It has been one year since the Organization of Turkic States approved the implementation of a common Turkic alphabet, designed for uniform use in all member states. Under the guise of bolstering Turkic unity, Ankara has spearheaded the initiative with the aim to draw the Central Asian states into its political orbit. However, due to limited funds, lack of political incentives, and preexisting linguistic policy, the Central Asian states have largely chosen to ignore the common alphabet entirely. 

In September 2024, the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) announced to the world the creation of a 34-letter common Turkic alphabet based on the Latin script, approved on paper by all member states. The initiative, spearheaded by Türkiye, has been in the works since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Now one year since the common alphabet’s announcement, the manoeuvre has yet to make the large waves in the Central Asian information space that Türkiye had initially hoped for.

The proposed common alphabet exists within the larger regional debate surrounding the political futures of the Central Asian languages. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of the newly independent republics began the process of transitioning their languages from a Cyrillic to a Latin-based script. However, in Central Asia, the decision of switching to a Latin script remains a fierce debate across the region even three decades later. 

Türkiye, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s expansionist foreign policy, has offered a guiding hand by leading the OTS initiative to create a common Turkic alphabet. Türkiye first adopted the Latin script in 1928 as a part of its early independence-era modernisation reforms. By encouraging the Central Asian states to undergo a similar process, Türkiye also aims to cement its position as the dominant centre of the Turkic world.

So far, Erdoğan’s plan has not cultivated many strong allies in Central Asia’s political elite. Most states in the region remain embroiled within national debates over the post-Soviet future of their titular languages, making Central Asian governments particularly resistant to carry out such a monumental linguistic shift at the international level.

Competition for “Middle Power” Status

In the year since the OTS announcement, regional heavyweights Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan remain resistant in adopting the common Turkic alphabet within their borders. According to Nargiza Muratalieva, a Bishkek-based political scientist, “Kazakhstan is not ready to share its leadership in Central Asia, given its attempts to promote itself as a middle power.” Kazakhstan has spent the post-Soviet decades centralizing Central Asian political power within its own borders, with the goal to secure a respected “middle power” status to both the region and the international community at large. Uzbekistan, the largest Central Asian country by population and second largest in terms of GDP, shares similar ambitions. Both countries view the Turkish-led OTS alphabet as an attempt by Türkiye to cement itself as the dominant power in the region, and thus, a threat to their respective national directives.

Read more on Novastan: The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation

While both nations have yet to consider the implementation of the common Turkic alphabet, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have independently embarked on national plans to switch the script of their titular languages from Cyrillic to Latin. In both cases, the political leadership has underestimated the difficulty of this task, leading to much longer timelines for the initiative than initially expected. Currently, both states are stuck in a transitional state where both scripts are used interchangeably. Critics complain that the current linguistic paralysis in the countries is both confusing for citizens and financially taxing for administrations. The Diplomat reports that the 2018 budgetary estimate for Kazakhstan’s Latinization program sat at US$664 million, equivalent to roughly 39% of Kazakhstan’s GDP for that year.

The challenges Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have faced implementing a Latin script have meant that neither government seems willing to invest in the OTS alphabet as a third system for their citizens to learn and their country to switch to. Even Turkmenistan — a state which successfully phased out Cyrillic usage in the 1990s — remains resistant to the OTS plan to change their national standard. Largely closed off from the outside world and averse to foreign influence, the common Turkic alphabet offers few advantages to Ashgabat.

Kyrgyzstan: The Cyrillic Exception

At the unveiling ceremony of the common Turkic alphabet, all eyes were on Kyrgyzstan. To mark the alphabet’s adoption, Erdoğan gifted each represented nation a copy of two books translated into the new alphabet. One of the books was a novel written by Chinghiz Aitmatov, a regionally renowned author hailing from Kyrgyzstan. Erdoğan’s choice was hardly coincidental. Kyrgyzstan today is the only Turkic state to not even attempt to switch the national script away from Cyrillic.

Western analysts attribute Kyrgyzstan’s continued use of Cyrillic to the close relationship with Russia the country has maintained through its post-Soviet independence. Russia largely views increased Turkish influence in Central Asia as a threat to its foothold in the region, and acts to mitigate the country’s power in states like Kyrgyzstan where it still holds considerable influence. However, in the case of Kyrgyzstan’s refusal to adopt the OTS Latin-based alphabet, Muratalieva believes the reasons are more pragmatic than political. “The simplest explanation is the lack of financial resources to accept and to introduce this alphabet on a national level,” Muratalieva explains. While Türkiye has spearheaded the alphabet initiative on paper, the country has remained resistant to supplying funds to OTS member states interested in making the national switch. The lack of available funds severely limits the capacity of financially-limited states like Kyrgyzstan, the smallest economy of the OTS bloc.

When Sadyr Japarov, the president of Kyrgyzstan, was asked about his opinion on the linguistic future of the Kyrgyz language, he stated that “it is too early to talk about transitioning the Kyrgyz language to the Latin alphabet”, RFE/RL reports. Muratalieva believes Japarov’s strategy is to watch and wait how its larger regional neighbours Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan fare in their respective transitions to a Latin-based script. “If one of them succeeds, Kyrgyzstan will follow,” she theorizes.

Azerbaijan as a Potential Model

Not all hope is lost for Turkish power in Central Asia. Azerbaijan, while outside the region, provides a model for the post-Soviet Turkic states open to cooperation with Türkiye, showing how partnership with the state can lead to successful development. Türkiye and Azerbaijan have been close allies ever since the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This strategic partnership has allowed for Azerbaijan to largely chart its own path, both economically and politically distant from Russia. 

One of the first directives Azerbaijan embarked on after independence was the complete transition of its national language from Cyrillic to Latin, a goal it achieved by the turn of the century. The Azerbaijani Latin-based script in its modern form is now very closely related to both the Turkish standard script and the newly proposed OTS alphabet. Such linguistic integration between the two nations has opened many new doors for transnational partnership, successes closely monitored by the Central Asian states.

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Since the beginning of the Russo-Ukraine War, Central Asian states have become increasingly hesitant of close partnership with Russia. Regional leadership fears Russia’s close geographic proximity to their borders may lead to future military conflict. Türkiye, attempting to offer an alternative to Russian partnership in the region, markets its distance from Central Asia as a compelling security guarantee. While maintaining territorial distance from potential Central Asian partners, Türkiye benefits from cultural and religious closeness to the region’s common Turkic heritage. The common Turkic alphabet is only one of many pathways the country is intent to forge with Central Asia through the leverage of common Turkic traditions. Turkish soft power in Central Asia, while currently marginal, is steadily increasing with time.

Türkiye has made it clear that it is willing to take on administrative and economic sacrifices to implement the new alphabet within its own borders, but has maintained its reluctance to take on the financial burdens necessary to implement the script in the Central Asian Turkic states. Combined with Türkiye’s unwillingness to meddle in preexisting linguistic turmoil in Central Asia or directly confront Russia’s lingering cultural influence over the region, has enough time passed to call the OTS common alphabet project a failure? Likely so. 

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Joseph Fisher for Novastan