Some successful modern reforms of writing
systems
Matching language and writing systems
Writing reform in Turkey
from Arabic to the Roman
alphabet
The Turkish reform came about as part of Kemal
Ataturk's sweeping social and economic changes, and were imposed with
dictatorial imperative. However, the ground had been prepared by 75
years of discussions of alphabetic reform.
Educated Turks had taken twelve years to become
literate in their medieval Arabic orthography. They observed
the prosperity and universal literacy of their Armenian minority
with their Graeco-Roman alphabet. The literate 9% of Turks who
were bilingual or even polyglot were also aware of other options.
Finally a commission in the 1920s replaced the 612 Arabic symbols
with 29 Roman-style letters plus diacritics, that gave almost
complete one-letter-to-one-sound phoneme-grapheme correspondence.
Dictator Kemal Ataturk was not bothered at all
about questions of dialects, derivations or homophone
distinctions. In 1928 he ordered all Arabic lettering to vanish
overnight from public places. Public Blackboards set up in
public demonstrated the roman script, theatres showed
educational comedies about it, and school openings were
postponed while teachers learnt the new system and acquired new
books. Imported printing presses which were ready tooled for
the new alphabet immediately produced 2-month-long adult
courses for the literate and 4-month-long courses for the
illiterate. Deadlines were set for changes, with the final
transition set for January 1, 1931. Ataturk's slogan was that
'the Turkish language has been a
prisoner for centuries and is now casting off its
chains.'
The political motives of the spelling reform were to
divorce Turkey from Moslem and conservative traditions, to
facilitate communication and social programs, and to enter the
modern Western world, - hence the international roman alphabet
rather than nearer ones such as Greek, Russian or Armenian, or an
Arabic reform.
The conservatives lamented that it was contrary to faith
and morals to abandon the Qur'an script, and that easy learning
was bad for discipline, but the new writing system was popular
because it was easy .
Although only 40% of children attended school, literacy rose
rapidly to 75% of men and 43% of women, partly through Ministry of
Education-approved little picture-story books sold cheaply at
local shops to 'teach yourself to read', which was made
possible by the easy spelling. However, the graceful Arabic script
is still used for the Arabic language Qur'an and for decorative
inscriptions.
Research on Turkish reading achievements in schools
disproves the rather strange Anglo-American special pleading that
being able to decode a spelling easily causes 'barking at print'.
For example, a comparative study by Oney and Goldman (1984) found
that Turkish children in grades 1 and 3 were superior in
comprehension of texts as well as in decoding words compared to
American children.
The cause of continuing illiteracy among Turkish
peasantry is not defects in the spelling system, but poverty,
with lack of schooling and opportunity. However the Turkish
situation today bears little resemblance to the degree of poverty
and medieval conditions before the radical social modernisations
of this century, in which spelling reform played a significant
part.
See also:
1 Writing systems World writing systems, Alphabetic writing systems, Chinese logographic writing system, The'mixed' Japanese writing system , Korea's amazing writing system , Syllable writing systems , New and recent writing systems
2.Writing system reforms - overview Society and writing systems, Writing system reforms
3. Some writing system reforms in the past 150 years Chinese writing reforms - Japanese writing reforms, Korean writing reforms,Spelling reform in Indonesia and Malaysia, Netherlands spelling reforms, Portuguese spelling reforms , Russian spelling reform, Spanish spelling reforms, Spelling reform in Turkey
4. Related issues to writing and reforms - Adapting to spelling reform in Greenland , Spelling and literacy in Cuba and Nicaragua - India's failed writing system reform
5. Language and writing systems in Arabic, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Hebrew, Norwegian, Serbo-Croatian
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