Altai orthography

The language was written with the Latin script from 1928–1938, but has used Cyrillic (with the addition of 9 extra letters: Јј [d͡z~ɟ], Ҥҥ [ŋ], Ӧӧ [ø~œ], Ӱӱ [y~ʏ], Ғғ [ʁ], Ққ [q], Һһ [h], Ҹҹ [d͡ʑ], Ii [ɨ̹]) since 1938.

The letter Ÿ is sometimes used instead of Ӱ.

## Missionary's Cyrillic Alphabet

The first writing system for Altai was invented by missionaries from the Altai Spiritual Mission in the 1840s; it was based on the Cyrillic alphabet and invented for the Teleut dialect and was used mostly for Church publications. The first books were printed in Altai not long thereafter and in 1868, the first Altaic Alphabet was published. There was no stable form of this alphabet, and it changed from edition-to-edition.

With this in mind, this is an inventory of some of these letters:

## First Cyrillic Alphabet (1922–1928)

After the Bolshevic Revolution in 1917, publishing books into Altai was resumed in 1921, using a script similar to the Missionary's Alphabet. About this time, many post-revolution letters were adopted to better compose Russian words adopted into the language. As such, it took on this form (non-Russian letters emboldened):

Interestingly, in the same space, many considered adapting the old Mongolian Script for use in writing Altai.

## Latin Alphabet (1928–1938)

The Latin Alphabet was eventually adopted and was used from 1922–1928. The final version of this alphabet was published in 1931, taking this form:

The Latin letters correspond as follows to the modern Cyrillic letters:

 Ç
 J
 ņ
 Ө
 Ş
 Y
 Ƶ
 Ь

## Second Cyrillic Alphabet (1938–1944)

In 1938, the *Central Research Institute of Language and Writing of the Peoples of the USSR* began the project of designing a new alphabet for Altai, based on the Cyrillic script. Their new alphabet consisted of all 33 Russian letters, as well as the digraph 〈**Дь дь**〉 and the letter 〈**Ҥҥ**〉, for the phonemes /d͡ʒ/ and /ŋ/ respectively. However, this was later rejected, because it could not accurately represent all of Altai's phonological inventory.

To amend for this, the Institute's first revised alphabet saw the graphemes〈**Ёё**〉 and 〈**Юю**〉 for Altai's vowels /ø~œ/ and /y/ fall out of use, and the addition of two digraphs and two letters: 〈**Дь дь**〉 for /d͡ʒ/, 〈**Нъ нъ**〉for /ŋ/, 〈**Öö**〉 for /ø~œ/, and 〈**Ӱӱ**〉 for /y/. In the second revision, however, 〈Нъ нъ〉 was replaced with 〈**Ҥҥ**〉. Thus was born:

Altai speakers accepted the first variant, but generally preferred 〈**Н' н'**〉 over 〈Ҥҥ〉.

## Modern Standard Altai Alphabet

Their second Cyrillic alphabet had many shortcomings, thus begging for a reform, which was carried out in 1944. The usage of 〈Ёё〉 and 〈Юю〉 /ø~œ/ and /y/ was dropped entirely, being replaced by the adoption of the Institute's second revision's usages of 〈**Öö**〉, and 〈**Ӱӱ**〉, for native words. 〈Дь дь〉 was dropped in favour of 〈**Јј**〉; for 〈Н' н'〉, they finally accepted 〈**Ҥҥ**〉.

The letters 〈Ёё〉, 〈Юю〉, and 〈Яя〉 are still used, though they are reserved for only non-native, Russian loan-words. So, in modern Standard Altai, the equivalent sounds are written: 〈**йа**〉, 〈**йо**〉 and 〈**йу**〉, for native words. So, words that were written: *кая* and *коён*, are now written as: ***кайа*** and ***койон**.*

## References

1. ↑ V. N. Tadikin. Orthography of the Altai language (in Russian) || Orthography of the Turkic literary languages of the USSR. – Moscow: Nauka, 1973
2. ↑ Basic Dates of Altai Book History.
3. ↑ М.S. Katashev. National-language construction in the Mountainous Altai in the 1920s–1930s: Experience, History, Problems.

Altai language and culture: modern trends in development. – Gorno-Altaisk, 2016. – pg. 109–116, 260, and 350.
4. ↑ А. Тыбыкова. Об усовершенствовании и унификация алфавита алтайского языка (рус.) // Вопросы совершенствования алфавитов тюркских языков СССР. — М.: Наука, 1972. — С. 41–48.