Today is one of the remarkable days in Azerbaijan – the Day of the Azerbaijani Alphabet and the Azerbaijani Language.
Sea-news.az reports that this special day was established based on the Decree of National Leader Heydar Aliyev dated August 9, 2001. Taking into account that the transition to the Azerbaijan alphabet based on the Latin script was fully ensured across the country in August 2001 and that the new alphabet constituted an important milestone in the written culture of our independent state, the Great Leader signed the mentioned document.
The history of the transition to the Latin script in Azerbaijan covers several stages. For the first time, the New Alphabet Committee was established in 1922, and with the recommendation of the First All-Union Turkological Congress held in 1926, the alphabet based on the Latin script was applied massively starting from January 1, 1929. However, due to the concern of the USSR leadership regarding cultural integration among Turkic peoples, the country switched to the Cyrillic script starting from January 1, 1940.
On the eve of independence, in 1990, the Azerbaijan Alphabet Commission was established on the initiative and under the leadership of linguist Afad Qurbanov. The new Latin-script alphabet prepared by the Commission was officially approved in 1992, and the full transition to the Latin script was completed in 2001. In honor of this historic achievement, August 1 of each year is celebrated as the triumph of our mother tongue and alphabet.
