5 ms·

So, the alphabet of Kazakh language has 42 letters, 33 of them are borrowed from Russian language and 9 are unique. The modern Latin alphabet has 26 letters. It

So, the alphabet of Kazakh language has 42 letters, 33 of them are borrowed from Russian language and 9 are unique. The modern Latin alphabet has 26 letters. It's quite unclear how they are going to convert between these 2 very different sets.

my_first_acct 10y ago
Wikipedia gives the form of romanization currently used on Kazakh government websites [1]. This extends the standard 26-letter Latin alphabet by adding diacritical marks to some of the letters (the way many other languages do, that have more sounds than 26 letters can express). I seem to recall reading that as part of the romanization effort, Kazakhstan will also consider spelling reform, so that there will probably not be an exact one-to-one correspondence between the current Cyrillic spelling and the new Latin spelling. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_alphabets#Latin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_alphabets#Latin
- Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
  Actually most languages have more sounds than letters. Some use diacritical marks, others use multiconsonant groups ("ch" in Spanish, "th" in English), and another option is just not to care (in English most letters can represent various sounds and the mapping is often arbitrary, requiring one to know the word in order to know how it's pronounced).
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    At this point it may be appropriate to remind of the ortographical reform proposal for English, attributed to Mark Twain (though probably not really written by him). http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm
darkhorn 10y ago
26, you mean English alphabet? I think they might use the Turkish alphabet, which has 29 letters. Ğ, Ş, İ, Ç, Ü, Ö, also you can place a hat on the wovel to make it soft. Moreover, there are other "Latin" letters from German, Spanish and French alphabets.
int_19h 10y ago
You can easily create additional letters by 1) diacritics, and 2) combining letters. Have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_Alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_Alphabet In addition, some of the Cyrillic letters currently used represent two phonemes rather than one - notably letters like "ё", "ю", "я". These would be more naturally represented by "y" + vowel in a Latin-based alphabet.
iagooar 10y ago
Not all sounds need to be a single letter. Polish has 32 letters plus 8 digraph, which gives you 40 already.
Markoff 10y ago
just use accents like most of Slavic languages do or Vietnamese as well

my_first_acct 10y ago

Wikipedia gives the form of romanization currently used on Kazakh government websites [1]. This extends the standard 26-letter Latin alphabet by adding diacritical marks to some of the letters (the way many other languages do, that have more sounds than 26 letters can express). I seem to recall reading that as part of the romanization effort, Kazakhstan will also consider spelling reform, so that there will probably not be an exact one-to-one correspondence between the current Cyrillic spelling and the new Latin spelling. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_alphabets#Latin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_alphabets#Latin

Al-Khwarizmi 10y ago
Actually most languages have more sounds than letters. Some use diacritical marks, others use multiconsonant groups ("ch" in Spanish, "th" in English), and another option is just not to care (in English most letters can represent various sounds and the mapping is often arbitrary, requiring one to know the word in order to know how it's pronounced).
- ptaipale 10y ago
  At this point it may be appropriate to remind of the ortographical reform proposal for English, attributed to Mark Twain (though probably not really written by him). http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/twain.htm

darkhorn 10y ago

26, you mean English alphabet? I think they might use the Turkish alphabet, which has 29 letters. Ğ, Ş, İ, Ç, Ü, Ö, also you can place a hat on the wovel to make it soft. Moreover, there are other "Latin" letters from German, Spanish and French alphabets.

int_19h 10y ago

You can easily create additional letters by 1) diacritics, and 2) combining letters. Have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_Alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Turkic_Alphabet In addition, some of the Cyrillic letters currently used represent two phonemes rather than one - notably letters like "ё", "ю", "я". These would be more naturally represented by "y" + vowel in a Latin-based alphabet.

iagooar 10y ago

Not all sounds need to be a single letter. Polish has 32 letters plus 8 digraph, which gives you 40 already.

Markoff 10y ago

just use accents like most of Slavic languages do or Vietnamese as well