In the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, latinisation or latinization (russian: латиниза́ция, ') was the name of the campaign during the 1920s–1930s which aimed to replace traditional

writing system A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable fo ...

s for all languages of the Soviet Union with systems that would use the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...

or to create Latin-script-based systems for languages that, at the time, did not have a writing system.

History

Background

Since at least 1700, some Russian intellectuals have sought to Latinise the Russian language in their desire for close relations with the West. The early 20th-century

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

had four goals: to break with

Tsarism Tsarist autocracy (russian: царское самодержавие, transcr. ''tsarskoye samoderzhaviye''), also called Tsarism, was a form of autocracy (later absolute monarchy) specific to the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states th ...

, to spread

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

to the whole world, to isolate the Muslim inhabitants of the Soviet Union from the Arabic–Islamic world and religion, and to eradicate

illiteracy Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in Writing, written form in some specific context of use. In other wo ...

through simplification. They concluded the Latin alphabet was the right tool to do so, and, after seizing power during the Russian Revolution of 1917, they made plans to realise these ideals. Although progress was slow at first, in 1926, the Turkic-majority republics of the Soviet Union adopted the Latin script, giving a major boost to reformers in neighbouring Turkey. When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk adopted the new

Turkish Latin alphabet The Turkish alphabet ( tr, ) is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which ( Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirem ...

in 1928, this in turn encouraged the Soviet leaders to proceed. By 1933, it was estimated that among some language groups that had shifted from an Arabic-based script to Latin, literacy rates rose from 2% to 60%.

Procedure

Almost all Turkic,

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

, Uralic and several other languages were romanised, totalling nearly 50 of the 72 written languages in the USSR. There also existed plans to Latinise Russian and other

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

as well, but in the late 1930s the latinisation campaign was cancelled, and all newly romanised languages were converted to Cyrillic. In 1929 the People's Commissariat of the RSFSR formed a committee to develop the question of the romanisation of the Russian alphabet, led by Professor and with the participation of linguists, bibliographer, printers, and engineers. The Commission completed its work in mid-January 1930. However, on 25 January 1930, General Secretary

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

ordered to halt the development of the question of the romanisation of the Cyrillic alphabet for the Russian language. The following languages were latinised or adapted new Latin-script alphabets: # Abaza (1932) # Abkhaz ( Abkhaz alphabet) (1924) # Adyghe (1926) # Altai (1929) # Assyrian (1930) # Avar (1928) # Azerbaijani ( Azerbaijani alphabet) (1922) # Balochi ( Balochi Latin) (1933) # Bashkir (1927) # Bukhori (1929) # Buryat (1929) # Chechen (1925) # Chinese ( Latinxua Sin Wenz) (1931) # Chukchi ( Chucki Latin) (1931) # Crimean Tatar ( First Latin) (1927) # Dargin (1928) # Dungan (1928) # Eskimo (1931) # Even (1931) # Evenki ( Evenki Latin) (1931) # Ingrian ( Ingrian alphabet) (1932) # Ingush (1923) #

Itelmen The Itelmens ( Itelmen: Итәнмән, russian: Ительмены) are an indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan langu ...

(1931) #

Juhuri Judeo-Tat or Juhuri (''cuhuri'', , ) is the traditional language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus Mountains, especially Azerbaijan and Dagestan, now mainly spoken in Israel. The language is a dialect of Persian which belongs to the ...

(1929) # Kabardiano-Cherkess (1923) # Kalmyk (1930) # Karachay-Balkar (1924) # Karaim (1928) # Karakalpak (1928) # Karelian ( Karelian alphabet) (1931) # Kazakh (

Kazakh alphabet Kazakh, Qazaq or Kazakhstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kazakhstan *Kazakhs, an ethnic group *Kazakh language *The Kazakh Khanate *Kazakh cuisine *Qazakh Rayon, Azerbaijan *Qazax, Azerbaijan *Kazakh Uyezd, administrative distr ...

) (1928) # Ket (1931) # Khakas (1929) #

Khanty The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...

(1931) # Komi (1932) # Komi-Permyak (1932) # Koryak (1931) # Krymchak (1928) # Kumandin (1932) # Kumyk (1927) #

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish languages *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern Kurdistan **Eastern Kurdistan **Northern Kurdistan **Western Kurdistan See also * Kurd (dis ...

( Kurdish alphabets) (1929) # Kyrgyz ( Kyrgyz alphabets) (1928) # Lak (1928) # Laz (1930) # Lezgin ( Lezgin alphabets) (1928) #

Mansi Mansi may refer to: People * Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia ** Mansi language * Giovanni Domenico Mansi Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...

(1931) # Moldovan (name used in the USSR for Romanian; Moldovan alphabet) (1928) #

Nanai language The Nanai language (also called Gold, Goldi, or Hezhen) is spoken by the Nanai people in Siberia, and to a much smaller extent in China's Heilongjiang province, where it is known as Hezhe. The language has about 1,400 speakers out of 17,000 ethn ...

(1931) # Nenets languages (1931) # Nivkh language (1931) #

Nogai language Nogai (; ''Ногай тили, Nogay tili, Ногайша, Nogayşa'') also known as Noğay, Noghay, Nogay, or Nogai Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken in Southeastern European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and in T ...

(1928) #

Ossetic language Ossetian (, , ), commonly referred to as Ossetic and rarely as Ossete (), is an Eastern Iranian language that is spoken predominantly in Ossetia, a region situated on both sides of the Greater Caucasus. It is the native language of the Osseti ...

(1923) # Persian alphabet (1930) #

Sami language Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

(1931) #

Selkup language Selkup language is the language of the Selkups, belonging to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family. It is spoken by some 1,570 people (1994 est.) in the region between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers (in Siberia). The language name ''Selk ...

(1931) # Shor language (1931) # Shughni language (1932) #

Yakut language Yakut , also known as Yakutian, Sakha, Saqa or Saxa ( sah, саха тыла), is a Turkic language spoken by around 450,000 native speakers, primarily the ethnic Yakuts and one of the official languages of Sakha (Yakutia), a federal republic ...

(1920/1929) #

Tabasaran language Tabasaran (also written Tabassaran) is a Northeast Caucasian language of the Lezgic branch. It is spoken by the Tabasaran people in the southern part of the Russian Republic of Dagestan. There are two main dialects: North (Khanag) and South Ta ...

(1932) #

Tajik alphabet The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik ...

(1928) # Talysh language (1929) # Tat language (1933) # Tatar language (

Yañalif Jaꞑalif, Yangalif or Yañalif (Tatar: jaꞑa əlifba/yaña älifba → jaꞑalif/yañalif, , Cyrillic: Яңалиф, "new alphabet") is the first Latin alphabet used during the latinisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the Turkic languag ...

) (1928) #

Tsakhur language Tsakhur ( az, Saxur dili; russian: Цахурский язык) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by the Tsakhurs in northern Azerbaijan and southwestern Dagestan (Russia). It is spoken by about 11,700 people in Azerbaijan and by about 10 ...

(1934) #

Turkmen alphabet The Turkmen alphabet ( tk, Türkmen elipbiýi / / ) refers to variants of the Latin alphabet, Cyrillic alphabet, or Arabic alphabet used for writing of the Turkmen language. The modified variant of the Latin alphabet currently has an officia ...

(1929) #

Udege language The Udege language (also Udihe language, Udekhe language, Udeghe language) is the language of the Udege people. It is a member of the Tungusic family. History Previously an oral language, in 1931 an alphabet was created for writing Udege as a pa ...

(1931) #

Udi language The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to cur ...

(1934) #

Uyghur language The Uyghur or Uighur language (; , , , or , , , , CTA: Uyğurçä; formerly known as Eastern Turki), is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8-11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xi ...

(1928) # Uzbek language (1927) # Vepsian language (1932) Projects were created and approved for the following languages, but were not implemented: # Aleut language #

Arabic language Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

Korean language Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographic ...

Udmurt language Udmurt is a Permic language spoken by the Udmurt people who are native to Udmurtia. As a Uralic language, it is distantly related to languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Mansi, Khanty, and Hungarian. The Udmurt language is co-official with Ru ...

On August 8, 1929, by the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR "On the new Latinised alphabet of the peoples of the Arabic written language of the USSR" the transition to the Latin alphabet was given an official status. The transition to a new alphabet of newspapers and magazines, publishing houses, educational institutions began. In 1930, a new stage of romanisation began: the transition to a new alphabet of peoples of other language groups. In total, between 1923 and 1939, Latin alphabets were created for 50 out of 72 languages of the USSR that were written. In the Mari, Mordovian and Udmurt languages, the use of the Cyrillic alphabet continued even during the period of maximum Latinisation. However, in 1936, a new campaign began to translate all the languages of the peoples of the USSR into Cyrillic, which was largely completed by 1940 ( German, Georgian,

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...

and

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

remained non-cyrillised from the languages common in the USSR; the last three were also not Latinised). Later, Polish,

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

, Latvian, Estonian and Lithuanian languages also remained uncyrillised.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Latinisation in the Soviet Union Soviet internal politics Soviet culture Romanization 1920s in the Soviet Union 1930s in the Soviet Union