Uzbek

CEUS offers Uzbek to students elsewhere through distance learning courses. Indiana University offers Uzbek language instruction to students at universities across the US and abroad.

Uzbek is one of the languages available for the CEUS undergraduate major. Tracks with two or three years of language study are available.

Fulfill your foreign language requirement in a small class with dedicated teachers! You can also receive a CEUS minor with two years of Uzbek language study and a related culture course.

Why study Uzbek?

Located in the heart of Central Asia, Uzbekistan was a historic center of empires, education, and trade. Many cities in Uzbekistan were hubs on the ancient Silk Road, the famous trading route between China and the West.

Today, Uzbekistan is the second largest exporter of cotton after the U.S. and has rich natural resources: natural gas, oil, gold, copper, uranium, and others. Also, Uzbekistan is a strategically important country in Central Asia.

Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 35.3 million native speakers and belongs to the southeastern Turkic (or Karluk) family of Turkic languages, from which it gets its lexicon and grammar. Other influences stem from Persian, Arabic and Russian.

One aspect that distinguishes Uzbek from other Turkic languages is its rounding of the vowel /a/ to /ɒ/ or /ɔ/, a feature influenced by Persian.

Before the expansion of Russian and the Soviet Empires into Central Asia, Uzbek was written in an Arabic script. In 1940, Uzbek was switched to Cyrillic script due to Soviet policy. In the early nineties, the Uzbek government official reintroduced the Latin script, although the use of Cyrillic is still widespread.

IU Course Offerings

Course offerings are made available in accordance with class level and student interest. Several IAUNRC languages - including Uzbek - are part of IU’s Summer Language Workshop.

Uzbek Alphabet

A a А а /a/ 'a' as in chat, 'u' as in cut
B b Б б /b/ 'b' as in bat
D d Д д /d/ 'd' as in den
E e Е е /e/ 'e' as in sleigh
F f Ф ф /f/ 'f' as in fish
G g Г г /ɡ/ 'g' as in goat
H h Ҳ ҳ /h/ 'h' as in hoe
I i И и /i/ 'i' as in sit
J j Ж ж /ʒ/ 'j' as in joke
K k К к /k/ 'k' as in cold
L l Л л /l/ 'l' as in leg
M m М м /m/ 'm' as in mat
N n Н н /n/ 'n' as in no
O o О о /o/ 'o' as in hot
P p П п /p/ 'p' as in pet
Q q Қ қ /q/ 'k' but further back in the mouth
R r Р р /r/ 'r' as in rat
S s С с /s/ 's' as in sit
T t Т т /t/ 't' as in tea
U u У у /u/ 'u' as in flu
V v В в /v/ 'v' as in vet
X x Х х /x/ 'ch' as in 'loch' (Scottish)
Y y Й й /j/ 'y' as in yet
Z z З з /z/ 'z' as in zoo
O‘ o‘ Ў ў /o/ 'u' as in put
G‘ g‘ Ғ ғ /ʁ/ 'r' as in Paris (French)
Sh sh Ш ш /ʃ/ 'sh' as in shoe
Ch ch Ч ч /tʃ/ 'ch' as in church
' Ъ /ʔ/ Both ' and ‘ are used either to note stop glottal stop immediately before a word or to indicate a longer vowel sound at the end of a word.
Yo yo Ё ё /jo/ yo
Yu yu Ю ю /ju/ you
Ya ya Я я /ja/ ya
S‘ s‘ Ц ц /ts/ 'ts' as in lets