Gagauz alphabet

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (March 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The modern Gagauz alphabet is a 31-letter Latin-based alphabet modelled on the Turkish alphabet. Previously, during Soviet rule, Gagauz's official script was Cyrillic.

Gagauz was first written in Greek letters in the late 19th century.^[1][2]

The current 31-letter Gagauz alphabet, used for the Gagauz language, is a Latin-based alphabet modelled after the Turkish and Azerbaijani.

History[]

It appears that the first alphabet to be used for the language was the Greek alphabet^[1] in the late 19th century. For example, orientalist claims that plays of Euripides had been translated into the Gagauz language and had been written with Greek letters.^[2]

Beginning in 1957, Cyrillic was used until 1993. On 13 May 1993, the parliament of the Republic of Moldova passed a decision providing for the official adoption of the Latin-based alphabet for the Gagauz language.^[3] This was subsequently amended in 1996.^[4] The official Gagauz alphabet adopted is modelled after the modern Turkish alphabet, with the addition of three letters: ⟨ä⟩ to represent the sound of [æ] (as ⟨ə⟩ in Azeri), ⟨ê⟩ to represent the [ə] (schwa) sound, which does not exist in Turkish, and ⟨ț⟩ or ⟨ţ⟩ to represent the sound [ts] as in Romanian. On the other hand, unlike Crimean Tatar, Turkish, and some other Turkic languages, Gagauz does not have the letter ⟨ğ⟩, which had become completely silent in the Gagauz language. Note that cedillas should be used instead of commas for Ç, Ş, and Ţ for consistency, since C with comma does not exist in Romanian and Turkish uses cedillas for Ç and Ş, although Ț is often seen.

Latin alphabet[]

In their standard order, the letters of the Gagauz alphabet are:

A, Ä, B, C, Ç, D, E, Ê, F, G, H, I, İ, J, K, L, M, N, O, Ö, P, R, S, Ş, T, Ţ, U, Ü, V, Y, Z.

Note that dotted and dotless I are separate letters, each with its own uppercase and lowercase form. I is the capital form of ı, and İ is the capital form of i. The Gagauz alphabet has no q, w or x. Instead, those characters are transliterated into Gagauz as k, v and ks, respectively.

Cyrillic alphabet (historical)[]

References[]