Symbols
65Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Uzbek alphabet: A to M
The 24 single letters in Uzbek order. There is no W, and C is not used on its own; X (the kh of Bach) and Q (a k from deep in the throat) are everyday letters.
Uzbek alphabet: N to Z
Uzbek O is an open o close to British "hot"; the rounded o is a separate letter, Oʻ.
Oʻ, Gʻ, Sh, Ch, Ng and the tutuq belgisi
After Z the alphabet ends Oʻ Gʻ Sh Ch Ng ʼ. Oʻ and Gʻ are O or G followed by the turned comma ʻ (U+02BB); Sh, Ch and Ng are written as letter pairs; ʼ (U+02BC) is the tutuq belgisi, the glottal stop sign.
Look-alikes used instead of ʻ and ʼ
Official sites often write O‘zbekiston with the quotation mark ‘, and chats use the plain apostrophe: O'zbekiston. They read the same; ʻ and ʼ are the letters proper.
Uzbek punctuation
Where Uzbek is spoken
Uzbekistan first, then neighbours with large Uzbek communities. The soʻm has no currency sign of its own: write 10 000 soʻm or UZS.
On the map
Loading…
The Uzbek Latin alphabet in order
The Uzbek alphabet in use today runs A B D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z Oʻ Gʻ Sh Ch Ng. It has 26 letters and three letter combinations (Sh, Ch and Ng); ʼ is a separate tutuq mark. It has no W, and C appears in Ch but is not a letter of the alphabet on its own. The extra forms come at the end rather than next to O, G, S and C, so in an Uzbek dictionary oʻrik (apricot) is found after every word starting with Z.
Apart from two small marks, everything is on an ordinary English keyboard. Oʻ and Gʻ are an O or G followed by ʻ, a turned comma; Sh, Ch and Ng are letter pairs; and ʼ, called tutuq belgisi (the stop mark), is a letter-like apostrophe. When the sounds s and h meet without making sh, the stop mark keeps them apart, as in the name Isʼhoq (Isaac).
Standard Uzbek has six vowels, a, e, i, o, u and oʻ, and unlike Kazakh, Turkmen or Turkish it has largely lost vowel harmony, so endings do not change their vowel to match the word.
What Oʻ, Gʻ, Q, X and the tutuq belgisi sound like
Oʻ oʻ is a close, rounded o, like the o of German "so" or Italian "sono", while plain O o is a more open sound, close to the o of British "hot". The difference changes words: ot is a horse but oʻt is grass or fire, tor means narrow and toʻr a net. The country's own name, Oʻzbekiston, starts with it.
Gʻ gʻ is a g made deep in the throat, like a French r or the Arabic ghayn: togʻ (mountain), bogʻ (garden), Fargʻona (the Fergana Valley). Q q is a k pronounced further back than English k, as in Samarqand and qovun (melon), and X x is the rasping kh of German "Bach", as in Xiva and xush (pleasant), while H h is a soft breathy h. J j is /dʒ/ as in "jam" in native words and /ʒ/ as in "vision" in some loanwords, Y y the y of "yes", and Ng ng the ng of "sing", as in ming (thousand) and tong (dawn).
The tutuq belgisi ʼ has two spelling uses in loanwords: after a vowel it marks that vowel as longer, as in maʼno (meaning), sheʼr (poem) and taʼlim (education); before a vowel it marks separation from the preceding consonant, as in sanʼat (art) and masʼul (responsible). It also distinguishes sheʼr (poem) from sher (lion).
Oʻ or O‘ or O'? Typing the Uzbek apostrophes
Strictly, the mark in Oʻ and Gʻ is ʻ, U+02BB modifier letter turned comma, and the tutuq belgisi is ʼ, U+02BC modifier letter apostrophe. Unicode classifies ʻ and ʼ as modifier letters, but whether an app keeps them within one word in spell-checking, search or selection depends on its text-handling rules. In practice many official sites write O‘zbekiston with the opening quotation mark ‘, and chats often use the straight apostrophe ' or even the backtick (O'zbekiston, ozbek). Readers understand all of them; for clean, searchable text copy ʻ and ʼ from the grid.
On Windows, Alt0145 on the number pad gives ‘ and Alt0146 gives ’; in Microsoft Word type 02BB or 02BC and press AltX to get the exact letters. On a Mac with the US layout, Option] types ‘ and OptionShift] types ’. On phones, Uzbek keyboard layouts are available in Gboard and other keyboards, and on many phone keyboards a long press on the apostrophe key offers the curly quotes. In HTML write ʻ as ʻ and ʼ as ʼ.
Watch the capitals: there is no capital form of ʻ, so Oʻzbekiston in capitals is OʻZBEKISTON, and title case keeps the mark after the first letter only (Oʻzbek, Gʻafur). Do not swap Oʻ for Ö or Ó: those are Turkish, Hungarian or Spanish letters, and Uzbek has not used Ö since 1995.
From Arabic script to Cyrillic to Latin
Uzbek was written in the Arabic script for centuries. In 1929 Soviet Uzbekistan switched to a Latin alphabet, in 1940 to Cyrillic, and after independence the law of 1993 brought back Latin, at first with the letters Ç, Ğ, Ñ, Ö and Ş. A revision in 1995 replaced them with Ch, Gʻ, Ng, Oʻ and Sh, so that everything could be typed on a standard keyboard; that 1995 alphabet remains in use through 21 April 2027, when the signed reform takes effect.
The changeover has been slow, and its deadline has been moved more than once. Schools and government write Latin, and so do many young people, but Cyrillic is still common in newspapers, on shop signs and among older people, so the two alphabets live side by side: the Uzbek (Cyrillic) collection has Ў ў, Қ қ, Ғ ғ and Ҳ ҳ. After years of proposals, a law signed on 21 October 2026 replaces Oʻ, Gʻ, Sh and Ch with Ö, Ğ, Ş and Ç and removes Ng as a separate alphabet unit. It takes effect on 22 April 2027; until then, the 1995 forms shown here remain current.
Where Uzbek is spoken
CLDR estimates 31 million literate, functional users of Latin-script Uzbek in Uzbekistan and 520,000 in Turkmenistan; it separately lists 5.5 million Cyrillic-script Uzbek users in Uzbekistan and 1.9 million Arabic-script Uzbek users in Afghanistan. There are also large Uzbek communities in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, many of them still writing in Cyrillic. In northern Afghanistan millions of Uzbeks speak Southern Uzbek and write it in the Arabic script: see the Uzbek (Arabic) collection.
Uzbek is a Turkic language. Its closest relative is Uyghur, and it shares much of its vocabulary with Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Azerbaijani and Turkish, each of which has a collection of its own, as does Tajik, the Persian language spoken alongside Uzbek in Samarkand and Bukhara. For the flag, osh, Navroʻz and Silk Road emoji, see the Uzbekistan collection.
How to use them
5 situationsClick to copyUzbek Alphabet & Letters combos
13Worth knowing
- The mark in Oʻ and Gʻ, U02BB, is the same Unicode character as the Hawaiian ʻokina, the glottal stop letter in Hawaiʻi.
- The first Latin alphabet of independent Uzbekistan, in 1993, used Ç, Ğ, Ö and Ş, also found in Turkish, alongside Ñ; two years later they were replaced by Ch, Gʻ, Ng, Oʻ and Sh, which a standard keyboard can type.
- In the 1995 Uzbek dictionary order, Oʻ, Gʻ, Sh and Ch follow Z, so a word like choy (tea) is looked up near the very end of the book.
- Uzbek has written its language in three scripts within a century: Arabic until 1929, Latin from 1929 to 1940, Cyrillic from 1940, and Latin again since the 1990s.
Questions people ask
7How many letters are in the Uzbek alphabet?
Until 21 April 2027, the legal count is 26 letters and three letter combinations: 24 single letters (A, B, D–V, X–Z), Oʻ and Gʻ, plus Sh, Ch and Ng; ʼ is a separate tutuq sign. From 22 April 2027, the revised alphabet has 28 letters and one tutuq sign: Ö, Ğ, Ş and Ç replace Oʻ, Gʻ, Sh and Ch, and Ng no longer counts as an alphabet unit.
Does Uzbek use the Latin alphabet?
Yes. Uzbekistan has used a Latin alphabet officially since the 1990s; the 1995 forms remain in force until 22 April 2027, when the revised alphabet takes effect. Cyrillic is still widely read and written, and Uzbeks in Afghanistan use the Arabic script.
How do I type Oʻ and Gʻ in Uzbek?
Type O or G and then the turned comma ʻ: copy it from this page, or in Word type 02BB and press AltX. Many people use ‘ (Alt0145 on Windows, Option] on Mac) or a plain apostrophe, which readers understand too.
What is the apostrophe in Uzbek?
There are two common signs. The turned comma ʻ is part of Oʻ and Gʻ. The tutuq belgisi ʼ is a spelling sign, not a letter: after a vowel it marks length, as in maʼno (meaning) and sheʼr (poem); before a vowel it separates that vowel from the preceding consonant, as in sanʼat (art).
What is the difference between O and Oʻ in Uzbek?
They are two different vowels. O is open, like the o of British "hot"; Oʻ is a closer, rounder o, like German "so". Ot means horse, oʻt means grass or fire.
What is the Uzbek alphabet in Cyrillic?
Uzbek Cyrillic writes its own sounds with Ў ў, Қ қ, Ғ ғ and Ҳ ҳ, which match Latin Oʻ, Q, Gʻ and H. They are in the Uzbek (Cyrillic) collection.
Is there a new Uzbek alphabet?
A law signed on 21 October 2026 replaces Oʻ, Gʻ, Sh and Ch with Ö, Ğ, Ş and Ç and removes Ng as a separate alphabet unit; it takes effect on 22 April 2027, so the 1995 form on this page remains in force until then.
