page_title: Ottoman Turkish alphabet
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Ottoman Turkish alphabet / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Un calendrier à Thessalonique en 1895&#160;: une ville cosmopoliteLes trois premières lignes sont en turc, les quatrième et cinquième à gauche en arménien, la cinquième à droite en ladino, la sixième à gauche en grec (Οκτομβρ-Παρασκευή, Αρτεμίου Μεγαλο-μάρτυρος / Octobre - Vendredi, (date à laquelle est la célébration de) Artémios le martyr) et la septième en bulgare, le français est destiné aux Occidentaux. Cinq calendriers sont utilisés (Rumi (julien de l'empire Ottoman); islamique; juif; 20 octobre, julien; 1er novembre, grégorien) English: Calendar of 1895 from Ottoman-ruled Thessaloniki, a cosmopolitan city The first three lines are in the Ottoman Turkish language, the 4th and 5th on the left in Armenian language, the 5th on the right in "Hebrew-Spanish" (Ladino), the 6th on the left in Greek (Οκτομβρ-Παρασκευή, Αρτεμίου Μεγαλο-μάρτυρος / October - Friday, (date on which is the celebration of) Artemios the Martyr) and the 7th in Bulgarian, the French is for the Western Europeans. The calendars used are the Rumi (20 Teşrin-i Evvel 1311, i.e. the Julian calendar date in Turkish), the Islamic (14 Jumādā al-Ūlā 1313), the Hebrew (14 Cheshvan 5656), the Julian (October 20th) and the Gregorian (November 1st). Հայերեն: Օսմանյան կայսրության տիրապետության տակ գտնվող Թեսալոնիկի օրացույց, 1896թ Առաջին 3 տողերը Օսմանյան թուրքերեն են, ձախից՝ 4-րդ և 5-րդ տողերը՝ հայերեն, աջից՝ 5-րդը՝ եբրաիսպաներեն (լադինո), ձախից՝ 6-րդը՝ հունարեն (Οκτομβρ-Παρασκευή, Αρτεμίου Μεγαλο-μάρτυρος / հոկտեմբեր - ուրբաթ (տոնակատարության ամսաթիվը) և 7-րդը՝ բուլղարերեն, ֆրանսերենը արևմտյան եվրոպացիների համար է։ Օրացույցները իսլամական են, եբրայական, հուլյան (հոկտեմբերի 20) և Գրիգորյան (նոյեմբերի 1)։ Ελληνικά: Το ημερολόγιο του 1895 από την Οθωμανοκρατούμενη Θεσσαλονίκη, μία κοσμοπολίτικη πόλη. Οι πρώτες 3 γραμμές είναι στην Οθωμανική Τουρκική γλώσσα, η 4η και η 5η στα αριστερά στην Αρμενική γλώσσα, η 5η στα δεξιά στην «Εβραιο-Ισπανική» (Ladino), η 6η στα αριστερά στην Ελληνική (γράφει Οκτομβρ-Παρασκευή, Αρτεμίου Μεγαλο-μάρτυρος, ημέρα στην οποία εορτάζεται ο Αρτέμιος ο Μάρτυρας) και στην 7η στην Βουλγαρική γλώσσα, ενώ τα Γαλλικά είναι για τους Δυτικο-Ευρωπαίους. Τα ημερολόγια που χρησιμοποιούνται είναι το Ισλαμικό, το Εβραϊκό, το Ιουλιανό (20η Οκτωβρίου) και το Γρηγοριανό (1η Νοεμβρίου).
context_page_description: The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet used to write Ottoman Turkish until 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet.
  Though Ottoman Turkish was primarily written in this script, non-Muslim Ottoman subjects sometimes wrote it in other scripts, including the Armenian, Greek, Latin and Hebrew alphabets.
context_section_description: The various Turkic languages have been written in a number of different alphabets, including Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Latin and other writing systems.
  The earliest known Turkic alphabet is the Orkhon script. When Turks adopted Islam, they began to use Arabic script for their languages, especially under the Kara-Khanids. Though the Seljuks used Persian as their official language, in the late Seljuk period, Turkish began to be written again in Anatolia in the nascent Ottoman state.
  The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a Turkish form of the Perso-Arabic script. Well suited to writing Arabic and Persian borrowings, it was poorly suited to native Turkish words. When it came to consonants, Arabic has several consonants that do not exist in Turkish, making several Arabic letters superfluous except for Arabic loanwords; conversely, a few letters had to be invented to write letters in Persian and Turkish that Arabic did not have (such as g or p). In the case of vowels, Turkish contains eight different short vowels and no long ones, whereas Arabic (and Persian) have three short and three long vowels; further complicating matters was that in the Arabic script, only long vowels are usually expressed. Still, Turkic languages such as Azerbaijani and Uzbek continue to be written using Arabic script in Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
  The introduction of the telegraph and the printing press in the 19th century exposed further weaknesses in the Arabic script.
  Some Turkish reformers promoted the Latin script well before Atatürk's reforms. In 1862, during an earlier period of reform, the statesman Münuf Pasha advocated a reform of the alphabet. At the start of the 20th century, similar proposals were made by several writers associated with the Young Turk movement, including Hüseyin Cahit, Abdullah Cevdet and Celâl Nuri.
  The issue was raised again in 1923 during the İzmir Economic Congress of the new Turkish Republic, sparking a public debate that was to continue for several years. A move away from the Arabic script was strongly opposed by conservative and religious elements. It was argued that Romanization of the script would detach Turkey from the wider Islamic world, substituting a foreign (European) concept of national identity for the confessional community.
  Others opposed Romanization on practical grounds, as was no suitable adaptation of the Latin script that could be used for Turkish phonemes. Some suggested that a better alternative might be to modify the Arabic script to introduce extra characters for better representing Turkish vowels.
  In 1926, the Turkic republics of the Soviet Union adopted the Latin script, giving a major boost to reformers in Turkey.
caption: A calendar page for November 1, 1895 (October 20 OS) in cosmopolitan Thessaloniki. The first 3 lines in Ottoman Turkish Arabic script give the date in the Rumi, 20 Teşrin-i Evvel 1311, and Islamic, 14 Jumādā al-Ūlā 1313, calendars; the Julian and Gregorian (in French) dates appear below.
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