there are some villages in Turkey where it is a common mode of communication. In the Soviet Union the language of instruction in schools was Russian, and the number of speakers declined there also. Recent estimates place the total number of Nogai speakers at about 80,000. In 1973, two small Nogai-language newspapers were being published, one in Karachay–Cherkessia and another in the Dagestan Autonomous SSR (Ленин йолы), but most speakers never heard of these publications, and the papers did not reach Nogai villages. Nogai is now part of the school curriculum from the 1st to the 10th year in the Nogai District of Dagestan. It is also taught at the Karachayevo-Cherkess Pedagogical School and the national branch of the Pedagogical Institute. Phonology Phonemes in parentheses indicate copied lexical sounds. Alphabet There are 3 stages in the history of Nogai writing: before 1928 — writing based on the Arabic script 1928—1938 — writing based on the Latin alphabet from 1938 — writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet The Nogai alphabet based on Cyrillic was created in 1938. It included all of the Russian alphabet letters except Ё ё, and also the digraphs Гъ гъ, Къ къ, Нъ нъ. The digraphs Оь оь, Уь уь were added in the same year. In 1944 the digraphs Гъ гъ, Къ къ were excluded from the alphabet. The last reform of the Nogai writing took place in 1960, when, as a result of discussions at the Karachay-Cherkessia Research Institute, Language and Literature, the letters Аь аь and Ё ё were added to it. After that, the Nogai alphabet took its present form. Modern Nogai alphabet: In Dobruja In Dobruja the Democratic Union of Tatar Turkish Muslims of Romania (UDTTMR) has an official latin alphabet which is used by Tatars of Romania (Nogais and Crimean Tatars). The Nogai component of the Tatar population are not separately enumerated in Romanian censuses. There are also books printed with that alphabet, some of them are „ALFABE“ and „Tatarşa oqıma kitabı“. The alphabet includes this letters: References External links The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire Agglutinative languages Kipchak languages Languages of Kazakhstan Languages of Russia Languages of Uzbekistan Dagestan Karachay-Cherkessia Turkic languages