THE OPTIMAL VARIANT OF THE KAZAKH ALPHABET BASED ON THE LATIN GRAPHICS

Abstract

In recent decades Kazakh scientists have repeatedly discussed the return to the Latin graphic system, citing convincing arguments for reform of alphabet. There were also opposing opinions, which were based on the belief that the Latin alphabet is much inferior to the Cyrillic alphabet in the potency to correctly reflect the sound of Turkic words [1, c. 183]. The decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan “On the Kazakh language alphabet translation from Cyrillic to Latin graphics” (2017) nullified the controversy on this topic, and the problem of developing the optimal variant of the Latin alphabet adequate to Turkic phonetics came to the fore.

The relevance of this work is determined by the need to develop an optimal variant of the Latin alphabet and spelling rules based on the phonemic principle of writing words. The scientific significance lies in highlighting the problem of developing a new alphabet, in identifying the mistakes made in the previously proposed variants of the Latin alphabet for the Kazakh language, and in using a methodology that corresponds to the purpose and objectives of the scientific article. Its practical significance is determined by the possibility of using the results of the study when choosing and approving the most acceptable version of the national graphics system.

In the article devoted to the problem of reforming the graphic system, the methods of contrastive, comparative and phonemic transcription were used. Examples of writing Kazakh words using symbols of the Arabic, Latin alphabets and Cyrillic alphabet, as well as Latin variants offered in our time, are considered.

The article proposes a solution to the problem of reforming the writing system, taking into account the grammatical concept of Antoine Arnault and Claude Lanslo, set out in the “General and Rational Grammar of Port-Royal” (1660). In other words, when developing a new alphabet, one should adhere to the principle “one phoneme – one letter symbol”. Attention is drawn to the proposals of some native philologists, which contradict this principle, to introduce into the new alphabet graphemes, denoting the double sounds /ıy/ and /iy/, /uw/ and /üw/, to use the letter e to convey the phoneme /e/ and the combination of consonant /y/ and vowel /e/.

The authors of the article believes that the best proposal is to use the Turkish version of the Latin alphabet when reforming the Kazakh writing system, with the addition of the five letters ä, ñ, q, w, x to the alphabet and the use of the sign c to indicate the affricate /ts/, found in words-internationalisms.