In this journal entry I will discuss why Turkish has an almost completely Latin alphabet, that most people can read,compared to arabic countries that don't, as well as the significance of Ataturk in the Turkish language.
The Turkish Language Association (Turk Dil Kurumu), was established in 1932 under Ataturk's guidance. Its goal was to make the language of Turkey more Turkish, as odd as that may sound now. The Turkish language around 1930 was largely what we now call Ottoman Turkish, and it was heavily cluttered with Persian and Arabic vocabulary. This vocabulary shift followed and built upon the 1928 introduction of a modified Latin alphabet to replace the Persian form of Arabic script used to write Ottoman Turkish. Arabic script, Persian or otherwise, was a poor means for writing Turkish as the languages use very different sets of sounds. And an Arabic script would be a great difficulty for a country wanting to modernize and connect to the outside world.
Imported words were banned from the press, and the Turk Dil Kurumu went about replacing the Ottoman words with a mix of newly invented words based on Turkish roots and ancient words revived from Old Turkish. For example, shimal had been borrowed from the Persian for north. It was replaced by the Middle Turkic word kuzey, derived from the Old Turkish noun kuz meaning dark and cold place or shadow.
The result was that the vocabulary of spoken and written Turkish started on a huge and continuing shift. The generations in Turkey started speaking very differently, and this difference has remained as the language change has continued.
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