Abstract:

Alphabet discussions, which started with the modernization movements of the Tanzimat period, have been one of the longest-lasting discussions that await a solution in our country. At that time, the first solution to the alphabet problem was to amend the Arabic alphabet and to write the letters separately; the second one was to use the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic alphabet. These alphabet discussions, which continued in the Tanzimat and Constitutional periods, continued feverishly in the first years of the republic as well. It was of the most important revolutions for Mustafa Kemal. For this reason, the infrastructure of the revolution should be prepared and the most appropriate time and conditions should be expected an absolute success. In 1928, a commission called the Language Council was established to solve the alphabet issue, which is now discussed in every field. The commission, which completed its work within two months, presented this report, called the Elifba Report, to Mustafa Kemal on 1 August 1928, and the report was finalized with his recommendations and corrections. With the completion of the report, the alphabet issue, which had been discussed since the Tanzimat, was resolved definitively. This report, prepared by experts in their field by examining the alphabets of and grammatical structures of languages of seventeen different countries, is a very important report for basing the alphabet revolution on scientific foundations. Although the Elifba Report is mentioned in all studies on the alphabet revolution today, there is no transcribed version of the entire report in Latin letters. In this study, we aim to make a contribution to all researchers working in this field by transcribing the entire into Latin letters in its original form.

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