The Latin alphabet is unconstitutional in the Russian Federation. Well, not exactly -- the cited basis for the decision by the Russian Constitutional Court was that "regional authorities have no jurisdiction over the alphabets of ethnic groups and peoples", but the effect is to uphold a "2002 federal law requiring that Cyrillic be applied to all alphabets used by people living in Russia", overruling an attempt by Tatarstan to use a Latin alphabet.
This is the newest chapter in a long story. I wonder if the recently banned alphabet is the 1927 version? (More news links here, here, here).
Posted by Mark Liberman at November 17, 2004 10:19 AM