Earlier this month, Azerbaijan completed its transition to a new Latin script to replace the Cyrillic alphabet in use since the late 1930s. Two Azerbaijani-language newspapers have refused to comply ...

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has signed a decree setting out plans to switch from a Cyrillic-based script for the Kazakh language to a Latin-based alphabet. The decree posted on the ...

Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. After almost 80 years with an alphabet imposed by Moscow, Kazakhstan is getting its own script and possibly a new name.

Twenty-six years ago, two brothers decided their native language needed a new alphabet. The scripts they’d been using to read and write their native Fulani, an African language spoken by at least 40 ...

When Sarvar Otamuradov ran for president in Uzbekistan last year, one of his main campaign promises was to push through the full-fledged adoption of the Latin alphabet. The tone of Otamuradov’s ...

Since the collapse of the USSR, the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia have been debating whether to abandon the Cyrillic alphabet in favour of Latin script. Some argue it more closely ...

The ongoing switch from Cyrillic to a Latin-based alphabet in Kazakhstan has been widely presented as a step toward modernization and global integration by Kazakh officials. However, in Russian media, ...