Arabic script in the
Nastaliq style. Like all
Turkic languages in
Central Asia and its literary predecessor
Chagatai, Uzbek was written in various forms of the
Arabic script historically. Following the
Russian revolution and Soviet takeover of
Russian Turkestan, in January 1921, a reformed Arabic orthography designed by the
Jadidists was adopted, which replaced the
harakat marks used for short vowels with a fully alphabetic system that indicated every vowel and removed all letters that occurred only in Arabic loanwords and did not have a distinct phonetic value. It had six vowels and twenty-three consonants. Notably, unlike the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets that followed, it did not contain a letter to represent , due to the argument that it was always assimilated to in the orthophony. Some had also proposed that there be no letter to represent , due to many dialects assimilating it to , but this was not implemented in the end. The Arabic script is still used for writing Uzbek in Afghanistan and by Afghan-Uzbek diaspora elsewhere. In the early 21st century, with the publication of dictionaries and literature by Afghan-Uzbek scholars, as well as the adaptation of Uzbek Arabic script by domestic as well as international news outlets (just like BBC News Uzbek Afghanistan and TRT Afghani Uzbek), the Arabic script has undergone a process of documentation and standardization.
Latin script The question of the transition of the Uzbek language to the Latin alphabet was raised back in 1920. In January 1921, it was discussed at the regional congress in Tashkent, but then supporters of romanization did not receive approval from numerous adherents of reforming the Arabic script. This issue was raised for the second time in 1926 at the First Turkic Congress in Baku. At this congress, the transition of all Turkic languages of the peoples of the USSR to the new Latin alphabet,
Yañalif was approved. To implement the transition to the Latin alphabet, the New Alphabet Committee was created under the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of the Uzbek SSR. Various projects for the new alphabet were widely discussed on the pages of the press, various meetings, meetings, and conferences. Significant discussion flared up on the issue of displaying synharmonism in writing. It was decided to display synharmonism in writing, for which 9 letters were introduced into the alphabet to display vowels. In 1929, as part of comprehensive programs to "
educate" (politically influence)
Uzbek people, who for the first time now had their own cartographically delineated (administrative) region, Uzbek writing in the
Uzbek SSR was switched to Latin script. The latinization of Uzbek was carried out in the context of
latinization of all languages in the
Soviet Union. The new Latin script also brought about the letter to represent and distinction of back and front vowels, adding a number of new characters for them. At the Republican Spelling Conference in Samarkand, held in May 1929, a new Uzbek alphabet of 34 characters was approved: In 1934, the script underwent another reform, which reverted the addition of back-front vowel distinctions. In this regard, in 1937, a team of scientists under the leadership of A.K. Borovkov began to develop a new version of the Uzbek alphabet and spelling. The alphabet compiled by this team had the following order:
A a, B b, V v, G g, D d, E e, Ƶ ƶ, Z z, I i, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, Å å, O o, P p, R r, S s, T t, U u, F f, X x, C c, Ş ş, Ç ç, Q q, Ƣ ƣ, H h, Ꞑ ꞑ. However, at this time the Cyrillization process was already gaining momentum in the USSR, which made the reform of the Latinized alphabet irrelevant. Education in many areas of Uzbekistan is in the Latin script, and in 2001 the Latin script began to be used on
coins. Since 2004, some official websites have switched over to using the Latin script when writing in Uzbek. In March 2021, the proposed changes were put up for public discussion and debate. They called for replacing Ch ch, Sh sh, Gʻ gʻ, Oʻ oʻ with Ç ç, Ş ş, Ğ ğ, Ŏ ŏ (and, in loans, Ts ts with C c). This would largely reverse the 1995 reform and bring the orthography closer to those of
Turkish,
Turkmen,
Karakalpak,
Kazakh (2018 version) and
Azerbaijani. This was met with mixed reactions from the citizens. The proposal was put up again for discussion in May of the same year, this time with a deadline of 1 November 2021. In February 2021, the Uzbek government announced that Uzbekistan plans to fully transition the Uzbek language from the Cyrillic script to a Latin-based alphabet by 1 January 2023. Similar deadlines had been extended several times. In September 2023, linguists proposed another project for reform of the Latin alphabet, which was proposed to modify four letters: Ў/ў, Ғ/ғ, Ч/ч, & Ш/ш respectively to Õ/õ, Ğ/ğ, C/c, Ş/ş. This was the third attempt to reform the Uzbek alphabet since 2018, but it failed to materialise. According to a report in 2023, Uzbek publishing houses still mostly used both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Generally, the younger generation has
de facto used the Latin alphabet; while the older generation, who grew up in the Soviet era, prefers the Cyrillic alphabet. The Latin alphabet is mainly used in business and tourism, and the Cyrillic alphabet is mainly used in official government documents, though Latin has been in fully used by the state since 2025 and was celebrated by the government. == Alphabetical order ==