This special issue of the Journal has been given over to papers presented in September 2007 at Bilkent University, Ankara, during a workshop entitled ‘Romanisation in Comparative Perspective: explaining success and failure’. These contributions explore in a number of different historical and geographical contexts – Turkey, the ex-Soviet Central Asian states, South Asia and Japan – the factors that have influenced attempts at implementing script change and what explains the relative success or failure of these ventures. As İlker Aytürk points out in his editorial introduction, little work has yet been done on the comparative aspects of these processes of (attempted) romanisation. But, as he argues, the significance of the topic calls out for a framework to enable precisely this kind of analysis to take place, and so he provides one at the end of his own article, something, it is hoped, that will stimulate further discussion in other forums.