The Cyrillic alphabet was the official script for Sharqi, until 2013, when it was replaced by Latin. This change later started a transition to Latin, which brought to a rearrangement of the alphabetical order and the elimination of the phoneme [ɪ] from the new Latin alphabet and the absorption of the phoneme [i] into a new letter: I i. A new letter, X x was also introduced (representing [ks]). The letters Ё ё, Ю ю and Я я have been abolished. Although not part of the alphabet, Y y ([j]) is sometimes used in loanwords.