Kyrgyz language (natively Кыргыз тили, قىرعىز تىلى, pronounced as [‘kəɪr’gəɪs tɪ’lɪ]) is a Turkic language, member of the Kazakh-Nogai subgroup of the Kypchak languages. Kyrgyz was originally written in the Turkic runes, gradually replaced by an Arabic alphabet. Between 1928 and 1940, the Latin-based Uniform Turkic Alphabet was used and in 1940, due to general Soviet policy, a Cyrillic alphabet eventually became common, remaining so to this day, though some Kyrgyz still use the Arabic alphabet. Writing system: Kyrgyz alphabets (Cyrillic script, Perso-Arabic script, formerly Latin) Official language in: Kyrgyzstan