REPORT ON THE CURRENT STATUS OF
UNITED NATIONS ROMANIZATION SYSTEMS FOR GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
Compiled by the UNGEGN Working Group on Romanization Systems
Version 2.2, January 2003

Kazakh

No romanization systems for Kazakh have been put forward at the United Nations conferences on the standardization of geographical names or at sessions of the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names. It is not known whether there exist any national systems of romanization in Kazakhstan. According to the information received in March 2001 from the Kazakh Linguistics Institute in Almaty, a decree was issued by the President of Kazakhstan in 1998 on the necessity to prepare a new Kazakh alphabet based on the Roman script. Subsequently a committee was formed to further this aim. There have been several draft alphabets, the aim is to work on this task systematically, taking into consideration also the experience of other countries in the transition to the Roman alphabet.

Systems of romanization

The BGN/PCGN 1979 System gives the following romanization:

1	А а	a
2	Ә ә	ä
3	Б б	b
4	В в	v
5	Г г	g
6	Ғ ғ	gh
7	Д д	d
8	Е е	e
9	Ё ё	yo
10	Ж ж	zh
11	З з	z
12	И и	ī
13	Й й	y
14	К к	k
15	Қ қ	q
16	Л л	l
17	М м	m
18	Н н	n
19	Ң ң	ng
20	О о	o
21	Ө ө	ö
22	П п	p
23	Р р	r
24	С с	s
25	Т т	t
26	У у	ū
27	Ұ ұ	u
28	Ү ү	ü
29	Ф ф	f
30	Х х	kh
31	Һ һ	h
32	Ц ц	ts
33	Ч ч	ch
34	Ш ш	sh
35	Щ щ	shch
36	Ъ ъ	"
37	Ы ы	y
38	І і	i
39	Ь ь	’
40	Э э	ė
41	Ю ю	yu
42	Я я	ya

The transliteration standard ISO 9:1995 gives, as a single block, different Roman equivalents to the following Kazakh characters (the BGN/PCGN equivalents are in parentheses):

ә (ä)	a̋
ғ (gh)	ġ
ё (yo)	ë
ж (zh)	ž
и (ī)	i
й (y)	j
қ (q)	ķ
ң (ng)	ņ
ө (ö)	ô
у (ū)	u
ұ (u)	u̇
ү (ü)	ù
х (kh)	h
һ (h)	ḥ
ц (ts)	c
ч (ch)	č
ш (sh)	š
щ (shch)	ŝ
і (i)	ì
э (ė)	è
ю (yu)	û
я (ya)	â