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The 'Kazakh alphabets' are the alphabets used to write the Kazakh language. The Kazakh language uses the following alphabets:

★ The Cyrillic alphabet is officially used in the Republic of Kazakhstan and Bayan-Ölgiy Province in Mongolia. It is also used by native Kazakh populations belonging to the areas of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, as well as diasporas in other countries of the former USSR. It was introduced by the Soviet Union in 1940.

★ The Arabic alphabet is officially used in People's Republic of China in the Altay Prefecture and the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is also used in Iran and Afghanistan. This is a modified script based on the alphabet used for Kazakh before 1927.

★ A Latin alphabet based on the Turkish alphabet is unofficially used by the Kazakh diaspora in Turkey. The Kazakh diaspora also uses a surrogate Latin alphabet in Germany, the USA, and in other Western countries. As with other Central Asian Turkic languages, a Latin alphabet was introduced by the Soviets and used from 1927 to 1940 when it was replaced with Cyrillic.

Contents

Cyrillic alphabet

Encoding

Keyboard

Arabic

Latin

Correspondence chart

External links

Cyrillic alphabet

The Kazakh Cyrillic alphabet is the alphabet used in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. This alphabet was reworked by Sarsen Amanzholovich Amanzholov and accepted 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 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, Һ, 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 like Қ. The letter Һ is used only in Arabic-Persian borrowings and is often pronounced like an unvoiced Х.
The letter И represents the tense vowel obtained from the combinations ЫЙ and ІЙ . The letter У represents and the tense vowel obtained from the combinations ҰУ , ҮУ , ЫУ and ІУ .

Encoding

Before the spread of operating systems and text editors with support for
Unicode, Cyrillic Kazakh often didn't fit on a keyboard because of the problem with 8-bit encoding, which was not supported at the system level and the absence of standard computer fonts. More than 20 variations of 8-bit encoding for Kazakh Cyrillic have been suggested, including the following government standards:

★ CT PK 920-91 for DOS (a modification of code page 866)

★ CT PK 1048—2002 for Windows (a modification of code page 1251)
CT PK 1048—2002 was confirmed in 2002, well after the introduction of different Windows character sets. Some Internet resources in part used the government information agency “KazAkparat” before the encoding of this standard. Today the encoding UTF-8 is being accepted.

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.

Arabic

The Arabic alphabet was traditionally used to write Kazakh before the introduction of the first Latin-based scripts in 1927, and is used in China. The letters چ، پ، ڭ، گ، ۆ are used to represent sounds not found in the Arabic language.

Latin

The Uniform Turkic Alphabet was used in the USSR in the 1930s till its replacement by a Cyrillic script. Kazakh speakers in countries that use the Latin alphabet also use a different Latin script based on the Turkish alphabet. Recently as part of a modernization program the government has stated plans to restore a Latin-based alphabet.
Some websites of the government of Kazakstan are available in both Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Among them are http://www.government.kz/, the main website of the government of Kazakhstan, and National information agency Kazinform (also known as QazAqparat).

Correspondence chart

Correspondence chart of official and mostly spread writing scripts

Cyrillic	Latin (by QazAqparat)	Arabic	Name of Arabic Letter	IPA transcription
А а	A a	ا	Alif
Ә ә	Ä ä	ٴا	Hamza + Alif
Б б	B b	ب	Ba
В в	V v	ۆ	Waw with V
Г г	G g	گ	Gaf
Ғ ғ	Ğ ğ	ع	Ghayin
Д д	D d	د	Dal
Е е	E e	ه	Ha
Ё ё	Yo yo	يو	Yo
Ж ж	J j	ج	Jeem
З з	Z z	ز	Za
И и	Ï ï	ي	Ya	, ,
Й й	Y y	ي	Ya
К к	K k	ك	Kaf
Қ қ	Q q	ق	Qaf
Л л	L l	ل	Lam
М м	M m	م	Meem
Н н	N n	ن	Noon
Ң ң	Ñ ñ	ڭ	Kaf with 3 dots
О о	O o	و	Waw
Ө ө	Ö ö	وٴ	Hamza + Waw	/ø/
П п	P p	پ	Pa
Р р	R r	ر	Ra
С с	S s	س	Seen
Т т	T t	ت	Ta
У у	W w	ۋ	Waw with 3 dots
Ұ ұ	U u	وُ	Waw with ''damma''
Ү ү	Ü ü	ٴوُ	Hamza + Waw with ''damma''
Ф ф	F f	ف	Fa
Х х	X x	ح	Kha without dots
Һ һ	H h	ھ	Initial Ha
Ц ц	C c	تس	T + S
Ч ч	Ç ç	چ	Cheem
Ш ш	Ş ş	ش	Sheen
Щ щ	Şş şş	شش	Sh + Sh	,
Ъ ъ(жуандық белгі)		--	--	--
Ы ы	I ı	ى	Ya without dots	,
Іі	İ i	ٴى	Hamza + Ya without dots	,
Ь ь(жіңішкелік белгі(сі))		--	--	--
Э э	Ee (Éé)	ه	Ha
Ю ю	Yu yu	يۋ	Y + U
Я я	Ya ya	يا	Y + A	,

Symbols in parentheses are for bi-directional transliteration only.

External links

★ Kazakh alphabet (in Russian)

★ Kazakh language, alphabet, and pronunciation

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