Perso-Arabic
The madrasa hand · until 1928
سخن
The script of the Registan, which Zehni learned as a khattot at the Tilla-Kori madrasa.
One word · Three hands
A language that changed its body twice in one lifetime.
Turaqul Zehni was trained as a calligrapher and wrote across all three. Type a word in Tajik — or choose one below — and watch it cross the same century he did.
Latin alphabet
The Soviet hand · 1928 – 1940
Sukhan
The new alphabet of his 1935 grammar Sarf — a Latin Tajik that lasted barely a decade.
Cyrillic
The living hand · 1940 – today
Сухан
The script of the 45,000-entry dictionary he helped compile in 1969, and of Tajik now.
sukhan — the word; articulate speech
Write it in three hands
The Latin column follows the Tajik Latin alphabet of 1928–1940 (ş = ш, x = х, ū = ӯ, ī = ӣ); we are still collating it letter-for-letter against Zehni's own 1935 grammar Sarf. The Perso-Arabic script writes consonants and long vowels but drops short ones, so we render it only for words held in our verified lexicon — never guessed.