History Before the 19th century the Shor language had remained unwritten; in the 1870s Orthodox missionaries made the first effort to create a Cyrillic Shor alphabet. In spite of all the efforts by the missionaries, the percentage of literacy among the native population increased very slowly — by the beginning of the 20th century they constituted only about 1% of the Shors. The Shor written language had its 'golden age' in the 1920s. In 1927, a second attempt was made to create a Shor alphabet based on Cyrillic. In 1932-1933, Fedor Cispijakov wrote and published a new primer based on the Latin alphabet. This however considerably complicated the process of learning; thus in 1938, the same author together with Georgij Babuskin created a new variant of the primer based on the Cyrillic alphabet, of which several editions have been published since then. The Mrassu dialect served as a basis for literary Shor language both in the 1930s and in the 1980s when the written form of the Shor language was revitalized after a break (of almost 50 years) in its written history. However, the Kondoma dialect norms are also largely accepted. The
Academy grammar of Shor, published in 1941, was written on the basis of the Mrass dialect by
Dyrenkova. In 2005, to highlight the endangered status of the language, Gennady Kostochakov published a book of poems in Shor, entitled "I am the Last Shor Poet". In 2017, a Shor translation of ''
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' by Liubovʹ Arbaçakova was published.
Missionary alphabet The first book written in the Shor language was published in 1885. It used a modified
Russian alphabet (excluding Ё ё, Ф ф, Щ щ, and Ѣ ѣ) with additional letters Ј ј, Ҥ ҥ, Ӧ ӧ, and Ӱ ӱ. In 1927 an official alphabet was adopted, being the Russian alphabet (excluding Ё ё and ъ) with additional letters Ј ј, Ҥ ҥ, Ӧ ӧ, and Ӱ ӱ.
Latin alphabet A Latin alphabet for the Shor language was introduced in 1930: A a, B в, C c, D d, Ə ə, F f, G g, Ƣ ƣ, I i, J j, K k, Q q, M m, N n, Ꞑ ꞑ, O o, Ө ө, P p, R r, S s, T t, U u, V v, Ş ş, Z z, Ƶ ƶ, L l, Ь ь, Y y, Į į. The order of the letters was later changed to correspond with alphabets for other languages in the
Soviet Union, the letter Ә ә was replaced with E e, and the letter Į į was dropped.
Modern alphabet In 1938 the Latin alphabet was replaced with a Cyrillic one. It used the Russian alphabet with additional letters Ӧ ӧ, Ӱ ӱ, and Нъ нъ. After reforms in 1980 it reached its present form: А а, Б б, В в, Г г, Ғ ғ, Д д, Е е, Ё ё, Ж ж, З з, И и, Й й, К к, Қ қ, Л л, М м, Н н, Ң ң, О о, Ӧ ӧ, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Ӱ ӱ, Ф ф, Х х, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, Щ щ, Ъ ъ, Ы ы, Ь ь, Э э, Ю ю, Я я.
Comparison of Shor alphabets } == Morphology and syntax ==