31 Letters, Including Q, Ñ and Ğ: The Latin Alphabet for Crimean Tatar

On September 22, 2021, Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers, by Resolution No. 993, established a Latin-script alphabet for the Crimean Tatar language — 31 letters. Crimean Tatar was written in the Arabic script until the 1920s, then forced to change, during the Soviet era, first to the Latin script and then to Cyrillic. This resolution returns the language to the Latin script that the speakers’ representative body chose in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, in Russian-occupied Crimea, Cyrillic continues to be used under Russian law. A Ukrainian government strategy document calls this state — the same language split and written in two different scripts — a “divided language.” The following summarizes the situation as of September 2026, based on the Cabinet resolution, strategy documents, and Russian legislation, among other sources.

The 31-Letter Alphabet

The alphabet table attached to Resolution No. 993 has three columns: the letter, its name, and the International Phonetic Alphabet symbol.

The table shows several features. Dotted İ i and dotless I ı are separate letters representing different vowels. Q q is the deep, back-of-the-throat [q]; Ñ ñ is the [ŋ] sound, as in the English word “sing”; Ğ ğ is the fricative [ʁ] made at the back of the throat. C c is [ʤ] (close to the English j sound), Ç ç is [ʧ], and Ş ş is [ʃ] — Latin letter shapes assigned to sounds different from those in English. There are no W or X.

The Cabinet’s announcement (September 22, 2021) explains that this alphabet is based on the decisions of the Qurultay (the Crimean Tatar national assembly) from 1991–1993.

Arabic, Latin, Cyrillic

Crimean Tatar was forced to change its script twice during the 20th century. The “Concept for the Development of the Crimean Tatar Language” (Order No. 296-r), approved by the Cabinet on April 7, 2021, describes the sequence as follows.

• Until 1928: the Arabic script
• 1928–1939: the Latin script
• From 1939: shifted to Cyrillic, along with other Turkic languages, as part of Soviet centralizing policy

The years given differ by one depending on the source. The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU, published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta), in its entry “Tatars,” states that the Latin script, which had been used in education and publishing in place of Arabic from 1929, was replaced by Russian Cyrillic in 1938, and that many words of Arabic, Persian and Turkish origin were replaced with Russian words. The same entry also records that, over the same period, the number of Crimean Tatar periodicals fell from 23 in 1935 to 9 in 1938.

In 1944, the Crimean Tatar people were deported by the Soviet government from Crimea to Central Asia and elsewhere. Return was permitted only at the end of the 1980s, and large-scale return came after the 1991 declaration of independence (IEU, “Crimean Tatars”).

The 1990s Decisions to Return to the Latin Script

According to the Concept, the Qurultay adopted decisions “On the Transition to the Latin Script” in 1991 and “On the Adoption of the Crimean Tatar Alphabet Based on the Latin Script” in 1993. The Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea also decided, by Resolution No. 1139-1 of April 9, 1997, to move to the new alphabet in stages by 2002, but the Concept states that this transition “was not fully realized.”

The 2021 Concept is candid about the situation in areas under Ukrainian control as well: state budget funds go to publications in both Cyrillic and Latin script; school textbooks for Crimean Tatar language and literature are published in Cyrillic; while online and on television the Latin script predominates, and at the university level an informal shift to the Latin script is underway.

What Resolution No. 993 Established

Besides approving the alphabet, the September 22, 2021 resolution established the following.

• The Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the Ministry for Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, and others, with the participation of the Mejlis (the Crimean Tatar representative body), are to take measures to switch education conducted in Crimean Tatar (including textbooks and teaching materials) to the Latin alphabet by September 1, 2025
• Encourage the use of the Latin alphabet in other fields as well
• Inform citizens, including those living in temporarily occupied territory, and international partners about the alphabet, using among other things the platform of the UN’s “International Decade of Indigenous Languages” for 2022–2032

No official report confirming whether the September 1, 2025 deadline for the education transition was met has been found.

After the alphabet came the need for spelling rules (an orthography). By Order No. 657-r of July 28, 2023, the Cabinet instructed the State Service for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (DESS) and others to draft an orthography using the Latin alphabet. According to DESS, the State Commission on the Crimean Tatar Language approved the draft on November 4, 2024, and the Cabinet, by Order No. 307-r of April 4, 2025, agreed to the use of this orthography in education, publishing, media, and elsewhere.

A “Divided Language”

The “Strategy for the Development of the Crimean Tatar Language for 2022–2032” (Order No. 224-r), approved by the Cabinet on February 23, 2022, states that the language is in a state of being “divided,” citing among the causes the parallel use of two alphabets, Cyrillic and Latin. The Strategy states that, while Ukraine has decided to move to the Latin script, in occupied Crimea, Crimean Tatar — including in education from preschool through university — is handled in Cyrillic under Russian law.

The 2021 Concept also gives figures showing the crisis facing the language itself. UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (2010) classifies Crimean Tatar as “severely endangered,” and specialists at the A. Yu. Krymsky Institute of Oriental Studies of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences assess the actual degree of endangerment as “extremely serious.” According to researchers’ estimates, speakers of the language within Ukraine number 70,000–90,000 people, or 20–25% of the Crimean Tatar population.

The 2021 law defining the rights of indigenous peoples, including the Crimean Tatars, is covered in our article on Ukraine’s Law on Indigenous Peoples: the Crimean Tatars, Karaites and Krymchaks.

The Cyrillic Script Used in Occupied Crimea

Russia occupied Crimea in 2014 and declared its “annexation.” Ukrainian government documents describe the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as territory “temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation.” That the Japanese government does not recognize this “annexation” is covered in our article on how Japan does not recognize either “annexation” — Crimea in 2014 or the four oblasts in 2022.

The “constitution” adopted on April 11, 2014 by the bodies of the “Republic of Crimea” that Russia created after the occupation names Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar as its “state languages” in Article 10. Russia’s law “On the Languages of the Peoples of the Russian Federation” provides, in Article 3(6), added by Federal Law No. 165-FZ of December 11, 2002, that the alphabets of the state language of the Russian Federation and of the state languages of its republics “shall be based on the Cyrillic script.” Using any other script requires a federal law. Russia’s Constitutional Court, in a ruling of November 16, 2004, held that this provision does not violate the constitution.

In other words, it is Russian law that requires Crimean Tatar to be written in Cyrillic in occupied Crimea. Ukraine’s 2021 Concept lists this, alongside the restriction of the language’s scope of use and the shrinking of opportunities for education in the mother tongue by Russia and its occupation authorities, as a danger facing the Crimean Tatar language.

Who Chooses the Script

Ukraine’s Resolution No. 993 takes the form of agreeing to a proposal from the Ministry for Reintegration and the Mejlis. The alphabet is based on the Qurultay’s decisions, and the orthography was also drafted with the Mejlis’s participation. The sequence is one in which the state approves the script chosen by the speakers’ own representative body.

How the Crimean Tatar ornamental pattern ornek has been passed down through deportation and return is introduced in our article on ornek, the Crimean Tatar ornamental pattern where the rose is feminine and the tulip is masculine.