The Alphabet Revolution is 97 years old!

The Alphabet Revolution, in which the Turkish alphabet based on Latin letters was adopted in place of Arabic script in the written language, was announced to the public by our great leader Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on August 8-9, 1928, and the Law on Turkish Letters was adopted by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) on November 1, 1928. It entered into force after being published in the Official Gazette on November 3, 1928.

In his opening speech at the TBMM, Atatürk stated that the Turkish nation needed, above all else, an easy key to literacy regarding the new alphabet. He emphasized that the new Turkish alphabet was quite suitable for the Turkish language and that with this alphabet, all citizens in villages and cities would be able to read and write easily.

Prime Minister İsmet İnönü announced that 'Millet Mektepleri' (Nation Schools) would be opened to teach the new letters to the public and that they would teach the new letters to citizens without interrupting their work.

Falih Rıfkı Atay, who took an active part in the Alphabet Revolution process, stated that with the new Turkish alphabet, the Turkish nation could express itself freely and that the Turkish revolution was completed with the Alphabet Revolution. Atay said that with the new alphabet, the Turkish language reached its pure Turkish form and that everyone who had long yearned for literacy could learn to read and write easily.

The late Orhan Koloğlu, one of the doyens of our press history, in his book 'Osmanlıcadan Türkçeye Okuryazarlığımız' (Our Literacy from Ottoman to Turkish) (Tarihçi Kitabevi), which is an important work for analyzing the historical flow of Turkish and its ties with other languages, stated that literacy in the Ottoman period was exaggeratedly 10 percent; and that 4 percent of this consisted of Greeks and Armenians, who were then described as 'millet-i sadıka' (loyal nation) in state service, and a smaller number of Albanians and Arabs.
Koloğlu stated that as a result of many Turkish literate people losing their lives on the fronts, the Armistice period (end of 1918-1922) was entered with a very low percentage of literacy. While there are those who consider this rate to be 4 percent, there are also those who accept it as 2 percent. As stated in the same book, the literacy rate before the Alphabet Revolution (in 1927) was 11 percent.

Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, who also followed the process closely, stated that the Turkish language had been under the influence of foreign languages for years and noted that with the Alphabet Revolution, the Turkish nation joined European civilization and entered the age of enlightenment.

With the revolution, a literacy mobilization began in every corner of the country, including the most remote points of Turkey. In the context of carrying out the work in a widespread and active manner, the process was conducted in tandem with the press. Newspapers, the most influential media outlets of the period, actively supported the Alphabet Revolution in this direction. Initially, they printed some sections of their pages, and later the entirety, with Latin letters.
The support of the Turkish press in the construction of the young Republic's nation-state identity is noteworthy.

November 1 is like a milestone in our history... It holds an important place as it is the date both when the Alphabet Revolution came into effect (1928) and when the Sultanate was abolished (1922).

I commemorate all our heroes who fought for the existence, independence, unity, and integrity of our country and our nation, especially Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with respect, gratitude, and mercy.

Sources:
- Atatürk’ün Söylev ve Demeçleri I-III, Volume I (1906-1938), Atatürk Research Center, Ankara, 1997.
- Falih Rıfkı Atay, Çankaya, Sena Printing House, Istanbul, 1968.
- Mazhar Müfit Kansu, Erzurum’dan Ölümüne Kadar Atatürk’le Beraber, Türkiye İş Bankası Publications, Istanbul, 2024.
- Mustafa Samur, Adnan Sofuoğlu, Harf İnkılabı’nın Türk Milli Basınına Yansıması (1928-1929), CTAD, Year 18, Issue 35 (Spring 2022), pp. 395-423.