Kazakhstan switching from Cyrillic to Roman alphabet

By Diyar Guldogan

ANKARA (AA) - Kazakhstan's president on Friday signed a decree on the nation making the transition from Cyrillic to a Roman-based alphabet.

Under Nursultan Nazarbayev's decree, Astana will establish a commission for switching the Kazakh alphabet into a Roman-based script by 2025.

Nazarbayev said on April 12 that by 2025 Kazakhstan will start publishing workflows, periodicals, textbooks, and everything else in the Roman alphabet.

He added that Kazakhstan previously used a Roman alphabet from 1929 to 1940 but later replaced it with the Russian-based Cyrillic one.

In a speech last October, Nazarbayev said the transition to a new alphabet will make learning the Kazakh language easier.

He added that the transition would not affect the rights of Russian-speaking people or Russian and other languages, adding: "The use of Russian in Cyrillic remains unchanged. It will also continue to function."