Uzbek Latin alphabet gets four new letters: Ö, Ğ, Ş and Ç

On 21 October 2026, Uzbek Language Day, the President of Uzbekistan signed a law that updates the Latin alphabet of the Uzbek language. The news was announced by the Presidential Administration. The law enters into force six months after its official publication.

What changes

Four combinations used until now are replaced by single letters: Oʻ becomes Ö, Gʻ becomes Ğ, Sh becomes Ş and Ch becomes Ç. Ng is no longer counted as a separate letter. The alphabet now has 28 letters plus the apostrophe. The authors of the reform explain it by the digital environment: the apostrophe in Oʻ and Gʻ is typed in different ways, and computers can treat the same word as two different ones.

What it means for travellers

• Nothing changes for visas, tickets or money: existing documents, the national currency and securities stay valid.
• Textbooks, shop signs and road signs will be replaced in stages, as they wear out. For some years you will see both spellings side by side, for example Choʻrsu and Çorsu, or Oʻzbekiston and Özbekiston.
• Names on our site keep their usual English spelling, such as Chorsu, Shahrisabz and Shah-i-Zinda, so that they match maps and guidebooks.
• Russian is still widely understood, and in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara many signs are also in Cyrillic and English.

A few words of Uzbek still go a long way. Start with our Uzbek phrases for travellers, and read about the poet who shaped the literary language in Alisher Navoi.