The Congress of Manastir

The Congress of Manastir (Albanian: Kongresi i Manastirit) was an academic conference held in the city of Manastir (Bitola) from November 14 to November 22, 1908, with the goal of standardizing the Albanian alphabet. November 22 is now a commemorative day in Albania, Kosovo, and Republic of Macedonia, as well as among Albanian dispora known as Alphabet Day (Albanian: Dita e Alfabetit).^[1][2] Prior to the Congress, the Albanian language was represented by a combination of six distinct alphabets, plus a number of sub-variants.

At the beginning of the Congress, the delegates elected a commission consisting of eight members, which would organize the debates of the delegates and the other projects of the Congress. Gjergj Fishta was elected chairman of the commission, while Mit'hat Frashëri became its vice-chairman. Luigj Gurakuqi became the secretary of the commission. The other five members of the commission were Bajo Topulli, Ndre Mjeda, Shahin Kolonja, Gjergj Qiriazi and Sotir Peçi. Mit'hat Frashëri was also elected chairman of the congress and Parashqevi Qiriazichairwoman of the commission of the alphabet, which was responsible for the organization of the various alphabet proposals.

The delegates decided that the Albanian alphabet and its orthography should be as phonemic as possible. Three distinct alphabets were proposed: the Stamboll alphabet, the Bashkimi (English: "Union") alphabet proposed by the Union Association, and the Agimi (English: "Dawn") alphabet. After the presentation of the three alphabets, the delegates voted unanimously for the use of the modified Bashkimi alphabet as the standard Albanian alphabet.^[4] Both the Bashkimi and the Agimi alphabet were based on the Latin alphabet; the Stamboll alphabet was based on the alphabet used officially in the Ottoman empire and contained mostly Latin characters, supplemented by ten improvised symbols.