Turkmen alphabet

The Turkmen alphabet used for official purposes in Turkmenistan is a variant of the Latin alphabet based on the Turkish alphabet with notable differences: J is used instead of the Turkish C; W is used instead of V; Ž instead of J; Y instead of dotless i (I/ı); Ý instead of the Turkish consonantal Y; and the letters Ä and Ň have been added to represent the phonetic values /æ/ and /ŋ/, respectively. The selection of Y and Ý is influenced by Cyrillic И and Й, the latter of which is sometimes written И́.

At the start of the 20th century, when Turkmen started to be written, it used the Arabic script, but in 1928 the Latin script was adopted. In 1940, the Russian influence in Soviet Turkmenistan prompted a switch to a Cyrillic alphabet, and a Turkmen Cyrillic alphabet (shown below in the table alongside the Latin) was created. When Turkmenistan became independent in 1991, President Saparmurat Niyazov immediately instigated a return to the Latin script. When it was reintroduced in 1993 it was supposed to use some unusual letters, such as the pound (£), dollar ($), yen (¥), and cent signs (¢), but these were replaced by more conventional letter symbols in 1999. The political and social forces that have combined to bring about these changes of script, then modifications of the Latin script, have been documented by Victoria Clement (2008).

Turkmen is still often written with an Arabic alphabet in other countries where the language is spoken and where the Arabic script is dominant (such as Iran and Afghanistan).

Evolution of Latin script

Correspondence chart

Letter names and pronunciation

See also

• Turkmen Braille

References

• Clement, Victoria. 2008. Emblems of independence: script choice in post-Soviet Turkmenistan in the 1990s. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 192: 171-185

External links

• Omniglot
• Turkmen Cyrillic – Latin converter (does not correctly convert <e> or <ý>)