Uzbek parliament approves changing four letters of Latin alphabet

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — The Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis approved a law on 7 July 2026 to modify the Uzbek Latin-based alphabet and forwarded the document to the Senate. The bill was reviewed and passed rapidly through three consecutive readings, receiving only two abstentions and zero votes against.

The draft law was presented by Bakhrom Abdukhalimov, Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. According to him, the reform does not entail a fundamental overhaul of the alphabet, but rather targets the replacement of four "problematic" letters in the current script: "o'", "g'", "ch", and "sh".

Under the new proposal, these will be replaced by the characters "Ö", "Ğ", "Ç", and "Ş", respectively. The updated alphabet will consist of 28 letters and a single apostrophe.

Abdukhalimov recalled that directives to optimize the alphabet and spelling rules were originally established in presidential decrees dated 21 October 2019 and 20 October 2020. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev also reiterated the necessity of finalizing this process following broad public discussions during a meeting with Tashkent voters on 5 June 2023. Over the past decade, extensive scientific research, seminars, and conferences were conducted across the Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature and the Academy of Sciences to refine the transition.

The primary technical justification for the reform is the total absence of the current "o'" and "g'" characters in the international Unicode standard character table. Because these markings lack dedicated code positions, digital systems process them as a combination of two distinct symbols rather than a standalone letter. This structural anomaly frequently triggers systemic errors in electronic payment systems, automated translation programs, digital dictionaries, and various online services.

Furthermore, the digraphs "ch" and "sh" cause writing and reading difficulties when identical characters appear sequentially in words such as shoshilinch, xushchaqchaq, or achchiqtosh. This layout has routinely led to common spelling errors, where names like Is'hoq and As'hobiddin are mistakenly written as Ishoq and Ashobiddin, negatively impacting overall public literacy. The proposed replacement characters are already utilized by approximately 300 million people across languages such as Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Gagauz, Crimean Tatar, German, Swedish, Finnish, and Hungarian, making them fully compliant with global IT standards.

The parliamentary floor debate exposed some internal friction. MP Saidullo Azimov questioned the 31-year delay in addressing a problem that dates back to a 1995 decision to abandon single-character graphemes. He inquired whether the issue could instead be solved programmatically via keyboard layouts and requested financial calculations for replacing textbooks and office equipment.

Speaker of the Legislative Chamber Nuredinjon Ismailov cut the questioning short, noting the bill had been available to factions for over a month. Addressing the financial concerns, Ismailov stated that a separate article was appended to the second reading to mandate a phased, gradual implementation. Existing textbooks, passports, diplomas, national currency banknotes, and official corporate documents will remain valid and will only be replaced according to standard, pre-planned expiration schedules. Nodirjon Kholbutayev, Head of the Department for State Language Development of the Cabinet of Ministers, added that while custom keyboard mappings are technically feasible, they fail to resolve the core Unicode incompatibility.

The bill's swift passage renewed questions regarding parliamentary transparency. Since early 2026, the Legislative Chamber ceased streaming plenary sessions on YouTube, shifting them to a less accessible section of its official website with limited archives. Furthermore, the complete, final text of the law approved in the three readings has not been published publicly, leaving only a 2021 draft open for public review.