Common Turkic Alphabet for Central Asia. Latinization – Imitation of the Process or Political Threats
A week ago, the third meeting of the Commission on the Unified Alphabet of the Turkic World ended in Baku. It was held at the Turkic Academy, which was created in 2009 on the initiative of N. Nazarbayev.
Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan are directly involved in the work of the academy; Uzbekistan and Hungary are observers, while Turkmenistan, in accordance with its long-standing tradition of “not joining anyone,” is not a participant.
As you might guess, an integral part of the agenda was the project to switch to the Latin alphabet. As a result, after a very lengthy discussion (and it lasts for years), a version of 34 letters was agreed upon for use by all participants.
Theses and subtexts of Latinization
You can endlessly watch three processes: how fire burns, how water flows, and how someone works instead of you. Everything is correct, but here it is necessary to add a fourth option - how the alphabet is discussed in the vastness of the CIS. However, all this still fits in with the theme historical heritage, interpretation of history in textbooks and manuals, etc.
The project of a single alphabet based on the Latin alphabet is already more than 30 years old, it has been carried out and dragged out since 1991, however, sarcasm about fire, water and work is only partly appropriate in this case, because this Latinization project is a purely political action. The political tasks and subtexts here are multi-layered, and the results may not be so harmless for us.
The fact that the project of the linguistic “Tower of Babel” was based on politics, in general, became clear almost immediately, back in those already distant “holy” nineties.
The “nationally oriented intelligentsia,” or, more simply and frankly, local anti-Soviet intellectuals, presented Latinization as a return to historical roots, liberation from the Soviet (read – Russian) chauvinistic dictate in language policy, etc.
But the “ears of the essence” stuck out too clearly, since nationally oriented philologists, historians, political scientists and philosophers did not want to return to the Uyghur script or, which was closer in time, the Arabic script or the Arabic alphabet – they did not want to learn Arabic.
Meanwhile, the use of the Arabic alphabet in the past was a universal phenomenon for the region, a natural cultural bond, and Latinization is a sign of a new time – the beginning of the 20th century.
What saved the intellectuals was the fact that in the early USSR the first national alphabets were created on a Latin basis and only later, in the late 1930s, were they translated into Cyrillic.
Was this translation based entirely on the political background of the fight against “bourgeois nationalism,” as has now become fashionable to claim?
Partially, there was such a reason, but still, the main factor here was the presence of a single state and economic space in combination with the general low literacy. Teaching the illiterate first the Latin alphabet, so that they would get used to writing and saying "revolutsiya" or "sotsializm", not to mention the specific "Ч" and "Ш", and then reworking them to understandable norms, was quite difficult.
The initiatives to replace the Cyrillic alphabet came not so much from the center as from the republics themselves, although it would be strange and pointless to deny political factors, especially in the period 1934–1938.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, naturally, it was precisely the topic of repression and the topic of the Cyrillic alphabet that intellectuals would combine and use for the political needs of national construction of new states as a basis for the fight against “Great Russian colonial chauvinism.”
Then the national intelligentsia accepted the second thesis, saying that in this way “all Turkic peoples will be able to understand each other, and this is already a large and united market.” It goes without saying that this was a time when it was proposed to take as much sovereignty as could be carried, and the number of peoples gradually included the Yakuts, Bashkirs, Tatars, Kalmyks, Nogais and many others. The soil was so rich and fertile at that time that the West was very willing to provide funds for these theses.
But there was also a third subtext of Latinization – poverty. The leadership of the national intelligentsia in the republics of the former Soviet Union did not suffer much either in the 1980s or in the 1990s. But those who were already several steps lower on the social ladder fell into a deep hole in terms of their standard of living in the nineties.
And here you either write, "what is due", for grants, or stretch your legs, or "to the market". If you want to go up the steps - the agenda is known, if you do not fit into the work plan to combat "Russian colonialism" - here is the door, here is the threshold.
It is not worth blaming only our neighbors for this. Was it different for us? Is it a secret that through the Soros Foundation entire scientific and humanitarian branches of ours stayed afloat, the only problem is what agenda they were forced to promote in their work. We had the same thing, essentially.
The Turkish factor and its paradoxes
Is it any wonder that when the USSR collapsed, Turkey decided to take its share of the geopolitical pie through the factor of “Turkic unity”. Turkey’s senior comrades and our long-standing “esteemed partners” began to rob and milk the former USSR without a shadow of doubt or concern about morality. Turkey, through the topic of a common Turkic space and the Turkish language, was also going to get something of its own, and even on a certain historical and moral basis.
Moreover, it is obvious that Ankara had been preparing for this option in advance. The first common Turkic alphabet was approved at a conference in Istanbul back in November 1991. The USSR still formally existed, the patient in the bed was still breathing, but the alphabet had already been approved. However, the patient himself no longer recognized anyone.
After the first successes in the field of Turkification, information agencies of the Turkic states are created, which include experts, publishers and journalists, then a single coordination center, which after several iterations will become the very same Turkic Academy, where the commission, which was discussed at the very beginning of the material, functions.
It is clear that the news agencies worked precisely as centers of intelligence and influence for Turkey, but Ankara could not fully realize their potential. And it is not only that the Turks entered into competition with Western liberals, who had greater resources and influence in terms of springboards and elevators for those who wanted them. The problems lay in the very approach to Turkification on a linguistic basis.
These problems were so serious and so obvious that in normal, calm, not particularly politicized times the language project would have simply been abandoned.
The fact is that the Turkish Latin alphabet, which in theory and in fact became the common basis, had a very difficult time in practice fitting into “related” languages, even into ones like Turkmen.
The peculiar irony is that the Latinization of Turkey itself is a phenomenon of the reformation of the early 20th century. The final version of this Turkish Latinization was the Soviet Azerbaijani version. The leader of the Turkic Latinization was not the bloodthirsty West and the globalist Satanists, but the USSR itself.
In 1926, at the All-Union Turkological Congress in Baku, a decision was made on the general transition from the Arabic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, but before that, in fact, the Bashkir, Tatar and Azerbaijani alphabets had been transferred to the Latin alphabet on the initiative of scientists.
In the latter case, the transition was carried out to the so-called “New Turkish Alphabet”, which was formed by 1923, and later it was this alphabet that would be borrowed by the Turkish Republic itself in 1928–1930.
Despite the fact that Latinization in Turkey had been going on since the beginning of the 20th century, Turkey itself formally became Latinized even later than the Soviet Union republics. Moreover, in Turkey, the transition to the Latin alphabet, which took place in several large stages, was perceived with great difficulty. There are descriptions of how the population of Ukraine in the revolutionary years looked at the "new language" with surprise, and this is how they looked at it in Turkey in approximately the same way.
This is because the so-called "return to traditions" in terms of Latinization is a very weak argument. Latin was precisely a revolutionary modernization. However, even Soviet modernist scientists were unable to resolve the issue of a single Latin alphabet for all Turkic-speaking peoples of the USSR.
Let's see how the builders of the new "Tower of Babel" dealt with the problem
If you read the official publications that are part of the "agenda", then both scientists and political scientists seem to be advocating for a common alphabet - now we will all understand each other better. Well, it's not a problem that the letters don't match, these are such trifles. However, intellectuals have been sorting out these trifles for almost thirty years.
It would seem that the closest ones are: Turkmen and Azerbaijani - the difference was eight and four unique letters. The Kazakhs did not match at one time either eight original letters, the Uzbeks - as many as ten. The minimum gap was with the Kyrgyz - three letters.
But the twist of fate was that it was not enough for the CIS countries to switch to the Latin alphabet; for unification, Turkey itself had to make changes to its own alphabet. Ankara was not very keen on doing this. But its colleagues in the unified Latinization also had difficulty understanding what to do.
Turkmenistan was the first to actually refuse to switch to common rails, then Uzbekistan stepped aside. Kazakhstan resisted the longest, conducting mini-reforms several times and only three years ago approaching what can be called a "common alphabet". The result was a gap of "only" three unique letters.
It would seem that a solution has been found for Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan with Turkey, since Turkey itself has now moved up in its alphabet.
However, the problems are not over, but continue and will continue.
First of all, what does it mean to “understand what is written”. You can understand what is written in an email, in a message on social networks, but no one in Turkey will take a bank document written in the “common language”.
When supporters of Turkey's political influence talk about common understanding, they are primarily not talking about paper or electronic media, but about listening comprehension. And the difference in language here will not go away, such unification will take decades. This is the same as creating a single alphabet between Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians - Esperanto can be made.
But implementation must be combined with understanding. A Belarusian and a Russian understand each other instantly by ear, but it is very difficult to read the original Belarusian text. It is not always easy for a Russian to understand a Ukrainian by ear (especially a modern one), but it is much easier to read, although newspeak there now goes beyond all boundaries.
Neither at the official nor at the everyday level does such an Esperanto alphabet solve the problems of Turkic integration in any meaningful way.
Latinization in Central Asia has created many problems during this time and served as the basis for many curiosities. Since they have decided to gradually distance themselves from the Russian language politically, there is no limit to perfection. If you are going to Latinize, then Latinize: Rемоnt aftomobilei – what a signboard option. And they are the ones that have filled the streets. In the Turkish manner, dashes appear instead of dots, and dots instead of dashes. This is a trifle, everyone understands.
But such curiosities in the style of "neither two nor one and a half" are half the trouble. The trouble is that the older generation understands the Cyrillic spelling of their language, and the younger generation tries to live in Latin. And how to combine? Duplicate?
But there is not just a problem, but an abyss full of stars – textbooks on classical subjects. Many old textbooks and manuals are used in colleges. What to do with them, they are entire libraries. However, you can wait until everything is printed in full in Ankara.
Simulacra and Politics
All this means that we have before us a classic imitation model-simulacrum with a clearly expressed political subtext.
The simulacrum will not work, since it is created not for work, but for its imitation. However, the problem here is different. Turkey has long been moving in two directions in its economic expansion, and simultaneously. The first path, for the "ordinary population" - projects related to Islamization and the conduct of discourse within the framework of the so-called "political Islam". The second path is connected with the incorporation of the intelligentsia, and this is precisely the discussion about language and alphabet.
It doesn't matter that this won't work in terms of integrating the "Turkic world". It's not necessary. The task is to constantly burden the national intelligentsia with symposiums, meetings, colloquiums and conferences. Just as parades and military exercises are important for the military, symposiums and conferences are also important for the scientific intelligentsia.
If they also bring money, then interviews, citation of a name on a hot topic - then nothing could be better. This is a food environment for some and a headache for others. Turkey partially takes full-fledged scientific personnel to study at universities, not for the sake of media waves, but for practical work in the future.
But in general, it is precisely the maintenance of constant noise on the language issue, through not very large investments, that allows one to keep the agenda in the intellectual environment in one's hands. After all, Turkey also acts in Central Asia as a kind of bridge to the West, a springboard, a jumping-off point. This is how they hook. And where there is a hook, there is an instrument of influence. The main thing is that it is not that expensive.
The Russian discussion that the Latinization of Central Asia is something a priori negative and almost anti-Russian, in fact, drives itself into a trap of meanings.
What difference does it make whether the narrative about “Russians being cruel colonizers” is carried out in Turkish Latin, the local Soviet Latin of the 1920s, in Cyrillic script, or in pure, simple, and understandable Russian? The latter is precisely what those textbooks and manuals about colonizers are written in. And if the opposite is written in Turkish Latin, how should we accept it or reject it?
Therefore, disputes on this topic are simply a shift in emphasis to a deliberate simulacrum, and at the same time a shift in emphasis that is useless in practical terms.
In Russia, we simply need to categorically exclude such discussions about the new alphabet within the country, simply because such conferences, symposia and colloquiums automatically give Turkey leverage over the scientific and intellectual environment.
And once again it is worth thinking about the fact that Western NGOs, Turkey with its intellectual disputes, are primarily taking advantage of the fact that in Russia and the CIS the scientific community is still financed on a residual basis, and it is forced to look for ways to improve the standard of living.
If you don't feed your army, you'll feed someone else's. No one argues with this expression, but there is another side to the coin: what happens if you don't feed your scientists, for example, those same philologists?
Information