Uzbek/The Alphabet

 Index - Before You Begin >>

For over sixty years Uzbek has been written in a modified Cyrillic alphabet. Since 1992 however the Uzbekistan government has made many attempts to switch over to the Latin script. This is the alphabet they decided on in 1995. This is an official script, but at the moment is not the only official script as they are keeping both scripts in use, forever pushing off the date to completely phase out Cyrillic. For your reference I've added a chart showing what letters represent what in the bottom of this page, but we will only use the new alphabet in our lessons.

Latin-Cyrillic Chart
There are special symbols for y sound with vowels:


 * Only at the beginning of the words

At the beginning of the words Cyrillic letter Ее corresponds to the Latin combination Ye ye, elsewhere it corresponds to a Latin letter Ee. Letter Ээ is used for Latin Ee in the beginning of the word, and doesn't occur in the middle of words. Examples:
 * еди - yedi
 * эди - edi
 * мен - men

The general rule doesn't apply to Russian loanwords, where letter э can appear in the middle of the word:
 * поэма - poema

Letter Ьь (soft sign) doesn't represent any sound (and it doesn't mark palatisation, like it does in Slavic languages). It is used only in Russian loanwords, and has no corresponding letter in the Latin script: When suffixes are added to a word, final Ьь is dropped:
 * калькулятор - kalkulator
 * календарь - kalendar
 * панель - panel
 * лагерь - lager
 * календарь + лар = календарлар (kalendar + lar = kalendarlar)
 * панель + ли = панелли (panel + li = panelli)

Letter Ъъ (hard sign) generally corresponds to apostrophe in Latin, but sometimes it is used before a yotified vowel in Russian loanwords; then it means nothing and is omitted in Latin: адъютант - adyutant

 Index - Before You Begin >>