Uzbekistan plans to adapt its state information systems, databases, e-government platforms, and document circulation to the updated Uzbek alphabet. This was announced at a Senate meeting by a representative of the Ministry of Digital Technologies in response to a question from Senator Husan Ermatov.
The senator asked how the new letters Ö, Ğ, Ş, and Ç (replacing O‘, G‘, Sh, and Ch) would be introduced into state information systems, e-government platforms, electronic document circulation, and databases. Nurulla Abdullayev, adviser to the Minister of Digital Technologies on spirituality and state language issues, said that after the law is adopted, a unified technical standard is planned to be developed.
“Second, an audit of databases will be conducted, and the existing letters O‘, G‘, Sh, and Ch will be automatically replaced. Third, integration and data exchange will be adapted. Fourth, electronic document circulation will be adapted,” he said. In addition, the government plans to migrate citizens' data and improve search and identification mechanisms.
According to the ministry representative, technical implementation should be relatively easy because the proposed letters are already used in other countries. Nodirjon Xolbo‘tayev, head of the Department for the Development of the State Language under the Cabinet of Ministers, said that the current alphabet project is already the fifth version in the last ten years. According to him, special attention was paid to the compatibility of new letters with digital technologies. For this purpose, the experience of countries and peoples using the Latin alphabet was studied.
Xolbo‘tayev said that experts are already proposing options for placing four new letters on free keyboard keys. According to the presented photo, this concerns the area where the keys [ ] \ ; ' are usually located on a standard Latin keyboard. In the layout, these positions are highlighted in color for the new symbols Ö, Ğ, Ş, and Ç. “In a very short time, letters will be placed on those free keys, and as we said, we will be able to write those problematic letters with one key press instead of five or six movements,” he said.
According to him, private developers have already begun creating relevant solutions. Programs have appeared on the internet that allow automatic conversion of texts from Cyrillic and the current Latin alphabet to the updated alphabet. Xolbo‘tayev called the current O‘ and G‘ notations one of the factors hindering the digitalization of the Uzbek language. “These four letters in our alphabet, especially O‘ and G‘, their additional sign, like a splinter embedded in the body of our alphabet, frankly speaking, were hindering us,” he said.
Earlier, the Senate approved amendments to the Uzbek alphabet based on Latin script. The new version will consist of 28 letters and one apostrophe instead of the current 26 letters and three letter combinations. It is proposed to use Ş, Ç, Ö, and Ğ instead of Sh, Ch, O‘, and G‘, and to exclude Ng as a separate unit of the alphabet. Senator Husan Ermatov stated that Uzbekistan has still not completed the transition from Cyrillic to the current Latin script and warned of the risk of the emergence of “three alphabets.” The government announced plans to switch media and official paperwork to a single updated alphabet. For the law to enter into force, it must be signed by the president.
Source: www.gazeta.uz