Historically, the
Arabic alphabet had been used by first writers until 1924. Handwritten manuscripts of the Balkar poet Kazim Mechiev and other examples of literature have been preserved to this day. The first printed books in Karachay–Balkar were published in the beginning of the 20th century. In 1910, the prominent educator and the father of literary Karachay-Balkar, Ismail Akbaev, based in
Temir-Khan-Shura (Buynaksk), first standardized the Karachay-Balkar Arabic alphabet and published a book titled "A teaching aid for initial teaching of children to write and read". In 1915, a syndicate of teachers from the religious and secular schools of Karachay commissioned Akbaev to develop a national script. The result of this was a primer published in 1916, titled "Ana tili" (آنا تیلی). After the
October Revolution, initially as part of the soviet policy of standardization of school curriculum and public education, the standard Arabic alphabet for Karachay-Balkar was refined once more, in the 2nd edition of "Ana tili" (آنا تیلی) being published by
Ismail Akbaev in 1921. Later, as part of a new state campaign of
Latinization Karachay and Balkar educators developed a new alphabet based on Latin letters, being officially adopted in 1924. In the 1930s, the official Soviet policy was revised and the process of
Cyrillization of
Soviet languages was started. In 1937–38 the new alphabet based on Cyrillic letters was officially adopted, which remains the official alphabet for Karachay-Balkar up till today.
Cyrillic alphabet Modern Karachay–Balkar Cyrillic alphabet:
Notes • In Kabardino-Balkaria,
ж is written instead of
дж, corresponding to the dialectical variation in the pronunciation. • Word-initially, the letter
е would be pronounced as [je], whereas the letter
э would be pronounced as
e. The letter
э is not used in the middle or end of words, in native Karachay-Balkar words. • The letters
ё,
ю, and
я are pronounced as vowels , , and respectively in native Karachay-Balkar words, but are pronounced as [jo], [ju], and [ja] in Russian loanwords. • Karachay-Cherkessia, they write
нъ instead of
нг. • In some publications, especially during the Soviet period, the letter
у́ or
ў is used for the sound . • The letter
х can have a variety of pronunciations. In native Karachay-Balkar words, it is pronounced as . In Russian loanwords, as , and in loanwords of Arabic or Persian origin, as either or . In a new project approved in May 1961, the alphabet was modified to reduce the use of digraphs and non-orthodox usage of Russian letters, featuring the unique letters
Ғ ғ, Җ җ, Қ қ, Ң ң, Ө ө, Ў ў, Ү ү. It was nullified and the normal Cyrillic alphabet was restored in 1964.
Latin alphabet Karachay–Balkar Latin alphabet:
Notes • The letter
h was included at first to represent loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin containing the letters '
ھ and
ح, having the sound . The letter
x initially represented the sound , either Arabic and Persian loanwords containing the letter
خ or Russian loanwords containing the letter
х. The digraph
xh was included to represent native Karachay-Balkar sound , which was occasionally written in Karachay Arabic alphabet as
حۤ. These letters were merged into the single letter
x in 1924. The letter
h was added again in 1924, but removed again in 1934. • The letter
ө was initially proposed to be
œ. • The sound was initially to be written as
sh. • The letters
ꞩ and
w were added in 1934. In the 1990s, with the fall of the Soviet Union, efforts were made to revert Karachay-Balkar to the Latin alphabet. Specifically, a newspaper named "Üyge igikik" was published during the 1990s. The alphabet of the publication was very similar to modern
Turkish and it contained the following letters: •
A a, B b, C c, Ç ç, D d, E e, F f, G g, Ğ ğ, H h, İ i, I ı, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, Ö ö, P p, Q q, R r, S s, Ş ş, T t, U u, Ü ü, V v, W w, X x, Y y, Z z Arabic alphabet Prior to 1925, for centuries, the
Perso-Arabic script was the basis of the literary language among Karachay-Balkar. Be it in he form of
Ottoman Turkish in the Caucasus and among the diaspora in Turkey, or be it the
Cuman language, the Turkic lingua franca of the Caucasus and Southern Russia for a few centuries, and more closely related to Karachay-Balkar itself. From the early 20th century, there was attempts to bring the writing closer to the spoken dialects and languages among the Karachay and Balkar. As mentioned, the first successful national attempt at standardization of the alphabet was done in 1916. The second and final attempt was done in 1921, in a published primer, both done by
Islael Akbaev. In the first iteration, Arabic maintained the original spelling, with homophone letters continued being used and vowels not fully shown, just as in Arabic orthography. In the second attempt, the use of vowels became more consistent and fully-encompassing, the initial
alef letter was dropped (similar to
Kazakh Arabic alphabet in the same era. Furthermore, the Arabic letters that had the same pronunciation in Karachay-Balkar were dropped and consolidated (For example the letters
ث and
ص were dropped in favour of the letter
س);with the exception of the letter
ع representing a glottal stop , and the letters that represent the sounds [~]. The table below lists the 1921 iteration of the Karachay-Balkar Arabic Alphabet, containing 34 letters.
Note • In this iteration of the Arabic alphabet, the letter
ح was split into two, an unmarked letter, and one that is marked with
maddah or tilde,
حۤ. The letter
ح was to be used for writing Arabic loanwords and the letter
ھ for writing foreign loanwords (Arabic, and also Persian and other foreign languages), representing the sound [h]. The letter
حۤ was used for writing of native Karachay-Balkar words, and it was to distinguish the [χ] pronunciation of the letter
ح in these words with the pronunciation of this letter in Arabic loanwords.
Comparison chart == Grammar ==