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ALPHABET REFORM: CYRILLIC OR LATIN?Vladimir ALPATOV
Vladimir Alpatov, D.Sc. (Philol.), professor, deputy director, Institute of Oriental Studies, RF Academy of Sciences
It was a while ago that the problem of alphabet for the languages of Soviet peoples seemed to be settled. The situation remained stable for fifty years during which several generations grew accustomed to their alphabets, mainly the Cyrillic one. Social changes resurfaced the problem. As a result many ethnoses again have to learn to read and write.
1. The PastIn the 1920s and 1930s all old habits and traditions of the Russian Empire were uprooted to be replaced with new ones removed in their turn before they could strike roots. The systems of writing were no exception: some of the languages lost their systems three times, many peoples had to learn how to write in their own language from scratch. Here is an example. Tartar writer Musa Jalil wrote his Moabit Notes when kept prisoner in Germany partly in Arabic and partly in Latin script. The author, born in 1906, learned to read and write in his native Tartar tongue when the Arabic alphabet was in use. He mastered the Latin script as an adult. In 1930, the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced yet he was obviously unable to master it by 1941.
Stabilization came when the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced (1937-1941) for a considerable number of languages in the Soviet Union; later in 1953 the Dungan language received Cyrillic script, in 1957, the Gagauz language, in 1954 the Abkhazian and the Ossetian language of South Ossetia were transferred from the Georgian to Cyrillic script.
In the 1940s through to 1980s the written languages of nearly all nations and ethnic groups were based on the Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian languages preserved it throughout the entire Soviet period. The Latin (Roman) alphabet was preserved in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia as well as among the Soviet Germans, Finns, and Poles. The Georgian and Armenian languages, and Yiddish were using their traditional scripts. In the 1920s-1930s over 70 written languages were created in the Soviet Union—all of them based on the Latin alphabet. None of them survived to the 1950s: the majority received Cyrillic writing while over a dozen others lost their newly created written languages altogether.
The Soviet Union’s disintegration and an official rejection of the communist ideology allowed the elites in many former Soviet republics and abroad (Bulgaria, Mongolia, and others) to embrace new political and cultural priorities which, among other things, stimulated a desire to abandon Cyrillic in favor of another script.
2. Factors Behind the Choice of a System of WritingToday, no new systems of writing are created, among those officially recognized and used around the world the Korean system of writing, invented in the fifteenth century, is the latest. At best, one can choose among the already existing systems. If a language has…………………
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