Menu
English
РусскийEnglishEspañol

Uzbek alphabet

The Uzbek alphabet is the Uzbek Latin alphabet: 29 letters. 29 units — plain letters (there is no c and no w) plus the digraphs oʻ, gʻ, sh, ch, ng; the ʼ mark does not count as a letter. The characters are grouped: five vowels — and the grammar stands on them, fifteen letters — read as they look, q, x, h, j — consonants with a sound of their own. Below is a table with sound and a breakdown by groups.

Updated September 1, 2026 · Lingofly

All 29 letters in one list

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

The tables on this page also include ʼ: this character is needed for reading but does not count as a letter of the alphabet.

Five vowels — and the grammar stands on them

The ending of a word bends to the last vowel of the stem (vowel harmony): daraxtga, but dengizga — one meaning "to", two shapes. a, o, u are back vowels (deeper in the mouth), e and i are front. There is no separate ü: u does its work.

Fifteen letters — read as they look

Everything an English reader gets right at first glance. One letter deserves a second look: y is familiar in shape. It sounds like the y of "yes" — yaxshi reads "yakh-shee", never "wax-shee".

q, x, h, j — consonants with a sound of their own

Four sounds whose Latin letters do not mean what you expect. q is a k made deeper in the throat. x is the kh of "Bach". h is pure breath, an h with no rasp. j is always the j of "jam". They tell words apart and must not be swapped. qosh is "eyebrow", xosh is nothing. jon is "soul", zhon is not the word.

oʻ and gʻ — the calling card of the language

Two letters with the turned comma ʻ inside. oʻ is a rounded vowel between "o" and "yo". gʻ is a rasped g, made deep in the throat with the tongue tip still. The ʻ (U+02BB) is part of the letter, not an apostrophe. The straight keyboard apostrophe in its place is the same kind of misspelling. It is like writing "cafe" for "café". Without these two you cannot write oʻzbek or the language itself.

sh, ch, ng — three digraphs, no surprises

Each is one letter of the alphabet spelled with two marks. sh and ch sound like English "sh" and "ch"; ng is a nasal n, air out through the nose. There is no letter c in the alphabet — it lives only inside ch; w is not a letter at all.

ʼ — the tugu belgisi: a mark, not a letter

It splits syllables and marks a glottal catch: taʼm is "taste", tam without the mark is "fed". It does not count as a letter, but words cannot be read without it. One shape for the whole course: ʼ (U+02BC), never a straight apostrophe.

What to know about this Latin script

There are 29 units: 24 plain letters (c and w are absent) and 5 digraphs — oʻ, gʻ, sh, ch, ng. The tugu belgisi ʼ is a mark of the course, not a letter. That is why the honest answer to "how many letters" is 29. The order is official: plain letters from a to z, then the digraphs, then ʼ. Every unit has a capital. For digraphs it is the first letter with the mark or the first of the two — Oʻ, Gʻ, Sh, Ch, Ng. No two signs share a sound. The spelling has no ü — u stands in its place; the Cyrillic-only letters of neighboring alphabets never appear in Uzbek text.

Where this script came from and why it looks the way it does

  • The letters oʻ and gʻ are the visiting card of the Uzbek alphabet: the ʻ after them is part of the letter, not an apostrophe. Beside them lives the mark ʼ — the tugu belgisi: it is not counted as a letter, yet it is exactly what tells taʼlim (“education”) from talim (“nourishment”).

    P. T. Daniels, W. Bright, “The World’s Writing Systems”, the chapter on Turkic writing systems, 1996

Test yourself

Five characters at random. No need to answer aloud — just pick; the answer appears at once.

  1. Which character reads as “a as in father”?

  2. Which character reads as “e as in bed”?

  3. Which character reads as “a light breathy h”?

  4. Which character reads as “k as in kit”?

  5. Which character reads as “n as in no”?

How to learn letters so they stay

You cannot learn a table by staring at it. What works: see a character, try to recall its sound, get it wrong, see the right answer — and come back to that character in a day, not in an hour.

That is why the alphabet in the app is learned a few characters at a time, not all at once: nobody holds 29 signs in one sitting.

Frequently asked

How many letters in the Uzbek alphabet?

29 letters — Uzbek Latin alphabet: 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. The tables on this page also include ʼ: this character is needed for reading but does not count as a letter of the alphabet. The characters have capital and small forms.

Can I listen to how the Uzbek letters sound?

Not yet: we have no recordings for this script. That is why there is no sound button either — it would be silent.

How long does it take to learn the Uzbek alphabet?

A few characters a day — one to two weeks, if you come back to what you covered. The whole alphabet crammed in an evening is remembered for an evening: without reviews the next day and three days later, the characters are almost entirely gone.

Where to start: letters or words?

With the letters, but there are few of them: the writing course covers only the ones that read differently from what you are used to. The rest comes straight with words.

Next

Open the alphabetOpen the alphabet