Latin Script
On February 1, 1941, Mongolia officially adopted a Latin alphabet. Only two months later, on March 25 the decision was reversed. According to later official claims the alphabet had turned out to have not been thought out well. It was said not to distinguish all the sounds of the Mongolian language, and to be difficult to use. However, those seem to have been pretexts rather than the true reasons. Using "y" as feminine "u", with additional feminine "o" ("ө") and with additional consonants "ç" for "ch", "ş" for "sh" and ƶ for "zh", it successfully served in printing books and newspapers. Many of the Latin letters (f, h, p, v) were even rarely used while q, w and x were completely excluded. The adoption of the Cyrillic script a short time later, almost simultaneously with most Soviet republics, suggests political reasons.
Read more about this topic: Mongolian Alphabets
Famous quotes containing the words latin and/or script:
“It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Take what the old-church
found in Mithra’s tomb,
candle and script and bell,
take what the new-church spat upon
and broke and shattered.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)