Tajik Cyrillic alphabet Алифбои кирилии тоҷикӣ الفبای كيريلى تاجیکی Alifboji kirilii toçikī
Thecoat of arms of theTajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republicc. 1929. "Tajik Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic" is written inTajikLatin, TajikArabic andRussian Cyrillic
Script type	Alphabet
Period	c. 7th century CE – present
Languages	Tajik,Bukharian
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Phoenician alphabet Greek alphabet (partlyGlagolitic alphabet) Early Cyrillic alphabet Russian alphabet Tajik Cyrillic alphabet
ISO 15924
ISO 15924	Cyrl(220), ​Cyrillic
Unicode
Unicode alias	Cyrillic
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

TheTajik language has been written in threealphabets over the course of its history: thePerso-Arabic,Latin and nowadaysCyrillicscript.^[1]

The use of a specific alphabet generally corresponds withstages in history, with Arabic being used first for most of the time, followed by Latin, as a result of the Soviet takeover, for a short period and then Cyrillic, which remains the most widely used alphabet inTajikistan. TheBukhori dialect spoken byBukharan Jews traditionally used theHebrew alphabet, but today is written using the Cyrillic variant.^[2]

As with manypost-Soviet states, the change inwriting system and the debates surrounding it is closely intertwined with political themes. Although not having been used since the adoption of Cyrillic, the Latin script is supported by those who wish to bring the country closer toUzbekistan, which has adopted the Latin-basedUzbek alphabet.^[3] The Persian alphabet is supported by the devoutly religious,Islamists, and by those who wish to bring the country closer toIran,Afghanistan, and theirPersian heritage. As thede facto standard, the Cyrillic alphabet is generally supported by those who wish to maintain thestatus quo, and not distance the country fromRussia.

As a result of the influence ofIslam in the region, Tajik was written in thePersian alphabet up to the 1920s. Until this time, the language was not thought of as separate and simply considered a dialect of thePersian language.^{[need quotation to verify]} TheSoviets began by simplifying the Persian alphabet in 1923, before moving to a Latin-based system in 1927.^[4] The Latin script was introduced by theSoviet Union as part of an effort to increase literacy and distance the, at that time, largely illiterate population, from the IslamicCentral Asia. There were also practical considerations. The regular Persian alphabet, being anabjad, does not provide sufficient letters for representing the vowel system of Tajik. In addition, the abjad is more difficult to learn, each letter having different forms depending on the position in the word.^[5]

TheDecree on Romanisation made this law in April 1928.^[6] The Latin variant for Tajik was based on the work byTurcophone scholars who aimed to producea unified Turkic alphabet,^[7] despite Tajik not being aTurkic language. The literacy campaign was successful, with near-universalliteracy being achieved by the 1950s.^{[citation needed]}

As part of the "russification" ofCentral Asia, the Cyrillic script was introduced in the late 1930s.^[8][9] The alphabet remained Cyrillic until the end of the 1980s with the disintegration of theSoviet Union. In 1989, with the growth inTajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik thestate language. In addition, the law officially equated Tajik withPersian, placing the wordFarsi (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet.^[10]

The Persian alphabet was introduced intoeducation and public life, although the banning of theIslamic Renaissance Party in 1993 slowed down the adoption. In 1999, the wordFarsi was removed from the state-language law.^[11] As of 2004^[update] thede facto standard in use was the Cyrillic alphabet^[12] and as of 1996^[update], only a very small part of the population could read the Persian alphabet.^[13]

The letters of the major versions of the Tajik alphabet are presented below, along with their phonetic values. There is also acomparative table below.

A variant of the Persian alphabet (technically anabjad) is used to write Tajik. In the Tajik version, as with all other versions of the Arabic script, with the exception ofا (alef), vowels are not given unique letters, but rather optionally indicated withdiacritic marks.

TheLatin script was introduced after theRussian Revolution of 1917 in order to facilitate an increase in literacy and distance the language from Islamic influence. Onlylowercase letters were found in the first versions of the Latin variant, between 1926 and 1929. A slightly different version used byJews speaking theBukhori dialect included three extra characters for phonemes not found in the other dialects:ů,ə̧, andḩ.^[14]ḩ in particular represented thevoiceless pharyngeal fricative /ħ/, a feature of the Bukhori dialect.^[15]

The unusual characterƢ is calledGha and represents the phoneme/ʁ/. The character is found inYañalif in which most non-Slavic languages of theSoviet Union were written until the late 1930s. The Latin alphabet is not widely used today, although its adoption is advocated by certain groups.^[3]

TheCyrillic script wasintroduced inTajik Soviet Socialist Republic in the late 1930s, replacing theLatin script that had been used since theOctober Revolution. After 1939, materials published inPersian in the Persian alphabet were banned from the country.^[16] The alphabet below was supplemented by the letters Щ and Ы in 1952.

Before 1998, the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet contained 39 letters in the following order:а б в г д е ё ж з и й к л м н о п р с т у ф х ц ч ш щ ъ ы ь э ю я ғ ӣ қ ӯ ҳ ҷ (the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet and 6 additional letters as distinct letters at the end). The lettersц,щ andы were used only inloanwords; the letterь was used in the combinationsье,ьё,ью,ья (for/jeː,jɔː,ju,jæ/ after consonants) and in loanwords. The lettersц,щ,ы, andь were officially dropped from the alphabet in the 1998 reform. Loanwords are now respelled using native Tajik letters:тс after vowels, otherwiseс forц;ш forщ;и forы;ь is replaced byй inье (alsoьи, ьо in loanwords), dropped otherwise (includingьё,ью,ья). Along with the deprecation of these letters, the 1998 reform also changed the order of the alphabet, which now has the characters with diacritics following their unaltered partners, e.g.г,ғ andк,қ, etc.^[17] leading to the present order (35 letters):а б в г ғ д е ё ж з и ӣ й к қ л м н о п р с т у ӯ ф х ҳ ч ҷ ш ъ э ю я. In 2010, it was suggested that the lettersе ё ю я might be dropped as well.^[18] The lettersе andэ represent the same sound, except that э is used at the beginning of a word (ex.Эрон, "Iran"). The sound combination/jeː/ is represented byе at the beginning of words, otherwise byйе.

The alphabet includes a number of letters not found in theRussian alphabet:

Description	Г withbar	И withmacron	К withdescender	У withmacron	Х withdescender	Ч withdescender
Letter	Ғ	Ӣ	Қ	Ӯ	Ҳ	Ҷ
Phoneme	/ʁ/	/ˈi/	/q/	/ɵː/	/h/	/dʒ/

During the period when the Cyrillicization took place,Ӷ ӷ also appeared a few times in the table of the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet.^[19]

The transliteration standards for the Tajik alphabet in Cyrillic into the Latin alphabet are as follows:

Notes to the table above:

1. ISO 9 — TheInternational Organization for StandardizationISO 9 specification.
2. KNAB — From the placenames database of theInstitute of the Estonian Language.
3. WWS — FromWorld's Writing Systems, Bernard Comrie (ed.)
4. ALA-LC — The standard of theLibrary of Congress and theAmerican Library Association.
5. Edward Allworth, ed. Nationalities of the Soviet East. Publications and Writing Systems (NY: Columbia University Press, 1971)
6. BGN/PCGN — The standard of theUnited States Board on Geographic Names and thePermanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use.
7. KSNG – The standard of theCommission on Standardization of Geographical Names Outside the Republic of Poland (Komisja Standaryzacji Nazw Geograficznych poza Granicami Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej)^[20]

TheHebrew alphabet (anabjad like the Persian alphabet) is used for the Jewish Bukhori dialect primarily inSamarkand andBukhara.^[21][22] Additionally, since 1940, when Jewish schools were closed in Central Asia, the use of the Hebrew Alphabet outside Hebrew liturgy fell into disuse and Bukharian Jewish publications such as books and newspapers began to appear using the Tajik Cyrillic Alphabet. Today, many older Bukharian Jews who speak Bukharian and went to Tajik or Russian schools in Central Asia only know the Tajik Cyrillic Alphabet when reading and writing Bukharian and Tajik.

For reference, the Persian script variant transliterated letter-for-letter into theLatin script appears as follows:

tmạm ậdmạn ậzạd bh dnyạ my̱ ậynd w ạz lḥạẓ mnzlt w ḥqwq bạ hm brạbrnd. hmh ṣḥb ʿql w wjdạnnd, bạyd nsbt bh ykdygr brạdrwạr mnạsbt nmạynd.

And theBGN/PCGN transliteration of the Cyrillic text:

Tamomi odamon ozod ba dunyo meoyand va az lihozi manzilatu huquq bo ham barobarand. Hama sohibi aqlu vijdonand, boyad nisbat ba yakdigar barodarvor munosabat namoyand.

Vowel-pointed Persian includes the vowels that are not usually written.

A table comparing the differentwriting systems used for the Tajik alphabet. The Latin here is based on the 1929 standard, the Cyrillic on the revised 1998 standard, and Persian letters are given in their stand-alone forms.

• Language planning – Deliberate effort to influence languages or their varieties within a speech community
• Official script – Designated writing system of a jurisdiction
• Tajik Braille – Braille equivalent of the Cyrillic scriptPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

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• Media related toАлифбои тоҷикӣ at Wikimedia Commons
• Omniglot – Tajik (Тоҷики / Toçikī / تاجیكی)
• View Cyrillic-script Tajik websites transliterated into the 1920s Latin orthography

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