The Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet (cyr. Уйғур Сирил Йезиқи, lat. Uyghur Siril Yëziqi or USY) is a Cyrillic-derived alphabet

Alphabet

An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...

 used for writing the Uyghur language

Uyghur language

Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

, primarily by Uyghurs

Uyghur people

The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...

 living in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

 and former CIS

CIS

CIS usually refers to the Commonwealth of Independent States, a modern political entity consisting of eleven former Soviet Union republics.The acronym CIS may also refer to:-Organizations:...

 countries.

It was devised around 1937 by the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, which wanted an alternative to the Latin

Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...

-derived alphabet they had devised some eleven years earlier, in 1926, as they feared a romanization

Romanization

In linguistics, romanization or latinization is the representation of a written word or spoken speech with the Roman script, or a system for doing so, where the original word or language uses a different writing system . Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written...

 of the Uyghur language would strengthen the relationship of the Uyghurs to Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, which had switched to a Latin-based alphabet

Turkish alphabet

The Turkish alphabet is a Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements of the language. This alphabet represents modern Turkish pronunciation with a high degree of accuracy...

 in 1927-1928.

After the proclamation of the Communist People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 in 1949, Russian linguists began helping the Chinese

Chinese people

The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 with codifying the various minority languages of China

Languages of China

China's many different ethnic groups speak many different languages, collectively called Zhōngguó Yǔwén , literally, "speech and writing of China", which span eight primary language families. Most of them are dissimilar morphologically and phonetically. Even within each family, most are mutually...

 and promoting Cyrillic-derived alphabets, and thus the Uyghurs of China also came to use the Uyghur Siril Yëziqi.

As the tensions between the Soviet Union and China

Sino-Soviet split

In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...

 grew stronger, the Chinese dismissed the Uyghur Siril Yëziqi, and as of 1959, the newly devised Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi became the new alphabet of use among the Chinese Uyghurs and eventually China restored the Arabic script to write Uyghur till now. Uyghur Siril Yëziqi continued to be used in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, however, and is today used in Kazakhstan and former CIS countries, and is also the alphabet used for writing Standard Soviet Uyghur.

The letters in the USY(Uyghur Cyrillic Alphabet) are, in order:

Capital Letter	А	Б	В	Г	Ғ	Д	Е	Ә	Ж	Җ	З	И	Й	К	Қ	Л	М	Н	Ң	О	Ө	П	Р	С	Т	У	Ү	Ф	Х	Һ	Ч	Ш	Ю	Я
Small Letter	a	б	в	г	ғ	д	е	ə	ж	җ	з	и	й	к	қ	> м	н	ң	о	ө	п	р	с	т	у	ү	ф	х	Һ	ч	ш	ю	я
IPA	ɑ,a	b	w,v	g	ʁ,ɣ	d	e	ɛ,æ	ʒ	ʤ	z	i,ɨ	j	k	q	l	m	n	ŋ	o,ɔ	ø	p	r,ɾ	s	t	u,ʊ	y,ʏ	f,ɸ	χ,x	h,ɦ	ʧ	ʃ	ju	ja