Afghanistan, May 29 -- Emomali Rahmon has ordered education authorities to improve the teaching of the Persian script, known in Tajikistan as the "ancestral alphabet," as part of broader efforts to strengthen national identity and cultural heritage.
According to state media reports, Rahmon instructed schools and universities to improve the quality of Persian-script education within programmes promoting "Aryan history and culture." Tajikistan's official language is Tajik Persian, but it is currently written using the Cyrillic alphabet introduced during the Soviet period.
The Persian script was widely used in Tajikistan before Soviet authorities replaced it with Cyrillic in 1940 under a language policy aimed at integrating Tajiks more close...