Ñ and Ū. In February 2021, Kazakhstan reaffirmed its plans for a gradual transition to a Latin-based Kazakh alphabet through the year 2031. The Arabic script for Kazakh remains in official use in China and other regions where Kazakh is spoken outside of Kazakhstan and Russia. Unlike the basic Arabic alphabet, which is more properly called an abjad, the adapted Kazakh Arabic script is a true alphabet, with individual characters for each sound in the language. Phonology Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony, with some words of recent foreign origin (usually of Russian or Arabic origin) as exceptions. There is also a system of rounding harmony which resembles that of Kyrgyz, but which does not apply as strongly and is not reflected in the orthography. This system only applies to the open vowels and not , and happens in the next syllables. Thus, (in Latin script) ‘star’, ‘today’, and ‘big’ are actually pronounced as jūldūz, bügün, ülkön. Consonants The following chart depicts the consonant inventory of standard Kazakh; many of the sounds, however, are allophones of other sounds or appear only in recent loan-words. The 18 consonant phonemes listed by Vajda are without parentheses—since these are phonemes, their listed place and manner of articulation are very general, and will vary from what is shown. (/t͡s/ rarely appears in normal speech.) Kazakh has 19 native consonant phonemes; these are the stops /p, b, t, d, k, g, q/, fricatives /s, z, ɕ, ʑ, ʁ/, nasals /m, n, ŋ/, liquids /ɾ, l/, and two glides /w, j/. The sounds /f, v, χ, h, t͡s, t͡ɕ/ are found only in loanwords. The sounds [q] and [ʁ] may be analyzed as allophones of /k/ and /g/ in words with back vowels, but exceptions occur in loanwords. In addition, /q/, /ɡ/, and /b/ are lenited intervocalically (between vowels) to [χ], [ɣ], and [β]. In loanwords, voiced stops syllable-finally become devoiced. These consonants, given in IPA above, demonstrate certain changes from their Turkic counterparts, changes that are in general principled. Four such patterns are immediately recognizable: (i) Turkic /t͡ɕ/ corresponds to Kazakh /ɕ/, e.g. /qat͡ɕ/ to /qaɕ/ ‘run away’; (ii) Turkic /ɕ/ in turn corresponds to Kazakh /s/ in final position, e.g. /tyɕ/ to /tys/ ‘fall down’; (iii) Turkic /j/ corresponds to /ʑ/ in initial position, e.g. /jaz/ to /ʑaz/ ‘write’ and, (iv) Turkic /ɣ/ corresponds to Kazakh /w/ in final position /aɣ/ to /aw/ ‘net’ (see