Kazakhstan approves new Latin alphabetFebruary 20, 2018 - 14:01 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Kazakhstan's president Nursultan Nazarbayev approved a decree on a new alphabet on Tuesday, February 20. The new-look alphabet also has 32 letters, but there are some key differences. Most glaring is the abandonment of the requirement to add apostrophes to denote certain distinct sounds, Eurasianet.org says. So the letters a’, g’, n’, o’, u’, y’, which denote Kazakh-specific phonemes, will now be rendered with just an accent above them instead. Then there is the letter i with and without a dot — the latter being analogous to a character in the Turkish alphabet. The immediate obvious appeal of these modifications will be that writing these phonemes on a computer will require a single keystroke instead of two. In a concession to an earlier proposed draft of the alphabet, other sounds specific to Kazakh will be rendered as sh and ch, instead of s’ and c’ as required under the previous incarnation. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Armenia to participate in key EU meeting for the first time ever National Assembly speaker Alen Simonyan has said that Armenia will for the first time participate in the Conference. U.S. reacts to Russia’s criticism of upcoming Armenia-EU-U.S. meeting Matthew Miller has weighed in on Russia’s criticism of an upcoming Armenia-EU-U.S. meeting. Lavrov sees ‘collapse’ of Russia’s ties with Armenia Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has underscored heightened tensions between Russia and Armenia. Russia warns Armenia against “falling into West’s trap” Zakharova maintained, however, that anything that will benefit the people of Armenia can only be welcomed. |