Abstract
Abstract In 2017, Kazakhstan announced the transition of the Kazakh writing system from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet. This paper examines how the Latinization of the Kazakh language is portrayed in Western media. The findings are based on the thematic content analysis of 34 news articles. The analysis shows that the Latinization of the Kazakh alphabet has been primarily characterized in Western media as a geopolitical decision to move away from Russian influence and to increase cooperation with Türkiye. Much emphasis has also been put on its portrayal as an ethnocentric reform that creates more problems than it solves. In contrast, the agendas depicting Latinization as an attempt to integrate Kazakhstan into the global information space, as Kazakhstan’s reaction to societal changes, and as a linguistic reform aimed at solving phonological and orthographic problems of the Cyrillic-based Kazakh language have received considerably less coverage in the Western news media.