Turkish Script
TURKISH SCRIPT
Latin alphabet used predominantly in Turkey to write Turkish.
Contemporary Turkish is written in the Roman alphabet; the Turkish script is composed of eight vowels and twenty-one consonants, which are marked by various diacriticals. The first writings in Turkic language date to about 700 c.e. and use a runic alphabet. Later, Turkish came to be written in the Arabic alphabet. The earliest writings of Turkish in the Arabic script date to the thirteenth century and show strong Arabo-Persian linguistic influences. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries show a boom in textual production. The literary Ottoman Turkish of this period was far removed from the spoken language. Beginning in the eighteenth century, with the decline of the Ottoman Empire, movements in favor of a language with stronger Turkish and less Ottoman characteristics gained momentum. In 1909, the Turkish Club began promoting a simpler Turkish, comprehensible across social strata. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk later founded the Turkish Language Academy. As part of Atatürk's sweeping reforms, the Turkish script was officially switched from the Arabic to the Roman alphabet in 1928.
see also atatÜrk, mustafa kemal; turkish language.
Bibliography
Campbell, George. Compendium of the World's Languages, vol. 2, 2d edition. London: Routledge, 2000.
noah butler