Is Kyrgyzstan about to Become the Last Turkic Republic to Move from the Cyrillic to Latin Script?

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 11 – When the Soviet Union disintegrated, scholars and officials in all five Turkic republics called for changing the alphabet their national languages used from Cyrillic (Russian) to the Latin script. As of now, four of the five have taken serious steps in that direction, although none has been able to do it without difficulty.

            Now, after many years of discussions in which opponents argued that the shift would cost too much money for the impoverished republic and make it more difficult for Kyrgyz to use Russian, something important because of the large number of migrant workers from there in Russian cities, Latinization is again taking center stage in Kyrgyzstan.

            In recent days, there have been a series of articles, academic conferences and discussions in the parliament in which ever more people have come out in favor of making the switch in order to bring that republic into line with its Turkic counterparts and make the learning of English easier (stanradar.com/news/full/36220-v-kyrgyzstane-vnov-sporjat-o-neobhodimosti-perehoda-kyrgyzskogo-jazyka-na-latinitsu.html and stanradar.com/news/full/36227-otvlekajuschaja-latinitsa-v-preddverie-vyborov-v-zhk-v-kyrgyzstane-zagovorili-o-smene-grafiki.html).

            The arguments for and against such a shift in Kyrgyzstan repeat the arguments that have taken place in the other Turkic republics (cf. windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/05/kazakh-writer-calls-for-all-central.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/shift-from-cyrillic-to-latin-script.html).  

            But there is one additional twist: Kyrgyzstan has long been closer to Russia than the others and is clearly worried about taking a step that would be highly offensive to Moscow. Consequently, Kyrgyz opponents of the move are saying that Tatarstan and Bashkortostan do just fine with Cyrillic alphabets so that Kyrgyzstan can as well.

            That argument may be persuasive to some, but it is a double-edged sword: If Kyrgyzstan in the end does make the change bringing all five Turkic republics into line with Turkey and most of the West, there will undoubtedly be even more pressure in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan for a similar change, despite Putin’s law against it.