Asia | Apostrophes on the march

Kazakhstan wants Kazakh written in Latin, not Cyrillic script

But it’s going to take a lot of diacritical marks

Apostrophe-free but humiliating
|ALMATY

RARELY has the humble apostrophe caused such commotion. Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president, wants the punctuation symbol to play a much bigger part in public life. Ordinary Kazakhs are objecting. Some feel so strongly that they have launched an anti-apostrophe campaign on social media, adorning their Facebook pages with crossed-out apostrophes.

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Apostrophes on the march”

Do social media threaten democracy?

From the November 4th 2017 edition

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