The language reform in Turkey

Abstract

Osmanlı was the administrative and literary language used between the 13th and 20th centuries in the Ottoman Empire. The need for a reform became blatant since this written language, combining Arabic and Persian, had no relation whatsoever with the spoken Turkish. This language reform started in the 1860’s, as part of the well-known Tanzimat reforms and completed with Atatürk’s major alphabet and spelling reform of 1928. A lexical reform has then been implemented in order to create new words. The goal of these reforms, namely reducing the gap between the written and spoken languages, has largely been achieved and Turkish is now a rich and consistent language.