Congress of Monastir and the unified Albanian alphabet
Congreso de Monastir y alfabeto albanés unificado
- Date
- 14-22 de noviembre de 1908 · confidence high
- Place
- Bitola (Monastir), North Macedonia
- Credited to
- Albanian delegates (including Gjergj Fishta and Mid'hat Frashëri)
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A congress that adopted a unified 36-letter Latin alphabet for Albanian, with the Istanbul-variant as a supplement. It ended a century of competing alphabets, Greek, Arabic, Latin and home-grown.
There were two 'official' alphabets (Istanbul and Bashkimi) and the Monastir one merged them; today's standard Albanian is later (1972) but based on those letters. The event is recorded, not one person's invention.
What it led to
- standard Albanian writing and schooling in Albanian
- Albanian cultural unity prior to independence (1912)