Turkish alphabet
Turkish Latin alphabets are a subset of the Latin alphabet are written in today's Turkic and other Near Eastern languages. They have replaced historically older alphabets, whose precursors were identified in the languages concerned as uniform alphabet. The original name of this font Systems - Unified Turkish alphabet - was abandoned, as also non-Turkish peoples joined the system.
- 2.1 More modern development
- 2.2 Styles of writing
Historical development
Prehistory
Born in Georgia Azerbaijani writer Mirza Fätäli Axundov began in 1850 alone to develop a Latin alphabet for the Turkotataren Russia. In 1863 he was in Istanbul on a Congress of the Turanian society, and established there in front of his finished alphabet. However, this was not the desired appeal, so Axundov disappointed returned to Georgia. There he reformed in 1878 the Arabic alphabet.
Development
The created in the late 1920s, Turkish alphabets differed among themselves only slightly. They pointed to slight modifications of the classical Latin Cyrillic alphabet. So it was a combination of Scripture, but in which the Latin elements predominated. Because of numerous benefits this writing was very soon taken over by the Turkic peoples and other peoples of the Russian empire. The Latin alphabet was easy to learn and already widespread around the world. In addition, there was also an advantage over the Arab writings, because now every sound was a unique letter assigned. This could also native speakers read a text so that understood him a native speaker. Also the respective grammatical rules these alphabets were very accommodating. Also, needed growing up multilingual people, such as minorities, to learn only a single alphabet.
The so-called unified Turkish alphabet was developed in 1922 in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, for the community of Turkic languages . Previously was in all these languages - as far as they were transliterated - the Perso- Arabic alphabet. After the collapse of the Tsarist Empire in 1917, the Russian Tatars turned to the west; as a result, began in 1922 with them also to break with the traditional Arab- Persian traditions: Azerbaijan became the first of them a the uniform alphabet for official correspondence; from the school year 1924/25, it was introduced universally. From 1924 also the Karatschaische was transliterated with this alphabet; 1925, the Romanization and Verschriftung their languages were adopted for the other Turkic peoples of the Northern Caucasus.
In the period from 26 February to 5 March 1926 Turkologenkongress was held in Baku. It was attended by all former Turkic minorities of the old tsarist empire. The delegation of the Chuvash particularly welcomed by the delegates. Congress Chairman was Samadagha Aghamalioghlu. From Turkey, two employees of Kemal Atatürk, Mehmet Fuat Koprulu and Hüseyin Zade Ali Bey took part in the congress.
Very rapidly formed three main directions:
- The " traditionalists" or Kadimchilar under Gamiljan Scharifow argued for the retention of the traditional Arabic script. For further membership should be ensured for Persian- Arab cultural space.
- The " radicals" or Dschadidisten under Sultan Majid Afandijew wished the rapid replacement of the Arabic by Latin characters. This modernization and integration into the West of the Turkic peoples should be made clear.
- The " moderates " among Ahmed Baytursun were both writing systems; they called for the international and private correspondence the Latin alphabet, while laws and works of high poetry and science are still to be written in Arabic script. These were among the first two groups.
Finally, the radicals were able to prevail, and it was decided to introduce a "United Turkish alphabet " for all Turkic peoples. In Turkey, the alphabet was introduced after modifications by Atatürk in 1928 under the name of New Turkish alphabet ( see below).
Even in international countries, the Latin alphabet prevailed, but which has been adjusted slightly in almost all countries of the debate. In particular, sibilants and vowels were often provided with special characters or extra regulations. 1929, the Romanization of the Turkic languages , 1931, the Mongolian languages of the USSR was completed. Farther north, languages that have already been written in the Cyrillic alphabet, is not involved, since this alphabet was already loud writing. But the Chuvash did not participate in the Romanization, they remained the only Turkic people of Russia while the Cyrillic alphabet.
But finally decided on the Moscow leadership under Joseph Stalin, that in all non- Russian-speaking parts of territories of the Soviet Union a compulsory Russian lessons and for all languages in the USSR the Cyrillic alphabet should be introduced. Thus, the uniform alphabet in the USSR was gradually driven back in the years 1936-1940. Exception were only those parts of the USSR, which were awarded the status of a Soviet Socialist Republic after 1940. For this reason, the Baltic States and the Karelian Bear SSR enrolled in contrast to the other Union republics continue with Latin letters.
New Turkish alphabet
The New Turkish Alphabet is based very much on the classical Latin alphabet and therefore can be easily read by Europeans with knowledge of a few special features. The development of this alphabet is Atatürk himself attributed that should have already formulated in 1919 as a target at the National Congress in Erzurum. He went the "Uniform Turkish Alphabet " does not go far enough because it represented a mixed font, so that he made some changes. The "New Turkish Alphabet " ( Yeni türk alfabesi ) was well received after the publication in 1927 and disbanded in 1928, the then standard Arabic script from. It was very easy to learn and simplified literacy significantly. 1928 decision was the establishment of National Schools ( Millet Mektepleri ) to convey the adult population Scripture. Just one year later, more than one million citizens had enrolled. By 1933, more than 1.2 million diplomas were issued. The number of books published increased by leaps and bounds from 1934. The Latin alphabet served the State also, the Islamic clergy to evade the monopoly on education for good.
In the new Turkish alphabet there is no deviating from the Latin letters, only additional characters, most of which are also known from alphabets other national languages . A Turkish specialty, however, is that the i in the upper case receives a point ( İ ). This is to distinguish it from the unrounded closed back vowel [ ɯ ], which is written as dotless ı, I.
In 1990, a summit of all Turkish-speaking Ministers of Central Asia and the Caucasus was held in Ankara. The former Turkish government suggested that the large Turkic peoples of the former USSR should take over the Turkey -Turkish alphabet in the course of 15 years for their countries or take the basis of the development. The smaller Turkic peoples should also then take over at a later ( unspecified ) date of this alphabet. These would include segments of the population who had written even before the cyrillicization by the Russians ever Latin. The acceptance of the decisions was generally high, it was the Latin script positively. She motioned for the young Central Asian states to turn away with the introduction of a "Western" type system via Turkey to the west and by the setting Soviet Union.
So the Turkey directly adjacent Azerbaijan led in December 1991 - to five additional characters added - Turkey -Turkish alphabet binding one, which was also called the "New Turkish alphabet ". The use of the Cyrillic alphabet was, however, continue to tolerate the Azerbaijani governance; they attributed this to the Russian minority in the country.
Also in 1944 sold by the Crimean Tatars led in the 2000s, a variant of the Turkey -Turkish alphabet. Meanwhile, this Latin -based alphabets of all these nations are referred to as " new Turkish alphabet " - regardless of whether it was an acceptance of a revised version of the Turkey -Turkish alphabet or an in-house development. In the West it is called modified Latin alphabets, which have been adapted to the respective language phonetically.
More modern development
The summary of the slightly differing alphabets is already apparent. At the conference of the Permanent Council a sample alphabet in 1994 was presented the "Joint Turkish alphabet " ( Turkish Ortak türkçe alfabesi ), from which the new writing systems of the Turkic states should be formed.
For the Uzbek language a new alphabet was originally developed from this pattern alphabet. However, Uzbekistan decided in the course of the same year as the only Turkstaat for a completely different approach and designed in the standard Latin alphabet own font variant. This is not the Turkish special characters have been adopted to express Turkic features, but introduced an independent special characters ( o and g).
Turkmenistan (1995 ) has also already replaced the Cyrillic alphabet by the Latin. The Tatars in Russia since 2001, wrote in Latin. However, the Tatar government had to take back in 2004, as Russia 's constituent republics prescribes the only binding the Cyrillic alphabet that decision.
A Commission of the ministries of education of the states Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan designed for reasons of cost for both countries a unified Latin alphabet. In early 2005, the Kazakh government Nachrichtenargentur this a Latin alphabet in addition to the Cyrillic. In December 2012, the Kazakh government announced that in 2025 was expected to introduce the Latin script. Nevertheless, Kazakhstan was already known in early 2013 that the introduction of the Latin alphabet will be provided and completed by 2015. Thus, Kyrgyzstan will be the only former Soviet Turkic republic, which is still officially write in Cyrillic.