Language       

Language and especially the alphabet were always hot political items in Uzbekistan. Before the Bolshevik revolution Uzbek, which was known as Turki, used Arabic script and grammar was borrowed from Persian and Arabic. With Russian domination and particularly after the revolution, language became the primary ideological tool, and Arabic script was discarded in favor of Cyrillic. After independence, Karimov and his government, reluctantly allowed debate over the national language, and did what they saw to fit their own agenda best. As of 2005 Uzbek is officially the only state language and official script is Latin, with a few modified characters, to accommodate some Uzbek phonemes.

The Uzbek Alphabet

 

Uzbek Letter	Cyrillic	Pronunciation
A a	А а	As the a in father or the a in dad.
B b	Б б	As the b in boat, except at the end of a word where it is pronounced as the p in pat.
D d	Д д	As the d in dog, except at the end of a word where it is pronounced as the t in tog.
E e	Е е, Э э*	As the e in bed. Sometimes as the ey in hey.
F f	Ф ф	As the f in fast.
G g	Г г	As the g in golf.
H h	Ҳ ҳ	As the h in hey.
I i	И и	As the i in bit. Sometimes as the ee in meet.
J j	Ж ж	As the j in jog.
K k	К к	As the k in kit.
L l	Л л	As the l in little.
M m	М м	As the m in men.
N n	Н н	As the n in nod.
O o	О о	As the a in father, but longer and with slightly rounded lips. No English equivalent.
P p	П п	As the p in pit.
Q q	Қ қ	As the k in king, but pronounced much further back in the throat. No English equivalent.
R r	Р р	As the Spanish r, with a roll or trill.
S s	С с	As the s in sit.
T t	Т т	As the t in toy.
U u	У у	As the u in nuke. Near k or g as the u in the French tu.
V v	В в	As the w in wine. Sometimes as the v in vine.
X x	Х х	Like h but rough and throaty, as the ch in the German Bach. No English equivalent.
Y y	Й й	As the y in yet.
Z z	З з	As the z in zip.
O’ o’	Ў ў	As the o in broke. Near k or g as the eu in the French peu.
G’ g’	Ғ ғ	Like x but voiced. As the gh in the Arabic gharb.
Sh sh	Ш ш	As the sh in she.
Ch ch	Ч ч	As the ch in cheese.
Ng Ng	Нг нг	As the ng in sing.
‘	Ъ ъ	A short pause. A glottal stop.

* Э э appears only at the beginning of words, it represents the lasting script E e. When the Cyrillic script E e appears at the beginning of the word it represents the Latin script Ye ye.

General

We have decided to use the Latin alphabet throughout this manual. The Latin alphabet is the official alphabet of Uzbek as spoken in Uzbekistan, and should be adequate for most purposes. Despite this, any student of Uzbek should be at least familiar with the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet. The pronunciation of several of these characters has been slightly simplified to avoid confusion and unnecessary complexity.

Pronunciation

It should be noted that there is not just one dialect of Uzbek in Uzbekistan, there are many; a surprisingly large number considering the relatively small size of the country. As such, pronunciation may vary significantly from town to town and province to province. The alphabet and sounds as described above and used throughout this manual are those of the literary language. They will be understood perfectly well throughout Uzbekistan. The most difficult sounds will be o, q, x and g’. Care should be taken not to pronounce o as the English ‘o,’ which is represented by the Uzbek o’, or the English a, which is represented by the Uzbek a. These four difficult sounds should be learned with the help of a native speaker or with a recording. Care should also be taken to properly pronounce double consonants like “tt,” “mm” and “ss.” In English double consonants are always pronounced as single consonants. In Uzbek this is not the case and there is a distinction between words like “qatiq” (yoghurt) and “qattiq” (hard). The first is pronounced “qa-tiq.” The second is “qat-tiq.” 

The Cyrillic Script

It should be noted that the Uzbek Cyrillic alphabet is not the same as that used in the Russian language. Many characters are pronounced differently, and there are a few extra letters and missing letters as well. The Latin script detailed here is in alphabetical order. The Cyrillic script is not. Two characters are missing from the Cyrillic script represented here: Ю ю (Yu yu) and Я я (Ya ya).