part of the "russification" of Central Asia, the Cyrillic script was introduced in the late 1930s. The alphabet remained Cyrillic until the end of the 1980s with the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In 1989, with the growth in Tajik nationalism, a law was enacted declaring Tajik the state language. In addition, the law officially equated Tajik with Persian, placing the word Farsi (the endonym for the Persian language) after Tajik. The law also called for a gradual reintroduction of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. The Persian alphabet was introduced into education and public life, although the banning of the Islamic Renaissance Party in 1993 slowed adoption. In 1999, the word Farsi was removed from the state-language law, reverting the name to simply Tajik. the de facto standard in use is the Tajik Cyrillic alphabet, and only a very small part of the population can read the Persian alphabet. See also Scripts used for Persian Romanization of Persian Persian braille Persian phonology Abjad numerals Nastaʿlīq, the calligraphy used to write Persian before the 20th century References External links Dastoore khat - The Official document in Persian by Academy of Persian Language and Literature Persian alphabets Arabic alphabets Persian orthography Alphabets Persian scripts Officially used writing systems of India