I can read o and oʻ the Uzbek way (o open, oʻ closed), write Toshkent with o, and type a word with the ʻ sign on any keyboard.
Familiar letters, different sounds
Familiar letters, different sounds
The Uzbek alphabet has 29 letters: 24 Latin letters, oʻ and gʻ with the ʻ sign, and three two-character letters: sh, ch, ng. There is no c (outside ch) and no w. Letter names help you spell a name aloud: a vowel is named by its sound, a consonant adds e — be, de, ke; six put e first — ef, el, em, en, er, es. The table with audio is below.
On signs and in books you'll also see Cyrillic letters: it is the same language. A new Latin alphabet is planned; the course uses the current one.
There are six vowels. o is open, close to British “hot”, with the lips slightly rounded, never the “oh” of “go”: non, bola. It sounds almost like “ah” but is written o: Toshkent.
oʻ is closed, the o of “more” without the r, stressed or not: oʻn, koʻz.
a is between the a of “father” and of “cat”: aka. i and u are short “ee” and “oo”, even under stress: bir, til; uy, bugun. Next to the deep q, gʻ, x (lesson 2), i and a sound further back: qiz, qalam, xat.
e at the start of a word is the e of “bed”, with no y sound: eshik, erkak. The sound y + e is written ye: yetti.
Unstressed vowels keep their full sound; o and a never merge: olma, salom.
Common mistakes:
• NOT Tashkent — write Toshkent: the sound is open, but the letter is o.
• NOT oʻ as the oo of “food” — oʻn has the closed o of “more”.
• NOT e as the ee of “see” — eshik starts with the e of “bed”.
Six vowels
The letter o is very frequent — and it isn't the o of English “go”.
| How it sounds | Letter | Words |
|---|---|---|
| open, close to British “hot” | o | non — bread · bola — child · olma — apple |
| the closed o of “more” | oʻ | oʻn — ten · koʻz — eye · soʻz — word |
| between the a of “father” and of “cat” | a | aka — older brother · uka — younger brother · salom — hi |
| a short ee | i | bir — one · til — language |
| a short oo | u | uy — house · bugun — today |
| the e of “bed”; no y sound at the start | e | eshik — door · erkak — man · men — I |
| y + e, as in “yes” | ye | yetti — seven |
Lesson notes
Familiar letters, different sounds
The Uzbek alphabet has 29 letters: 24 Latin letters, oʻ and gʻ with the ʻ sign, and three two-character letters: sh, ch, ng. There is no c (outside ch) and no w. Letter names help you spell a name aloud: a vowel is named by its sound, a consonant adds e — be, de, ke; six put e first — ef, el, em, en, er, es. The table with audio is below.
On signs and in books you'll also see Cyrillic letters: it is the same language. A new Latin alphabet is planned; the course uses the current one.
There are six vowels. o is open, close to British “hot”, with the lips slightly rounded, never the “oh” of “go”: non, bola. It sounds almost like “ah” but is written o: Toshkent.
oʻ is closed, the o of “more” without the r, stressed or not: oʻn, koʻz.
a is between the a of “father” and of “cat”: aka. i and u are short “ee” and “oo”, even under stress: bir, til; uy, bugun. Next to the deep q, gʻ, x (lesson 2), i and a sound further back: qiz, qalam, xat.
e at the start of a word is the e of “bed”, with no y sound: eshik, erkak. The sound y + e is written ye: yetti.
Unstressed vowels keep their full sound; o and a never merge: olma, salom.
Common mistakes:
• NOT Tashkent — write Toshkent: the sound is open, but the letter is o.
• NOT oʻ as the oo of “food” — oʻn has the closed o of “more”.
• NOT e as the ee of “see” — eshik starts with the e of “bed”.
The ʻ sign: a different letter, and how to type it
The ʻ sign is not an apostrophe and not a stress mark: it is part of the letter. oʻ and o are two different letters. The letter gʻ has the same sign — more on it in lesson 2.
One sign, a different word: ot — horse, oʻt — grass; oz — little, oʻz — self. All the pairs are in the table.
How to type it: after o, type any apostrophe on your keyboard. You can also leave the sign out — the answer still counts, and the answer key shows the right spelling: learn that one.
So words that differ only by the sign are tested by choice, not by writing.
But o and a are different letters, and the checker tells them apart: Tashkent for Toshkent is a mistake. Write it by the rule, not by ear.