Kazakh alphabets
any of the alphabets used for the Kazakh language
The Kazakh language has been written mainly in four scripts at various points of time—Old Turkic, Cyrillic, Latin, and Arabic—each having a distinct alphabet. The Arabic script is used in Iran, Afghanistan, and China, while the Cyrillic script is used in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Mongolia. In October 2017, a presidential decree in Kazakhstan ordered a transition from the Cyrillic to Latin script to be implemented by 2025. In January 2021, the target year for finishing the transition was pushed back to 2031.
History
During the Soviet era, the majority use of the Arabic script was first replaced by a new Latin-based script, before being abruptly switched to a Cyrillic-based script just decades later.
In an effort to consolidate its national identity, Kazakhstan started a phased transition from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet in 2017. The Kazakh government drafted a seven-year process until the full implementation of the new alphabet, sub-divided into various phases.
Cyrillic script
The Kazakh Cyrillic alphabet is used in Kazakhstan, the Altai Republic in Russia, and the Bayan-Ölgiy Province in Mongolia. It is also used by Kazakh populations in Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as by diasporas in other countries of the former USSR. It was introduced during the Russian Empire period in the 1800s and later adapted by the Soviet Union in 1940.
In the 19th century, the Kazakh educator Ibrahim Altynsarin first introduced a Cyrillic alphabet for transcribing Kazakh.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q913703. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2025, 2021 and 2031.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kazakh alphabets” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.