Ahmet Cevat Emre

Ahmet Cevat Emre (1876–1961) was a Turkish journalist and linguist. He was a member of the Turkish Language Association (TDK) and involved in the latinization of the Turkish alphabet. He also served as a deputy for Çanakkale in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

Early life and education Emre was born on Crete, which at the time was within the Ottoman Empire. He later moved to Istanbul where he attended the Kuleli Military High School and later also the Ottoman Military College. In Tripolitania he became familiar with philosopher Herbert Spencers' "First Principles". He later was able to escape to Europe, Besides he attempted to sell Turkish books to the Azeri Ministry of Education and sell carpets to Turkey. As he moved to Batumi, he published the magazine Yani dyunya, originally founded by Mustafa Subhi and encouraged Nâzim Hikmet and Vâlâ Nureddin to write for the magazine. He has come to the attention to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and by 1928 he was in Turkey having been appointed a member of the Turkish language commission which was tasked with the latinization of the Turkish alphabet. In January 1935 he was one of the first to have received Hermann F. Kvergič's study on the Turkish language, which has influenced the development of the Sun Language Theory. but at the same time he attempted to prove that the Turkish language belonged to the inflectional languages, just as the indo-Germanic languages as well.

Literary works and publishing Besides having written several books on the Turkish language and grammar,

Political career He was also elected as a deputy for Çanakkale in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

Personal life While living in the Soviet Union, he experimented with the concept of a social family sharing a household with Nâzim Hikmet and Vâlâ Nureddin, in which Emre prepared the meals, Hikmet wrote poems and articles, and Nureddin taught Turkish to Azerbaijani. They lived together as a social family in Batumi as well as in Moscow. In Moscow they lived in separate rooms in the Hotel Lux with a common kitchen for the household.