Kazanovitsa, a System of Accurate Transcription of the Kazakh Language, Using Only Letters of the Russian Alphabet

At first, it would appear that the Kazakh language and its troubles are no concern of mine. For I am Russian, and I would be better off caring for the preservation of my native language. But there is something of a law that I have noticed: a people which begins to treat another people's culture and language with disdain and contempt inevitably perishes, itself. Thus, I am propelled to act.

It is strange and painful to see how the Kazakh language is being gradually edged out from daily life, despite all efforts to the contrary on the part of the Kazakh government and Kazakh intelligentsia (one must say -- considerable efforts). The absence of the Kazakh language from the Kazakhstan Internet is something I do not like. I am not the first to have called attention to the gravity of the problem. Today the development of the language is hindered: there are a number of objective reasons, which are examined in the press and in articles on the Internet and, in particular, in an interview with Akhas Tazhutov; the discussion continues on the national television channel, Khabar; I came across some interesting articles in the Internet-newspaper, The Navigator. The language's development suffers not just from lack of financial support.

There is one other reason for the poor showing of the Kazakh language on the Internet, about which people do not say much due to ignorance of the technical issues. This is -- the absence of a single acceptable standard for Kazakh-language drivers and computer keyboard layouts for the Kazakh language, as well as a large "zoo" of Kazakh typefaces (fonts) in mutually incompatible character encodings. I work as a designer, for some time now with the aid of a computer, and I know this not by hearsay but personally, that, in order to enter one Kazakh symbol, it is in many situations necessary to press a sequence of five keys, or else to use a special keyboard layout and fonts to match. And should you try to use another font, the letters get mixed up, once and for all...

I have invented a system of transcription, "Kazanovitsa", which consists of re-writing the specific Kazakh letters (diacriticized or otherwise distinguishable) by making use of the [more common] cyrillic letters and the latin letter 'i'. My proposed scheme is discussed now in various forums in the Kazakhstan Internet.

My Proposal is as Follows:

To use the German way of "tackling" the umlauts (U with diaeresis (Ü) = UE, A with diaeresis (Ä) = AE etc.), and apply this in the Kazakh language. A new system of PRACTICAL TRANSCRIPTION OF KAZAKH could be created based on the principle of using only those letters (cyrillic) that are familiar and understandable to most of the people of Kazakhstan.

The kernel of the idea is to avoid any of the "special" letters of the Kazakh alphabet, (i.e. letters with diacritical marks or alterations), (such as letter K with a lower-right extension in the shape of a small tail (), which stands for a sound somewhat like a back-of-the-throat Russian X=).

Example:

Looks strange ... BUT! I did not use ANYTHING NEW for the spelling of this word, I only used TRANSCRIPTION.

It looks strange, but if one were to accept this German-like scheme:

One need not co-ordinate the Kazakh keyboard layout with Microsoft. And their chief can continue to pay scant attention to this small country in the middle of Asia.

There is no necessity for the Kazakhs to add another driver to their computers to read the news from the Internet in the native language, one can type letters to be mailed, participate in dialogue, in chat, one can publish information in one's native language.

Scanning and otherwise handling Kazakh texts is possible, and and one may REVERSE-TRANSCRIBE them with the proper Kazakh characters, when appropriate. (By the way, I am already doing this.)

It is possible to create Internet - resources in the Kazakh language, hitherto technologically complicated. Or -- as it is done at Alexander Lyakhov's Russian-language site, All WWW-Kazakhstan, -- to use this transcription in Russian, for the more exact rendition of Kazakh names.

Then, in the future, when the expected standard does appear, it will be possible easily to convert the texts in the New Kazakh Spelling back and forth, assuming a UNICODE font with the 9 special Kazakh symbols.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This particular proposed scheme does not aim to repeal or replace the existing conventional spelling, it is being proposed so as to have an alternative, the two ways may well co-exist.

Initiatives "from below" can do much to ensure the equality of the peoples of Kazakhstan. If we actually succeed in raising the Kazakh language in Kazakhstan, then we, the Russians, will be able to keep the peaceful co-existence of the diverse nations, and to keep the Russian language, too. We may all thrive and prosper together, only if one condition is satisfied -- equality.

Andrew Sergeyev