The Stamboul Alphabet Of Shemseddin Sami Bey: Precursor To Turkish Script Reform

Abstract

Comparative studies of writing systems and script conversion tend to emphasize the extent of cultural re-orientation and the rapidity of implementation of Turkey's shift from the Arabic to the Roman script, but they rarely mention the period that led up to this change. As early as 1863, the Azeri playwright Ahunzade Mirza Fethali presented a proposal for a Latin orthography for Turkish, before the Cemiyet-i ilmiye-i Osmaniye (Ottoman Society of Science) in Istanbul. A second event in Ottoman script reform, though less well known than Ahunzade's proposal, was the adoption by many former members of the Cemiyet-i ilmiye-i Arnavudiye (Albanian Society of Science), in Istanbul, in 1879, of a Latin-based alphabet for Albanian. This “Stamboul Alphabet” was designed by Shemseddin Sami Bey and, unlike Ahunzade's proposal, was immediately acted upon and subsequently adopted by the new Albanian presses in Bucharest and Sofia, from which it spread through southern and central Albanian lands, all still under Ottoman rule.