[ad_1]
Members of the Senate of Uzbekistan began the yr with trainings on the Latin alphabet. Tashkent had deliberate to finish a three-decade-long transition from Soviet-imposed Cyrillic to a Latin script by January 1, 2023. The plan was to have authorities web sites, authorized paperwork, avenue names, commercials, print and digital mass media, and quite a lot of different enterprises absolutely utilizing the Latin alphabet by 2023.
Though the press companies of the Senate, the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis, and a few different ministries began utilizing the Latin alphabet on their social media pages, many different establishments nonetheless concurrently use two totally different alphabets to accommodate the wants of Uzbekistan’s a number of generations. This follow is more likely to proceed for awhile.
Uzbekistan is without doubt one of the few nations that has undergone 4 totally different alphabet reforms within the a span of a century. The Cyrillic alphabet was launched in 1940 within the nation together with the opposite Central Asian republics colonized on the time by the Soviet Union. In contrast, Armenia, Georgia, and the Baltic states didn’t undertake the Cyrillic alphabet beneath Soviet rule.
For hundreds of years, Turkic-speaking nations within the Central Asian area used Arabic lettering. Fashionable Uzbek has roots within the Chagatai language, additionally known as the Outdated Uzbek language (“eski o’zbek tili”) and was written in non-standard Arabic script between the 14th early twentieth centuries. Following the sluggish colonization of the Central Asian area, first by the Russian Empire after which by the Soviet Union, the Latin alphabet was launched as a part of Moscow’s bigger “korenizatsiya” (nativization or indigenization) coverage within the late Twenties.
Amongst different Turkic nations of the area, and Azerbaijan within the Caucasus, Uzbeks additionally switched to the Latin script, which was being pushed each by some native intelligentsia after which Kremlin. By that point, native intellectuals had already been criticizing the Arabic script for missing sufficient vowels to fulfill the wants of Turkic languages and different mismatches between the script and native native languages. For Moscow, however, the Arabic script was not secular sufficient to align with the “early-Soviet beliefs of internationalism, Sovietization, and proletarianization,” as Oğul Tuna wrote in a latest article. But imposing the Cyrillic alphabet at the moment may have been perceived as “overly imperialistic” and will have provoked additional “nationalist, anti-Russian backlash,” which was nonetheless current within the area.
The First Turcological Congress, which befell in Baku, authorized a swap to a Latinized alphabet generally known as Yanalif (Yangi Alifbe – new alphabet) for Turkic talking nations of the Soviet Union in 1926. The preliminary steps of the transition began solely from 1929 onward.
The brand new alphabet, nevertheless, didn’t stay lengthy sufficient to take root. With a purpose to distance Turkic republics beneath the Soviet regime from the affect of the step by step Westernizing Turkey and pan-Turkism, Moscow determined to abolish the Latin script in favor of Cyrillic. This may additionally make it simpler to train the Russian language within the area. A decree on the switch of the Uzbek script from the Latinized alphabet to the brand new Uzbek alphabet primarily based on Russian Cyrillic was issued on Could 8, 1940, and by July, a unified Uzbek orthography was adopted. For the subsequent a number of many years, Cyrillic was taught within the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, as literacy charges stored rising from 78.7 p.c in 1939 to 99.7 p.c by 1970.
Amid Mikhail Gorbachev’s chaotic management from 1985 to 1991, Uzbekistan’s Supreme Soviet adopted a legislation “On the State Language of the Uzbek SSR,” declaring the Uzbek language as the one state language in October 1989, signaling Tashkent’s “altering relation to Russia.” The Russian language, however, retained the standing of a “language of interethnic communication” in Uzbekistan till 1995, when it was lastly relegated to only one other minority language.
Uzbekistan gained its independence in 1991 following the disintegration of the Soviet Union and simply two years after that, on September 2, 1993, Tashkent adopted a legislation on a transition to the Latin script “primarily based on the constructive expertise of 1929-1940 … and bearing in mind the desires expressed by the representatives of most of the people.” Though it formally supposed to “speed up the event of the republic in all instructions and its entry into the world communication system,” this transfer additionally meant engineering far from Moscow and its affect.
Uzbekistan is just not the one nation previously occupied by the Soviet Union that deliberate to ditch Cyrillic for the Latin script after gaining independence. Neighboring Turkmenistan changed the Cyrillic alphabet with Latin letters in April 1993. Azerbaijan deserted the Cyrillic alphabet for the Latin one in December 1991, simply a few months after it grew to become impartial. Kazakhstan’s first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was late to the “sport” of renunciation partly due to the numerous variety of Russians and Russian audio system in Kazakhstan. He signed a decree on “On the interpretation of the Kazakh language alphabet from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin script” solely in 2017 and the nation plans to get began on the controversial transition in 2023.
For Uzbekistan, Latinization is just not solely a “operate of independence” and an act of “self-determination,” but in addition a step taken to develop into nearer to different Turkic nations (Turkey, for instance) and the West, the place many countries communicate English, German, French, and different languages that use a Latin alphabet.
On the identical time, the choice to modify was criticized by many, together with by some Uzbeks who seen the Latinization course of as “Russophobic.” To many, it additionally meant additional isolating the Uzbek diaspora overseas who use Cyrillic and, not like the final inhabitants in Uzbekistan, wouldn’t be assisted by a authorities with mastering the brand new alphabet.
Even louder opprobrium was voiced in Russia, the place some among the many public noticed it as discrimination in opposition to the Russian minority in Uzbekistan (7.7 p.c of the inhabitants in Uzbekistan had been ethnic Russians in 1991, whereas in Kazakhstan the determine was 37 p.c pre-independence). Others had been involved with the obvious declining affect of Russia within the area.
De-Cyrillization and Latinization, nevertheless, have been a prolonged journey for Uzbekistan. The preliminary decree in 1993 envisaged a gradual however full transition by September 2010. The 1993 alphabet was revised in Could 1995 and the essential spelling guidelines had been authorized quickly after, on August 24 of the identical yr. Since 1996, in all schooling establishments, academic processes are absolutely performed utilizing the Latin alphabet, with textbooks and different supplies printed in it. However the full transition was not accomplished by 2010 and was extended, whereas the alphabet itself went by means of a number of extra adjustments and corrections. In 2019, an up to date alphabet was proposed, triggering loud discussions among the many public. Lastly in 2021, a roadmap for the gradual full transition to the Latin-based Uzbek alphabet was authorized.
With an official literacy price of virtually 100% in Uzbekistan (for comparability, it was 11.6 p.c in 1926, when a Latinized new alphabet was launched for the primary time), a full transition to the Latin script is basically a matter of desire for some. In a latest on-line public ballot of 25,000 individuals, a neighborhood leisure web site discovered that 38 p.c of their readers desire the Latin script and one other 34 p.c the Cyrillic, whereas 28 p.c of them famous they’d not care in regards to the script in any respect. Older generations, who had been taught in Cyrillic in school, are extra snug with Cyrillic, however that doesn’t imply they can’t make the most of the brand new alphabet.
On the identical time, it additionally doesn’t imply Cyrillic can be erased. The Russian language remains to be a compulsory topic at public faculties and the younger era who grew up learning the Latinized alphabet are virtually fluent in Cyrillic too.
The transition aligns with the nation’s objectives of self-determination in addition to acceleration of entry to world communication methods, which largely function utilizing Latin scripts, whereas additional withdrawing from Russia. Nonetheless, full compliance may want at the very least one other yr or two.
[ad_2]
Source link
