Chapter grammar — every decree follows the same skeleton
- The Old Script
- The Decree
- The Rollout
- The Resistance
- The Outcome
Each case names the script being replaced, the law or policy that replaced it, how fast it was imposed, who resisted, and what it did to literacy, memory, and the archive.
01 ا One Night, New LettersTurkey, 1928 — Atatürk replaces the Arabic script with a Latin alphabet in a matter of months; literacy and rupture in one act. Forthcoming
02 简 Fewer StrokesChina, 1950s–60s — simplification as state policy, and the Traditional/Simplified split it left across the Chinese-writing world. Room → 03 Q The Jesuit AlphabetVietnam — quốc ngữ: a missionary Latin orthography becomes the national script, and chữ Hán/Nôm fall away. Forthcoming
04 Аа Twice ReformedCentral Asia — Latinisation in the 1920s, then Cyrillisation under Stalin: two decreed alphabets in twenty years. Forthcoming
05 Q Kazakh in LatinKazakhstan, 2017–2025 — a phased, much-revised switch from Cyrillic to Latin, reform as a moving target. Forthcoming
06 ᠮ The RestorationMongolia — legislating the traditional vertical script back into official use after a century of Cyrillic. Room → 07 § The LedgerClosing dossier — what decrees cost: the elders who go illiterate overnight, the archive that becomes unreadable, the literacy that sometimes soars. Forthcoming
Toward the book
This series is declared complete at seven dossiers. On completion it moves to Naisu Press as a volume in the institute's imprint — same chapter grammar, same specimens, print-first typesetting via the Paged.js pipeline. Chapters published here remain open access; the book is the collected, revised edition.