The Kazakh alphabet will be switched to Latin soon. The transition schedule will be made by the government of the country on behalf of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
"Until the end of 2017, after consulting with scientists and members of the public, a single standard of the new Kazakh alphabet and Latin letters should be developed," Interfax cited the article in the Egemen Kazakhstan newspaper as saying.
The president explained that they will start training specialists in 2018, which would teach the new alphabet, they will also start the publication of textbooks for secondary schools. Organizational and methodological work will be carried out for two years.
Nazarbayev specified that the Cyrillic alphabet will be used in parallel with Latin.
The head of the Central Asia Department of the CIS Institute, Andrei Grozin, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, recalled in the first place that talks about switching the Kazakh alphabet to Latin have been going on for a long time. "Therefore, it is worthwhile to wait whether this project will be realized, or once again everything will remain at the stage of discussions," the expert stressed.
At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that the closest neighbors of Kazakhstan - Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - had already moved from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet.
"I guess that they plan to switch the Kazakh alphabet to Latin, but this does not mean reducing the use of Russian language. In all of their speeches, Kazakh leaders and officials say that it is necessary to learn three languages since school. In particular, the program of teaching in English, Kazakh and Russian should be launched this year," Grozin said.
According to him, Kazakh experts are still skeptical about the extent to which the state is able to introduce teaching in English, Kazakh or Russian. "Now the possibility of such a solution is complicated by the lack of a methodological base, a sufficient number of teachers and linguists and a complex and controversial experience of neighbors. If it is difficult to say how Latin is rooted in Turkmenistan, then in Uzbekistan they continue to use Uzbek language in both Cyrillic and Latin. I think the same will be observed in Kazakhstan, because the number of native speakers who accustomed to use only Cyrillic letters is much larger. Besides, Russian language is still in demand," the expert said.
