Ə/ə).
I, or ı, called dotless i, is a letter used in the Latin-script alphabets of Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Kazakh, Tatar and Turkish. It commonly represents the close back unrounded vowel, except in Kazakh where it represents the near-close front unrounded vowel. All of the languages it is used in also use its dotted counterpart İ while not using the basic Latin letter I.
The modern Gagauz alphabet is a 31-letter Latin-based alphabet modelled on the Turkish alphabet and Azerbaijani. It is used to write the Gagauz language.
The Kazakh language is written in three scripts – Cyrillic, Latin, and Arabic – each having a distinct alphabet. The Arabic script is used in Iran, Afghanistan, and China, while the Cyrillic script is used in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Mongolia. In October 2017, a presidential decree in Kazakhstan ordered a transition from the Cyrillic to Latin script to be phased in from 2023 to 2031.
The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a version of the Perso-Arabic script used to write Ottoman Turkish until 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet.
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Greek alphabet was altered by the Etruscans, and subsequently their alphabet was altered by the Ancient Romans. Several Latin-script alphabets exist, which differ in graphemes, collation and phonetic values from the classical Latin alphabet.
The Uzbek language has been written in various scripts: Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic. The language traditionally used Arabic script, but the official Uzbek government under the Soviet Union started to use Cyrillic in 1940, which is when widespread literacy campaigns were initiated by the Soviet government across the Union. In 1992, Latin script was officially reintroduced in Uzbekistan along with Cyrillic. In the Xinjiang region of China, some Uzbek speakers write using Cyrillic, others with an alphabet based on the Uyghur Arabic alphabet. Uzbeks of Afghanistan also write the language using Arabic script, and the Arabic Uzbek alphabet is taught at some schools.
Numerous Cyrillic alphabets are based on the Cyrillic script. The early Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the 9th century AD and replaced the earlier Glagolitic script developed by the theologians Cyril and Methodius. It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the official alphabet for their national languages. About half of them are in Russia. Cyrillic is one of the most-used writing systems in the world. The creator is Saint Clement of Ohrid from the Preslav literary school in the First Bulgarian Empire.
Crimean Tatar is written in both Latin and Cyrillic. Historically, the Persian script was also used.
э(ə)СРи :леорард ( Китаб аль – Идрак ли – Лисан аль – Атрак ), тигр (Махмуд Кашгари)
In the earlier Azerbaijani Cyrillic there were variations: ə (= э).