This piece is a part of our large series focusing on the languages that are not discussed nearly as much as they should be. This list includes languages with their own unique scripts, such as Georgian or Armenian, as well as languages using extended Cyrillic and Latin. We’re preparing this series using research on extended Cyrillic which we conducted in partnership with Type Journal.
You can find more content on the subject on our Instagram As some members of our team are living in Russia we have to follow the Russian law. According to the law, every time we post links to Instagram or Facebook we have to mention the fact that these socials belong to Meta, which was recognized as extremist by the Ministry of Justice if the Russian Federation under the hashtag #tt_extended.
Three scripts in one century
The Tatar language, first runic and then based on Arabic script, had been developing throughout the centuries. It had been influenced by both the main language spoken in the Golden
“Noor” newspaper, 1905
A variant of the Arabic script, İske imlâ (‘old orthography’), was used until 1920. İske imlâ featured additional graphemes for the letters which don’t exist in Arabic: چ پ ڭ ژ گ ۋ for в г ж ң п ч respectively. Later the alphabet was replaced by a simplified version, Yaña imlâ (‘new orthography’), and the latter had been used until 1927 when the Latin based Yañalif was introduced as the official alphabet. However, in 1939, as part of a larger cyrillization process which affected most languages of the nations inhabiting the Soviet Union, a new alphabet was
Poster F. Tagirov, 1921
“Cement” book cover, F. Tagirov, 1928
“Red Tatarstan” newspaper logo, 1929
“Red Tatarstan” newspaper logo, 1928
“Red Tatarstan” newspaper logo, 1924
“Our ABC” book cover, F. Tagirov, 1928, 1928
“Song of Life” theatre play poster, A. Tumashev, 1965
“Mirkai and Aysilu” theatre play poster, М. Salimzhanov, 1966
“Tahir and Zukhra” theatre play poster, A. Tumashev, 1959
“Song of Life” theatre play poster, М. Sutyyushev, 1947
From Cyrillic to Latin and back again
In 1999, the Republic of Tatarstan passed a law establishing an official Tatar Latin alphabet. The new alphabet, Zamanälif, borrowed many things from the Yañalif of the 1930s. In 2000, a number of schools even started teaching this script; all Kazan city posters and school textbooks were supposed to be translated to Latin by 2011. But in January 2002 the Russian State Duma passed a law making Cyrillic the sole official script for all languages used by numerous ethnicities that make up Russia, and the Constitutional Court further stopped the project of transitioning to Zamanälif two years later. However, a group of activists is still using
Facade signs in RUssian and Tatar
Hypothetically, one can use any of three
Typeface for navigating between street art objects of Almetyevsk, created on a Designworkout workshop
“Lived, studied and walked” project, created by SMENA contemporary culture centre
“Lived, studied and walked” project, created by SMENA contemporary culture centre
Practice
Modern Tatar alphabet was introduced in 1939. It is pretty much the same Russian alphabet with six additional letters: three consonants, җ, ң, һ, and three vowels, ә, ө, ү.
A descending element in Tatar җ and ң is the same as we see in ц and щ. And yet you can’t add it to the ж’s serif or stroke terminal in just any
Many linguists believe that that this modern alphabet lacks two more glyphs, қ and ғ, to represent the sounds [qh] and [gh] respectively.