The second meeting of the Joint Commission on the Alphabet of the Turkic World was held in Baku
The second meeting of the Joint Commission on the Alphabet of the Turkic World was held in Baku
The 2nd meeting of the Joint Commission on the Alphabet of the Turkic World was held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
The meeting was chaired by the President of the Turkic Academy, Professor, Dr. Shahin Mustafayev, and was attended by the President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Professor, Dr. Isa Gabibbeyli, President of the Ataturk Azerbaijan Center Nizami Jafarov, scientists from Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).
At the meeting, which was also attended by the President of the Turkish Language Association (OTG) Prof. Dr. Osman Mert, the research conducted in the field of the common alphabet in the Turkic world was discussed, and the definition of an action plan for the common alphabet was discussed.
At the meeting, where research in the field of general terminology was also discussed, the scientific, cultural and practical results of the transition to a single alphabet based on Latin letters were evaluated.
In his speech to the press, Professor Dr. Mert said that the Turkic world needs written communication and that they are acting responsibly to eliminate this.
Mert stated that the Turkic states have made significant progress in terms of academic transition to a common alphabet, but it may take some time for political decisions to be made.
Expressing that they hope for the transition of the Turkic world to a common alphabet, Mert stressed that they continue their work.
Mert recalled that in those periods the Turkic world achieved the unity of the alphabet, using the Gokturk alphabet in the 8th century and the Arabic alphabet after the adoption of Islam.
Stating that there was a unity of the alphabet in the Turkic world before the twentieth century, Mert said: "This issue was discussed at the 1st Turkological Congress, held in Baku in 1926, and a decision was made to switch to the Latin alphabet. The first prerequisite for cultural unity is unity in the alphabet. This was well known in the Soviet Union, and in the 1930s the alphabets of the Turkic republics were changed and all of them were assigned different Cyrillic alphabets. Thus, the unity of the alphabet in the Turkic world was again violated."
Stating that new pages had opened for the Turkic republics that gained independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mert continued:
"What happened at this meeting actually fulfills a historical task. Now we need communication in writing, and we need to make it happen. Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan use the Latin alphabet. The alphabets of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have different hieroglyphs from us, and they decided to bring their alphabets closer to us. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan remained, which did not switch to the Latin alphabet. Kazakhstan has announced that it will switch to the Latin alphabet by 2025. It will be the 100th anniversary of the Turkological Congress. We want to complete the release of the common alphabet in 2026. History has placed this responsibility on us, and we must be more determined."