We generally don't think about the use of an alphabet as a political statement. In fact for many people, a language using a particular writing system seems more like a given than anything else. It seems obvious that Bulgarian uses Cyrillic and Korean uses Hangul - that's what tradition calls for and inertia keeps in place. I'll use any excuse to show Korean script For many countries though, a lphabets and writing systems can and do change and very often the choice can carry a lot of political weight to it. Kazakhstan and the trend of Central Asia In 2017, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan at the time signed a decree that pledged to switch the Kazakh language form the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. The transition plan is meant to be completed by 2025. This will not be first time for Kazakh to take on a new alphabet. In fact it would be the third time in less than 100 years. The written form of Kazakhstan has taken a rather circuitous pat...
A blog about the impact of politics on langugae