The New Turkic Alphabet, known in Turkic languages as Yañalif (Tatar: / , / ; ), is the first Latin alphabet used during the Latinisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the Turkic languages. It replaced the Arabic script-based alphabets like Yaña imlâ used for Tatar in 1928, and was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1938–1940. After their respective independence in 1991, several former Soviet states in Central Asia switched back to Latin script, with slight modifications to the original Yañalif.
There are 33 letters in Yañalif, nine of which are vowels. The apostrophe (') is used for the glottal stop (həmzə or hämzä) and is sometimes considered a letter for the purposes of alphabetic sorting. Other characters may also be used in spelling foreign names. The lowercase form of the letter B is ʙ (small caps B), to prevent confusion with Ь ь (I with bowl). Letter No. 33 looks exactly like Cyrillic soft sign (Ь); Unicode has rejected separate encoding. Capital Ə (schwa) also looks like Russian/Cyrillic Э in some fonts. There is also a digraph in Yañalif (Ьj ьj).
History
The earliest written text in a Kipchak language, specifically the Cuman language, an ancestor of the modern Tatar language and written with Latin characters, is the Codex Cumanicus, dated 1303. Such texts were used by Catholic missionaries to the Golden Horde. Their Latin script ceased to be used after Gazaria was taken over by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century.
For centuries some Tatar languages as well as some other Turkic languages used a modified Arabic alphabet, İske imlâ. The deficiencies of this alphabet were both technical (abundance of positional letterforms complicated adoption of modern technology such as typewriters and teleprinters) and linguistic (Arabic language has only three vowel qualities, but Tatar has nine, which had to be mapped onto combinations and variations of the three existing vowel letters). Because of this some Turkic intelligentsia tended to use the Latin or Cyrillic script. The first attempts appeared in the mid-19th century among Azerbaijanis. At the same period the Russian missionary Nikolay Ilminsky, along with followers, invented a modified Russian alphabet for the Turkic peoples of Idel-Ural, for the purpose of Christianization; Muslim Tatars did not use his alphabet.
In 1908–1909 the Tatar poet started to use the Latin script in his works. He used several digraphs: ea for [æ], eu for [y], eo for [ɵ] and ei for [ɯ]. Arabists turned down his project, preferring to reform İske imlâ. The simplified Arabic script, known as Yaña imlâ, was used in 1920–1927. Sounds specific to the Bashkir language were written with digraphs.
On July 3, 1927, Tatarstan officials declared Yañalif the official script of the Tatar language, replacing the Yaña imlâ script. The first variant of Yañalif did not have separate letters for K and Q (realized as K) and for G and Ğ (realized as G), V and W (realized as W). Ş (sh) looked like the Cyrillic letter Ш (she). C and Ç were realized as in Turkish and the modern Tatar Latin alphabet and later were transposed in the final version of Yañalif.<br/>(1928–1940) !! Original version<br/>(1927) !! Latin Dustь project<br/>(1924) !! Eşce project<br/>(1924) !! Yaña imlâ, <br/> stand-alone form!! Modern Latin Tatar alphabet <br/> and romanization of Bashkir!! modern Cyrillic Tatar alphabet<br/>+ some Bashkir Cyrillic
!IPA
|-
! 1
| colspan="4" | A a || || A a || А а
|/a/
|-
! 2
| B ʙ || B b || B ʙ || B b || || B b || Б б
|/b/
|-
! 3
| C c || colspan="2" | Ç ç || C c || || Ç ç || Ч ч
|/tɕ/
|-
! 4
| Ç ç || C c || Ĝ ĝ || J j || || C c || Җ җ
|/dʑ, ʑ/
|-
! 5
| colspan="4" | D d || || D d || Д д
|/d/
|-
!
| Đ đ || colspan="2" | || Dh dh || || Ź ź || Ҙ ҙ
|/ð, dz/
|-
! 6
| colspan="3" | E e || Э э || || E e || Е е (э)
|/e/
|-
! 7
| Ə ə || Э ә || Ä ä || E e || || Ä ä || Ә ә
|/æ/
|-
! 8
| colspan="4" | F f || || F f || Ф ф
|/f/
|-
! 9
| G g ||rowspan=2| G g || colspan="2" | G g || || G g ||rowspan=2| Г г
|/g/
|-
! 10
| Ƣ ƣ || Gh gh || Ĝ ĝ || || Ğ ğ
|/ɣ/
|-
! 11
| colspan="4" | H h || || H h || Һ һ
|/h/
|-
! 12
| colspan="4" | I i || ||İ i || И и
|/i/
|-
! 13
| colspan="3" | J j || || || Y y || Й й
|/j/
|-
! 14
| colspan="4" | K k || || K k || К к
|/k/
|-
! 15
| colspan="4" | L l || || L l || Л л
|/l/
|-
! 16
| colspan="4" | M m || || M m || М м
|/m/
|-
! 17
| colspan="4" | N n || || N n || Н н
|/n/
|-
! 18
| colspan="2" | Ꞑ ꞑ || Ng ng || Ꞑ ꞑ || || Ñ ñ || Ң ң
|/ŋ/
|-
! 19
| colspan="4" | O o || || O o || О о
|/o/
|-
! 20
| Ɵ ɵ || Ó ó || colspan="2" | Ö ö || || Ö ö || Ө ө
|/ø/
|-
! 21
| colspan="4" | P p || || P p || П п
|/p/
|-
! 22
| Q q || K k || colspan="2" | Q q || || Q q || К к
|/q/
|-
! 23
| colspan="4" | R r || || R r || Р р
|/r/
|-
! 24
| colspan="4" | S s || || S s || С с
|/s/
|-
! 25
| Ş ş || Ш ш || Ş ş || Ç ç || || Ş ş || Ш ш
|/ʃ/
|-
! 26
| colspan="4" | T t || || T t || Т т
|/t/
|-
!
| Ѣ ѣ || colspan="2" | || Th th || || Ś ś || Ҫ ҫ
|/ɕ, θ/
|-
! 27
| colspan="4" | U u || || U u || У у
|/u, w/
|-
!rowspan=2| 28
|rowspan=2| V v ||rowspan=2| W w || || V v || || V v ||rowspan=2| В в
|/v/
|-
| colspan="2" | W w || || W w
|/w/
|-
! 29
| colspan="4" | X x || || X x || Х х
|/x/
|-
! 30
| Y y || V v || colspan="2" | Ü ü || || Ü ü || Ү ү
|/w, y/
|-
! 31
| colspan="4" | Z z || || Z z || З з
|/z/
|-
! 32
| colspan="4" | Ƶ ƶ || || J j || Ж ж
|/ʒ/
|-
! 33
| Ь ь || É é || Y y || Ə ə || || I ı || Ы ы
|/ɯ, ɤ, ɨ/
|-
! (34.1)
| ʼ || colspan="3" | || || ʼ || ъ, ь, э
|/ʔ/
|-
! (34.2)
| Ьj ьj || Y y || Yj yj || Y y || || Iy ıy || Ый ый
|/ɤj/
|}
Eşce (1924) alphabetical order:
: A B C Ç D Dh E F G Ĝ H I J K L M N Ꞑ O Ö P Q R S T Th U Ü W V X Y Z Ƶ Ə Э
Latin dustь (1924) alphabetical order:
Jussi Ahtinen-Karsikko wrote in Finland in 1934: "The change made in the footsteps of the religious indifference formed under the influence of Kemal Pasha's French spirit" felt as if "a thousand-year-old precious tradition had been frivolously sacrificed in favor of a suspicious Western progressiveness".
The Head of the Middle East and Central Asia Section at the British Library, Michael Erdman, feels that the Turkic usage of Arabic script, which dates back to the 10th century when Islam was adopted by Turkic communities, is not as unsuitable as critics claim. Erdman thinks that it is entirely possible to use the script while taking into account the unique vocal features of each languages, which a vast amount of reform efforts in the Russian Empire and later Soviet Union show. He also takes aim at the claim that Arabic script is solely connected to religion and thus backwardness by showcasing modern scientific works created in this writing. Erdman reminds that millions of Turkic people, such as the Uyghurs of China and Azeris of Iran, still use the Arabic script.
It has been argued also, that the Arabic script was more unifying for Turkic peoples; "The very limitations of the Arabic script might be considered as its strength. In essence, while the Arabic script was able to add letters to represent vowels, the obscuring of the same vowels allowed for easier comprehension between speakers with different pronunciations".