Long live Cyrillic alphabet!

Tataria, which has been recently called Tatarstan, contrary to the norms of the Russian language, decided to start using Roman letters instead of Cyrillic. It is a usual thing for the people of Tatarstan to shift from one alphabet to another. In 1972 they started using the Roman alphabet, the Turkish modification of it – Yanalif, as they call it (it means “the new alphabet”), but in 1993 they started using the Cyrillic. Now they are thinking to go back to Yanalif again, but not at once, within ten years.

The President of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaymiyev, for example, offers to take time in this respect and conduct several experiments. He offered to change the signboards in streets, or to start studying the Tatar language in Roman letters in several schools. This is typical for Shaymiyev – to institute the Roman alphabet, but only a little bit.

There is a certain sense in the introduction of the new language. The Cyrillic alphabet does not at all have any characters to indicate several letters of the Tatar alphabet, but there are a lot of character, which do not have any Tatar equivalents. The thing is more simple with Yanalif – the compliance is bigger. But there is a problem too: the same characters are used in other Turkish languages, for example in Turkey. This is a matter of big politics.

It stands the reason that several deputies of the State Duma “unfolded the flag of the new Russian-Turkish war.” Kaadyr-ool Bicheldey, the deputy chairman of the committee for nationalities, claimed that the introduction of the alphabet of the Turkish kind was “detrimental to Russia’s national security interests.”

There are two bills for the State Duma to consider. One of them offers to institute the norm, pursuant to which only Cyrillic alphabet can be used as the alphabet of the state language of the Russian Federation and its republics. It was said in it that any other type of language coding could be determined with federal laws. The other variant stipulates that any republic of the Russian Federation could use alphabets that were accepted by each nation at their free will. The author of this bill believes that it is not allowed to interfere in the right of each nation to solve its language problems.

Bilchedey has already become famous for his passion for a pure language, when he submitted the bill, which banned swearing and bad words. If deputies vote for the Cyrillic victory in December, no one will be able to write the word “blyad” and get away with it. This will be legally forbidden even in Tatarstan. On the other hand, the right of each nation to solve their language problems is not at all supported with the free will of those nations. Yanalif followers refer to the decisions of the congress of the Tatar people, the opinion of the academic society and other respectable sources. But there has not been a referendum to ask the people, if they want to learn to read and write over again.

If a Russian guy enters a Russian forum on the net being in a foreign country, where there is no Cyrillic keyboard, he is forced to write in Roman letters and those things are very irritating to read. They can hardly be read for more tan five minutes. Maybe, the lawmakers will consider the law on breathing order next?

Anna Kolchak PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov