Turkish used to be written with the Arabic alphabet from about 900 to 1928. However, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk changed it to the Latin alphabet. The Turkish government justified the move as making it much easier to learn to increasing literacy. The literacy rate indeed increased greatly after the reform, from around 10.5% (in 1927) to over 90% (today). However, some say that the move was also to distance the country from the Ottoman Empire, whose documents can no longer be read except by a few scholars.