Akhmet Baitursynov

Ahmet Baitursynuly (c. 5 September 1872 — 8 December 1937) was a Kazakh intellectual who worked in the fields of politics, poetry, linguistics, and education.

Ahmet reformed the Kazakh alphabet. In 1912, he excluded all the purely Arabic letters not used in the Kazakh language and added letters specific to the Kazakh language. Ahmet's orthographic reform resulted in a script that functions like a true phonetic alphabet, with one letter for every sound in the Kazakh language, compared to the basic Arabic abjad. The new alphabet, named Töte jazu (meaning straight writing), is still used by Kazakhs living in China, Afghanistan, and in Iran. Ahmet also developed the basics of Kazakh and the scientific terminology for the definition of Kazakh grammar. In 1937, he was executed by a firing squad during the Great Purge.