Cyrillic vs Roman?
BPC asked Tashboo Jumagulov, the chairman of the National Commission of state language, and the parliamentarian Zainidin Kurmanov to give their comments about the discussions in the parliament about switching the Kyrgyz alphabet from Cyrillic to Roman. The chairman of the national commission says that sooner or later Kyrgyzstan should be using Roman letters, since all of Turkic people except Kyrgyzstan use Roman, and Kazakhstan will complete switching to it by 2010. In addition, continues Jumagulov, about 85% of Kyrgyzstan population speaks Turkic languages, and 80% of the world use Roman, and the most important thing, it is more appropriate to Kyrgyz language than Cyrillic. Kyrgyz people had been using Roman letters for 18 years before using Cyrillic. At the same time, only 10 countries in the world use Cyrillic and 9 of them are Slavic people.
The parliamentarian Kurmanov thinks that it is not the right time for Kyrgyzstan for changing its alphabet because it is quite expensive and there are more important problems to be solved. Though he notes that most Turkic countries are changing to Roman, and it is an inevitable process. Both of them also indicate that it is a matter of economic situation in Kyrgyzstan.
It seems that Kyrgyzstan can learn the experience of neighbor countries, carefully analyzing pros and cons of such a big transformation. Also, changing the alphabet can cause much confusion for Russian speaking people who study Kyrgyz language, and a huge misunderstanding between generations who taught different alphabets.
on February 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
The issue/debate was relatively popular in the early nineties esp. beacuse Turkey promoted latinisation but then it died down at least in Kyr and Kaz. BTW I still have copies of a journal called Eurasian Studies from the mid-nineties which was published by the Turkish International Cooperation Agency in a latinised Kaz and Kyr.
IMO, the question here is, what one wants to do with the Kyrgyz language after all. Do they want it to stagnate further and shrivel down to something merely symbolic but socially not functional, pretty much like Gaelic in Ireland? Or do they want to rejuvenate it and give it a more active role?
In the latter case, I think that linking up with a wider Turkic language sphere and, thus, latinisation are necessary. First, there are succesful precedents in Azerb and Turkm (Uzb remains a half-baked attempt but then again that whole country is a deadlock). Second, the IT and poligraphic technology with/adapted to Turkish Latin already exist. Third, Turkey is economically already very active in Kyr.
Latinised Kyr can perfectly co-exist with Russian because the latter will remain important. In Pakistan too, for instance, English, the ex-colonial language, co-exists with Urdu and both are widely used in media and commerce.
Ideally, there should be a regional Turkic language like Chagatai Turkish for CA but that is very unlikely in the present reality (though not impossible, see eg. how Urdu in Pakistan and Bahasa in Indonesia were succesfully promoted).