Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Uzbekistan will introduce a revised version of its Latin-based Uzbek alphabet on 22 April 2027 under a law signed by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on 21 October 2026.
Documents, national currency and securities issued before the law takes effect will remain valid and may continue to circulate even if they contain letters from the previous version of the alphabet.
Existing state symbols and insignia used by government bodies and organisations, relief images of the state emblem on buildings, signs and geographical nameplates, and other items to be specified by the Cabinet of Ministers may remain in use until they wear out or until a deadline established by a special implementation programme.
The government has been instructed to develop and approve the programme within two months.
The revised alphabet will consist of 28 letters and an apostrophe. The combinations “Sh” and “Ch”, along with the letters represented as “Oʻ” and “Gʻ”, will be replaced by the individual letters Ş, Ç, Ö and Ğ. The “Ng” combination will be removed. The previous version contained 26 letters and three letter combinations.
Uzbekistan introduced the Latin script for the Uzbek language in 1993. The original version contained 33 letters and an apostrophe, as well as characters with diacritical marks. In 1995, some letters were replaced with the combinations “Sh”, “Ch”, “Oʻ”, “Gʻ” and “Ng”, while the letter “C” was removed.
The transition from Cyrillic to Latin script was initially scheduled for completion by 2000, but both writing systems remain in use in Uzbekistan.
In October 2020, Mirziyoyev signed a decree on developing the Uzbek language and improving language policy that envisaged completing the transition to the Latin alphabet.
