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Latin Alphabet Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan’s Senate Approves Latin Alphabet Changes

Uzbekistan’s Senate has approved changes to the country’s Latin-based alphabet, replacing four existing forms with individual letters: Oʻ will become Ö, Gʻ will become Ğ, Sh will become Ş, and Ch will become Ç. The revised alphabet will contain 28 letters and one apostrophe instead of the current 26 letters and three letter combinations. The law was approved at the Senate’s 19th plenary session on September 10 and sent to the president for consideration. The changes are expected to affect schools, official documents, media, publishing, and digital technologies. The reform follows years of debate over Uzbekistan’s transition from Cyrillic to Latin script and attempts to resolve technical problems created by the version of the alphabet adopted in the 1990s. Senator Odiljon Mamatkarimov, who presented the legislation, said the new system moves Uzbek closer to the principle of “one sound, one letter.” Particular attention has focused on Oʻ and Gʻ. According to Mamatkarimov, different apostrophe-like characters are used to write them, producing more than ten variants in practice. This can cause software and search systems to treat different spellings of the same word as separate entries, complicating indexing, electronic dictionaries, and other digital applications. The Ng combination will be removed from the alphabet as a separate unit. Its use and pronunciation will instead be regulated through spelling rules. Officials also argue that standardized characters will simplify the development of Uzbek-language keyboards, software, and artificial intelligence tools, including speech-to-text systems. The selected characters are already used in other Latin-based alphabets. Azerbaijani and Turkish, for example, use several of the same letters. Officials have also presented the changes as a way to improve compatibility between Uzbek and other Turkic languages using Latin scripts. Textbook Transition Planned by 2031 The reform will require changes to textbooks, teaching materials, software, and publications. Deputy Minister of Preschool and School Education Azizbek Turdiyev said the transition would follow the existing textbook replacement schedule. “If the law comes into force in 2027, we will print first-grade textbooks in the new alphabet,” Turdiyev said. “By 2031, all textbooks will be published in the new alphabet.” According to Turdiyev, this should avoid separate spending on wholesale textbook replacement. First-grade textbooks are already renewed annually, those for grades two through four every three years, and books for grades five through eleven every five years. Seminars on the proposed alphabet have also been held for teachers and students, he said, and examinations will eventually use the revised system. Changes to the education system come as Uzbekistan is already overhauling school materials and teaching methods. Cyrillic Remains Widely Used Uzbekistan officially began moving from Cyrillic to Latin script after independence, adopting a Latin alphabet in 1993 and revising it in 1995. More than three decades later, both scripts remain widely visible. Nodir Jonuzoq, head of the Cabinet of Ministers’ Department for the Development of the State Language, said the government intends to end this parallel use in official communication. “We have been caught between two alphabets, Cyrillic and Latin,” Jonuzoq said. “After the...

Language Policy

Uzbekistan’s Alphabet Reform Revives a 33-Year-Old Debate

Uzbekistan began switching from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet in 1993 and initially planned to complete the transition by 2000. Nearly 33 years later, both scripts are still widely used, and the country is preparing to revise its Latin alphabet again. On July 7, the lower house of Uzbekistan’s parliament approved a bill introducing a new version of the alphabet, with 28 letters and one apostrophe instead of the current 26 letters and three letter combinations, and sent it to the Senate. Literary scholar Dilbar Khaydarova told The Times of Central Asia that a reform originally intended to take seven years has stretched across a generation. She attributes the delay mainly to an inconsistent transition, with schools moving faster than publishers and much of the government. “After 30 or 31 years, these small corrections have prompted another reform,” she said. A Reform That Stretched Across Decades Uzbekistan adopted the law introducing a Latin-based alphabet in 1993. Schools were to use the new script first, while adults were expected to have opportunities to study it at workplaces and institutions. The transition was initially due to be completed by 2000. In 1995, the deadline was extended to 2005 and later postponed to 2010. The original alphabet was revised in 1995, when sh and ch were adopted and ng was listed separately. That revision also introduced the forms o‘ and g‘, establishing an alphabet of 26 letters and three letter combinations. Two Alphabets for One Country Schools switched to Latin, while Cyrillic remained common in government and the publishing industry. The media also continued using the script for years, and the Soviet-educated generation remained active in public institutions after 1993. As a result, children learned to write in Latin but continued to encounter Cyrillic in publications and official documents. The same script remained in use when they entered the workplace. “Even if we became literate in Latin, we also developed the ability to read and write in Cyrillic,” Khaydarova said. “Because the situation required it.” She describes this as the coexistence of “two policies or practices that did not correspond to each other.” This mismatch, she believes, largely explains why the transition has lasted for decades. That pattern persists, with some major publications using Latin while others continue publishing in Cyrillic. Khaydarova says the difference does not necessarily reflect opposition to the reform because publishers must consider their audiences’ habits. The Cost of the New Alphabet Implementing the revised alphabet will involve costs beyond school textbooks. Since 1993, Uzbekistan has accumulated a vast body of material in both Cyrillic and the current version of Latin. For publishers, this raises questions about whether existing publications should be converted to the revised script and who will pay for the work. “If they lose a significant share of their audience, there will be serious financial risks in the future,” Khaydarova said. Khaydarova believes the state will have to bear some of the cost by supporting publishers that convert existing materials to the revised script. “The more sources of...

Internet Restrictions

Internet Restrictions in Central Asia: How the Five Countries Differ

There is no single Central Asian internet. Crossing a border can turn a freely accessible website into one that is blocked or reachable only through a virtual private network (VPN). The contrast is starkest in Turkmenistan, where years of censorship have created a black market for access to the open internet. Freedom House’s 2025 Freedom on the Net assessment covers three of the five Central Asian countries. Kyrgyzstan scored 47 out of 100 and retained its Partly Free status. Kazakhstan scored 37, while Uzbekistan scored 29; both were classified as Not Free. Turkmenistan has the most restrictive system in the region. The largest measurement study of its internet censorship to date tested 15.5 million domains and found that more than 122,000 were blocked. Researchers also identified filtering rules that inadvertently made more than 5.4 million additional domains inaccessible. Bypassing these restrictions has developed into a market of its own. In July 2025, VPN keys were being sold for around $50 a month, while access through a connection exempt from government filters cost up to $2,000. Turkmen officials were also alleged to have been involved in selling such access. Such claims are difficult to verify independently inside one of the world’s most closed countries. Even so, the market illustrates the effect of years of blocking: for some residents, a working VPN can provide access to large parts of the internet that would otherwise remain unavailable. The situation in Kazakhstan is different. The internet is far more accessible than in Turkmenistan, although the authorities also use technical controls. A study published by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) found evidence that at least 17 news websites and 73 sites for circumvention tools were blocked between June 1, 2023, and June 1, 2024. The affected sites included independent media and major VPN services. Researchers also found evidence of Transport Layer Security (TLS) man-in-the-middle attacks, in which a third party intercepts an encrypted connection between a user and a website. This can allow the third party to read or alter the data passing through the connection. Similar technology prompted an international dispute in 2019, when internet service providers in Kazakhstan instructed users to install a government-issued security certificate capable of intercepting encrypted web traffic. Major browser developers responded by blocking the certificate or preventing their software from trusting it. Kazakhstan does not, however, operate a closed network. OONI found that some circumvention tools remained accessible, unlike in Turkmenistan, where stable access to the open internet can itself be difficult. Kyrgyzstan’s online environment has traditionally been more open than those of its Central Asian neighbors, though restrictions have increased in recent years. Freedom House kept the country in the Partly Free category in 2025, lowering its score from 48 to 47. It cited the detention of journalists and activists, as well as pressure on online media. Government control has also extended to internet infrastructure. In July 2025, President Sadyr Japarov signed a decree giving state-owned operator ElCat a temporary monopoly on international internet traffic. The decree set the one-year trial...

Former Presidents

What Do Former Presidents Do? From Akayev to Nazarbayev, the Fates of Central Asia’s Ex-Leaders

Central Asia has produced remarkably few former presidents who simply retired from public life. In Kyrgyzstan, former leaders have been driven from office, prosecuted, imprisoned, or forced into exile. Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev has followed a different path, largely withdrawing from public view after losing much of his political influence. Elsewhere, some of the region’s founding presidents died in office, leaving no post-presidential career to examine. The Times of Central Asia has previously examined how political succession has developed across the region. The fate of leaders after they leave office reveals another side of that political tradition. The architect of Kyrgyzstan’s early post-Soviet political model was its first president, Askar Akayev, who remained in office until 2005. Akayev introduced democratic institutions in Kyrgyzstan, but gradually tightened the pressure on his opponents as his presidency progressed. His rule was badly shaken by the Aksy shootings in 2002, which followed the prosecution of opposition lawmaker Azimbek Beknazarov and a territorial dispute with China. Akayev’s government had agreed to transfer disputed border territory to China, a decision fiercely criticized by the opposition. In March 2002, demonstrators in southern Kyrgyzstan demanded Akayev’s impeachment. Security forces opened fire during the unrest, killing several people. The shootings became one of the defining political crises of his presidency. In a 2003 referendum, Akayev significantly strengthened presidential powers at parliament’s expense. Economic hardship, unemployment, widespread corruption, and allegations of fraud in the 2005 parliamentary elections eventually helped trigger the Tulip Revolution in March of that year. Akayev had to flee, with rumors at the time claiming that he was smuggled out in the trunk of an official car, wrapped in a carpet. Criminal cases involving corruption were opened against him and members of his family in Kyrgyzstan. The authorities repeatedly sought his extradition from Russia, but were unsuccessful. After leaving Kyrgyzstan, Akayev lived in Moscow and taught at Moscow State University. In 2006, he became a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In August 2021, Akayev reappeared in Bishkek. He unexpectedly flew into the country and was immediately questioned as part of the criminal investigation into corruption surrounding the Kumtor gold mine. Afterward, he said he had come to Bishkek for a week and was prepared to assist investigators. “I came to speak honestly and sincerely about how we built Kumtor, why we built it, and what mistakes may have been made. The investigation will continue,” he said. In 2023, Kyrgyzstan’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced that the criminal prosecution of Akayev had been terminated because the statute of limitations had expired. Tajikistan’s former president Rahmon Nabiyev was also forced from power. The former Soviet politician lost power amid the country’s civil war in 1992. He died at his home in Khujand the following year, at the age of 62, reportedly from a heart attack. According to his wife, Nabiyev spent his final months in Khujand in conditions resembling house arrest and received a pension of just five rubles. While Tajikistan did not repeat the experiment of violently...

Succession

The Tradition of Power – Why Political Succession in Central Asia Follows Its Own Rules

In January 2027, Kyrgyzstan will hold a presidential election, an event that is anything but routine for the Central Asian republic. Over the past three decades, political crises, often surrounding disputed elections, have repeatedly ended in the removal of presidents. Kyrgyzstan remains an outlier in the region, although it, too, has gradually been moving towards a political model that has long become the norm across the rest of Central Asia. This year marks 35 years since the Soviet republics embarked on independent political lives following the collapse of the USSR. Yet many of the mechanisms governing the transfer of supreme power, shaped during the Soviet era, continue to define politics across the independent states. In Central Asia, three decades of independence have produced a distinctive model of political succession. The final years of the Soviet Union became known as the era of the so-called "gun-carriage race." As one ageing General Secretary after another passed away, an unwritten rule appeared to emerge: the official who chaired the state funeral commission for the deceased leader often became his successor. A remarkably similar pattern later emerged in Central Asia – first in Turkmenistan, then in Uzbekistan. Turkmenistan's first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, died in December 2006. The state funeral commission was chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Health Minister Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who simultaneously became acting president. It was during those funeral ceremonies that the wider public was introduced for the first time to the family of Turkmenbashi. Under the constitution, parliamentary speaker Ovezgeldy Atayev should have assumed the presidency. Instead, he was stripped of immunity and arrested, clearing the way for Berdimuhamedov to take the acting presidency. After assuming the presidency in 2007, Berdimuhamedov gradually abandoned the more eccentric elements of his predecessor's personality cult while building a political system centered on his own leadership. If Niyazov styled himself Turkmenbashi – Leader of All Turkmens – his successor adopted the title Arkadag, or Protector of the Nation. In February 2022, Berdimuhamedov unexpectedly announced that he would step down following an early presidential election scheduled for March 12. He explained the decision by saying it was time to "give the younger generation an opportunity to govern the country." Few doubted that he was referring to his son Serdar Berdimuhamedov, who by then had already occupied most of the key positions within the state hierarchy. That is precisely what happened. Serdar Berdimuhamedov became president, while his father moved to the chairmanship of the Halk Maslahaty, retaining the title of National Leader of the Turkmen People. Uzbekistan followed a similar pattern, although under different circumstances. Islam Karimov built a highly centralized presidential system that left virtually no room for political competition. This applied not only to political opponents, but also to those closest to the president. His eldest daughter, Gulnara Karimova, was placed under house arrest while her father was still alive. Following his death, she was convicted and remains imprisoned in Uzbekistan. When Karimov died in September 2016, reports of his death circulated for several days...

Islamic Finance

Uzbekistan Establishes Islamic Finance Council as New Banking Law Takes Effect

The Central Bank of Uzbekistan has established an Islamic Finance Council to coordinate the work of banks, microfinance organizations, the Deposit Guarantee Agency and other institutions operating under Islamic financial principles. The council was created weeks after Uzbekistan’s new Islamic banking law took effect on June 29. It will prepare national standards, issue regulatory and supervisory recommendations, advise financial institutions and represent the Central Bank in its work with international standard-setters. Building an Islamic Finance Framework Islamic finance prohibits interest and generally requires financing to be linked to assets, trade, leasing or risk-sharing. Common structures include murabaha, in which a bank buys and resells an asset at an agreed markup, and ijara, which operates broadly like leasing. Sharia Specialists Form Council Majority The council has five members: four specialists from the Fatwa Center under the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan and one financial-sector expert. Saidjamol Masayitov, a chief specialist at the Fatwa Center, will chair the council. Muhammadyubkhon Khomidov, also a chief specialist at the center, will serve as deputy chairman. The other members are Fatwa Center specialists Hikmatilla Toshtemirov and Abdullatif Tursunov, along with Akhrorjon Sadullayev, managing partner of Orient Audit Group. Sadullayev has more than 20 years of experience in banking, finance and auditing. The council is intended to combine Sharia expertise with financial regulation. It will report annually to the Central Bank’s board. From Legislation to Implementation Uzbekistan has been developing an Islamic finance framework for several years. Legislation adopted in 2022 allowed microfinance organizations to provide services based on Islamic principles, while detailed regulations introduced in 2024 covered instruments including mudaraba, murabaha, musharaka, ijara and salam. The Central Bank is also preparing a national Islamic finance roadmap for 2026-2030 with assistance from the Islamic Financial Services Board. The work covers banking, capital markets, insurance, professional training and the wider legislative framework. Law No. O’RQ-1126, signed on March 27, established a dual banking model. Stand-alone Islamic banks can operate alongside Islamic “windows” within conventional commercial banks. The law also created a special licensing system and defined permitted Islamic financial operations. Uzbekistan had previously planned to introduce its first Islamic finance services through a commercial bank in 2027, with at least three banks expected to offer them by 2030. Licensing Rules Approved The Central Bank has now amended its licensing regulations for Islamic banks and Islamic windows. The changes were registered by the Ministry of Justice on July 17 and took effect upon official publication. Applicants must submit Sharia-compliance policies, information about their institution-level Islamic finance council, evidence of dedicated internal oversight and audit systems, and a three-year business plan. Existing conventional banks will require a separate license to open an Islamic window. Council candidates must receive Central Bank approval and meet education and professional-experience requirements. At least one member must hold a certificate from the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, or AAOIFI. Certification will become mandatory for all council members from July 1, 2027. Adopting International Standards The Central Bank joined AAOIFI as a regulatory...