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

The post Dead in the Water: Has the Common Turkic Alphabet Failed to Boost Turkish Influence in Central Asia? appeared first on Novastan English.

Over thirty years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, colonial influences persist in Kazakhstan. Russian remains widely spoken and serves as the primary language for interethnic communication. As language is a vital symbol of national identity, the enduring linguistic prominence of Russian poses a significant challenge to fully decolonising Kazakh identity. However, the invasion of Ukraine has spurred a young, urban middle class to confront these imperial remnants by reclaiming their native language.

Russia’s colonial war against Ukraine has sent shockwaves throughout Central Asia. Moscow’s emphasis on historical, cultural and linguistic connections makes other former Soviet republics feel increasingly uncomfortable. 

Especially in Kazakhstan, home to a sizable ethnic Russian population, many fear that their country could be next on the Kremlin’s list. These concerns are not unfounded. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian propagandists have repeatedly voiced thin-veiled threats about annexing parts of their southern neighbour. 

Moreover, after partial mobilisation was announced in Russia in September 2022, hundreds of thousands of predominantly young men fled across the border into Kazakhstan. Their arrival has exacerbated existing concerns, and magnified domestic tensions between social groups that identify themselves differently.  

Although over the past three decades, Kazakhstan’s government has attempted to forge a new national identity, Russian influence remains. Since the conquest of the Kazakh steppe in the 19th century by tsarist forces, the lands and the people inhabiting the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan were shaped by imperial rule. First by the Russian Empire, then by the Soviet Union. 

In the 20th century, forced collectivisation uprooted traditional lifestyles and led to famine. Countless people flocked to towns and cities in a desperate search for food and work, places which themselves were colonial spaces, dominated by imperial infrastructure and buildings. Rapid urbanisation and industrialisation have scarred the landscape and still cause pollution and environmental and health problems to this very day. 

Russia’s linguistic legacy

But apart from these more abstract, postcolonial realities, there is the pertinent yet controversial issue of language. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, many have grown painfully aware of the influence Russia still exerts over Kazakhstan through language. 

Over thirty years after independence, Russian remains the country’s main interethnic language. Political scientist Dossym Satpayev, in a piece for Chatham House, writes that Russification policies in the colonial era suppressed the Kazakh language so thoroughly that most forgot how to speak their native tongue. As the de facto official language of the USSR, speaking Russian was key to social mobility. 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the benefits of learning the Kazakh language remained negligible. Although Kazakh is the state language, and Russian a mere ‘official’ language, in reality, Russian-speakers still enjoyed significant privileges and advantages. Until recently, insufficient knowledge of spoken Kazakh was hardly considered a problem, as Russian proficiency was enough to live a comfortable life, especially in the north and in the cities, where most of Kazakhstan’s Russian-speaking population is concentrated.

In education, Russian has been more advantageous for increasing the possibilities to study at renowned schools and universities in Russia, partly because of the availability of a broader range of academic resources. Similarly, career-wise, Russian speakers have traditionally had more job opportunities. By contrast, Kazakh was viewed as backward and inferior, as sociologist Azamat Junisbai remembers how, while growing up, he associated the Kazakh language exclusively as rural, uncultured and of low status.

Read more on Novastan: “Alaqan” – Aida Adilbek’s decolonial documentary cinema

Fear for antagonising Moscow

Initially, Kazakhstan’s government made little effort to support the elevation of the Kazakh language. Policymakers were concerned that such a stance would feed into rising Kazakh nationalism, which in turn could endanger the country’s inter-ethnic stability. 

So, from the 1990s onwards, it chose to counter early national-patriotic movements by prioritising the development of a Kazakhstani civic identity. This civic identity, epitomised by the slogan ‘unity in diversity,’ sought to rally all people of Kazakhstan around the flag of the newly independent republic, regardless of ethnicity. 

However, the main threat to inter-ethnic stability did not emanate from Kazakh nationalism, nor from the country’s sizable Russian minority. As a matter of fact, Astana’s stance on the issue was long guided by the fear that, should it have followed a more ethno-national course, Kazakhstan would have risked antagonising its northern neighbour. 

Demographics driving change

Meanwhile, it was increasingly difficult for the government to balance the national interest against grassroots calls for the strengthening of Kazakh ethnic identity. After independence, millions of Russians left Kazakhstan, dramatically changing the country’s demographic make-up. Kazakhs now form a clear majority. They are the country’s fastest–growing ethnic group, and their proportion of the total population is only expected to increase. 

Satpayev, in his contribution for Chatham House, argues that the strengthening of national-patriotic sentiments and movements is occurring organically. Based on demographic trends, support for a Kazakh ethnic identity will continue to grow, while the use of the Russian language is expected to decline.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine catalysed societal developments resulting from these demographic developments, which are shaping current and future political preferences. Not so long ago, the debate on national identity was quite marginal, predominantly talked about among small-circles of Kazakh-speaking intellectual elites. The war has caused this discussion to spillover into public domain, with an ever-increasing number of people rediscovering what it means to be Kazakh in the context of persistent colonial legacies.

Language as a decolonial tool

Language possibly is the most enduring bastion of Russian influence in Kazakhstan. In an episode of RFE/RL’s Majlis Podcast, sociologist Junisbai discusses how older generations primarily engage with Russian media, which makes them more susceptible to Russian propaganda. Consequently, the idea of so-called benevolent colonialism still is widespread among the elderly. Many believe that Kazakhstan owes much to foreign rule, such as industrialisation and modernisation. 

Read more on Novastan: Pressure from Russia increases on Central Asian media outlets

This sentiment is not shared with younger generations. They have no living memory of the Soviet Union, and seek to undo the final vestiges of Russian and Soviet colonialism in pursuit of a new Kazakh identity. For them, language is a tool for decolonisation. On the streets, for example, this is reflected in the growing popularity of fashion brand Qazaq Republic. This company, famous for its trendy clothing and other merchandise with patriotic Kazakh and English language slogans, owes much of its success to ongoing societal developments.

In an article by media outlet The Diplomat, Biybaris Seitak — founder of a popular Kazakh language Instagram channel Kazakh Bubble — says that the Russian invasion of Ukraine made many Kazakhs realise “that speaking Kazakh was a matter of national security.” The war has made them feel uncomfortable talking about decolonisation in the language of the former coloniser. 

Hence, Russia’s invasion caused many to put words into deeds. The popularity of Kazakh language schools and clubs has exploded, and Kazakhstan’s government has jumped the bandwagon by introducing new plans promoting the Kazakh language.

Even though President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has stated that the proposed alphabet reform, which would see the transition of written Kazakh from Cyrcillic to a Latin-based script, should not be ‘rushed’, he has introduced several other plans for a more independent language policy. These include a mandatory Kazakh language test for people wanting to obtain citizenship, a draft plan for a new media law to increase the use of the Kazakh language, and education reforms aimed at boosting Kazakh proficiency. 

An unstoppable development

Yet, fears of backlash remain. The growing importance of Kazakh could alienate the non-Kazakh speaking population, such as the country’s still significant Russian minority. Satpayev, in his work for Chatham House, described that these people could feel ‘trapped’ or even discriminated against. A conflict of identities looms, heightening the risk of radicalisation and pro-Russian separatism which could trigger a response from Moscow.

Read more on Novastan: “An escalating manifestation of Russophobia” – Kazakhstan at the epicentre of an information war

Prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia used the perceived infringement of Russians’ rights abroad to intervene in neighbouring countries, either diplomatically, economically or militarily. However, chances of Russia invading Kazakhstan for the promotion of the Kazakh language are slim. Moscow is preoccupied on other fronts and, more importantly, it needs Kazakhstan for economic reasons, including for the import of dual-use goods that help Russia sustain its war effort against Ukraine. 

In short, neither Astana nor Moscow is in the position to stop the growing importance of the Kazakh language in Kazakhstan, even if they wanted to. The war in Ukraine and tensions with the West are currently constraining any meaningful Russian response. In parallel, demography is pushing Tokayev’s government ever-closer towards embracing a more ethno-centric national identity. What the future holds remains to be seen. Yet, as long as this geopolitical reality persists, the decolonisation of Kazakhstan is expected to continue. 

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The post The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation appeared first on Novastan English.