Tuvan writing

Until 1930, the Tuvan language did not have its own written language. In personal correspondence, and since the beginning of the 1920s, after the formation of the Tannu-Tuva People’s Republic , also in print and paperwork, Tuvans used the literary Mongolian language , the writing of which was based on traditional Old Mongolian writing . Writing in Mongolian in the 1920s was owned by only 1.5% of Tuvans ^[1] .

In October 1925, the Fourth Congress of the Tuva People's Revolutionary Party decided to create a national Tuvan script. At the congress, a discussion broke out which writing to take as a basis - Mongolian or Cyrillic. As a result, it was proposed to address this issue for discussion to the USSR Academy of Sciences . At the same time, the Comintern, in an appeal to the congress, recommended the introduction of writing on a Cyrillic basis ^[2] .

In 1927, the first book in Tuvan language was prepared and published in Moscow - the primer “Tyva Uruglarnyҥ eҥ ӧrenyr teperi bashtap uzuke”. Its authors were Buzykaev and Bruchanov. The alphabet of this ABC book had the following form: Aa, BB, BB, Gg, Dd, Yo, Zh, Ӝӝ, Zz, II, Yy, Kk, LL, Mm, Nn, Ҥҥ, Oo, П, PP, Rr, SS, TT , Yy, Ӱӱ, xx, hh, shh, yy . However, this alphabet did not receive further development ^{[3] [1]} .

In the late 1920s, an active process of Latinization of writing was underway in the USSR. Under his influence, it was decided to create national writing on a Latin graphic basis in Tuva. The development of the alphabet was carried out both in the TNR and the USSR. In Tuva itself, the task of developing writing was entrusted to the Lamas Seven and Lopsan-Chimit . In 1928, they drafted writing, based on the German alphabet . This alphabet turned out to be unsuccessful, because, according to A. A. Palmbakh, “he incorrectly established the composition of the sounds of the Tuvan language and mechanically transferred the traditional rules of writing in Latin scripts of other languages ​​to the Tuvan language” ^[2] .

In the USSR, A. A. Palmbakh, E. D. Polivanov, and N. N. Poppe worked on the development of the Tuvan Latinized alphabet. These researchers took as their basis the so-called new Turkic alphabet - “Yanalif”, which was supposed to contribute to the unification of writing among all Turkic peoples. In February 1929, N. N. Poppe handed over his project of the Latinized Tuva alphabet to the embassy of the TPR in Moscow ^{[3] [4]} . To finalize this project, Tuva students from the Communist University of the Workers of the East were involved. At the beginning of 1930, the Tuva alphabet was finally finalized and on June 28, 1930 it was officially introduced by a decree of the government of the TPR ^[5] .

The approved Tuvan alphabet was as follows ^[1] :

In 1931, the letter Ɉ ɉ was excluded from the alphabet, designating the nasalized sonor consonant, which was found in only a few words ^[6] . The creation of national writing made it possible to begin the massive development of education, the eradication of illiteracy, and the publication of books, newspapers and magazines in the Tuvan language ^[5] .

In the late 1930s, the USSR was undergoing a process of translating scripts onto a Cyrillic basis. One of the results of this process was the decision of the XII Congress of the Tuva People's Revolutionary Party (April 1941) on the translation of Tuvan writing into Cyrillic. In the same year, the Tuvan Cyrillic alphabet was compiled and the foundations of spelling were developed. However, the finally new alphabet was approved by the Commission on Language and Writing only in October 1943. On September 8, 1943, the Central Committee of the TNRP and the Council of Ministers of the TNR decided to switch to a new script by May 1, 1944. At the same time, the release of literature in Cyrillic began. However, the Latin alphabet was used in print in parallel with the Cyrillic alphabet until 1945. Since then, no changes have been made to the Tuvan alphabet ^[1] .

The modern Tuvan alphabet looks like this ^[1] :

In 1943-44, Tuva's printing houses did not yet have fonts for the Tuvan Cyrillic alphabet. Therefore, in the first Cyrillic editions, V v was used instead of the letter Ү ү , and Ꞑ Ң instead of ң ң ^[7] .

Tuvans of Mongolia also use Cyrillic script. In 2013, the first primer was compiled and published in their dialect ^[8] . Tuvinians of China do not have their own written language and use the Mongolian and Chinese languages ​​for writing ^[9] .

Correspondence of the letters of the Latinized and Cyrillic Tuvan alphabets ^[6] :