Vehicularizing the vernacular: using the periodical press to popularize vernacular languages in Soviet Turkic communities
Journal: Central Asian Survey
Year: 2023

The study of language and script change among the Turkic communities of the Soviet Union often focuses on the switch from Arabic to Latin scripts. Less attention is paid to adaptations of the Arabic script to Turkic vernaculars, and to attempts aimed at convincing the literate masses of their usefulness. In the current paper, I aim to do just that. By making use of Turkic-language periodicals from Crimea, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, I throw light on the era before Latin. I explore writers’, edito