The Role of Alphabets in the Formation of Kazakh Written Language

The Kazakh written language, whose first works were produced in the late 19th century, is a relatively young written language that, until 1940, sporadically used the Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic alphabets. The formation of the Kazakh written language in the late 19th century was influenced not only by the lifestyle of the Kazakhs at that time but also by the language policies pursued by Tsarist Russia and its practices regarding minority languages. It can be said that Ibıray Altınsarin’s proximity to N.I. Ilminskiy, who formulated and managed Russia’s policies on minority languages, played a role in his publication of the first literary work in Kazakh. The Cyrillic alphabet used in the work undeniably contains phonetic elements that distinguish Kazakh, as an oral-based language of the Turkic family, from other Turkic languages. This alphabet also influenced the development of the Arabic-based Kazakh alphabet prepared by Ahmet Baytursınulı and the Latin-based alphabet adopted in 1926. It is evident that the pressure and imposition of the Soviet Union played a significant role in shaping the modern Kazakh written language, particularly with the adoption of the Russian-based Cyrillic alphabet in 1940.