- Do some preliminary research on what most interests you about the target culture, and describe how this topic relates to language. Do you need any special vocabulary or linguistic knowledge to engage this topic? If so, have you included objectives in your learning plan to engage this topic?
- **This journal post may be used as foundational preparation for your final presentation.
I am most interested in the reforms in the earlier 20 centuries. Those were a series of political, legal, religious, cultural, social, and economic policy changes, which all pushed Turkey’s development. Among the reforms, there were abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate(1922), abolition of caliphate (1924), separation of the state and the religion, new capital Ankara (1923), multi-party system (1930), women’s right to vote (1930) and the weekend act (1924). Those reforms were mainly led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He was very well respected by Turkish people. His surname Ataturk was given by the Turkish people, which means the father of Turkey. Without the president and those reforms, Turkey won’t achieve its position today.
He is also the most important people in pushing the letter reform, changing the Arabic alphabet into Latin alphabet. There were so many obstacles, but he still did it. And time proved he was right, helping Turkey’s modernization. The literacy rate rose from 14% to 99%, which is a tremendous improvement. Although the future generations may not be able to read, or lose connection to the rich inheritage of the literatures from the Ottoman Empire, still the advancement of Turkey thanks to the letter reform cannot be measured.
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