Crimean Tatar language

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Not to be confused with Tatar language.
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Crimean Tatar
Qirimtatarca, Qirimtatar tili
??????????????, ??????????? ????
alternative version ????????????, ?????????? ????
Pronunciation [q?r?mt?t?r'd???]
Native to Ukraine, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Romania, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria
Region Black Sea
Ethnicity Crimean Tatars
Native speakers
480,000 (20062011)[1]
Language family
Turkic
Common Turkic
Kipchak
KipchakCumanOghuz
Crimean Tatar
Writing system
Cyrillic and Latin; previously Arabic (Crimean Tatar alphabet)
Official status
Official language in
Russia

Republic of Crimea[2]
Recognised minority
language in
Ukraine[3]
Autonomous Republic of Crimea[2]
Romania[4]
Language codes
ISO 639-2 crh
ISO 639-3 crh
Glottolog crim1257[5]
Linguasphere part of 44-AAB-a
Crymean Tatar lang.png
Crimean Tatar-speaking world
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Part of a series on
Crimean Tatars
Tamga symbol of the Crimean Tatar Gerae family
By region or country
Bulgaria Romania Turkey United States Uzbekistan
Religion
Sunni Islam (Hanafi)
Languages and dialects
Crimean Tatar
History
Khanate (14411783)
Taurida Oblast (17831796)
Taurida Governorate (18021917)
People's Republic (19171918)
Crimean ASSR (19211945)
Srgn (1944)
Crimean Oblast (19451991)
Autonomous Republic (19912014)
Republic of Crimea (20142016)
People and groups
List Biographies Khans Mejlis Milliy Firqa
v t e

Welcome to Crimea (Qirimga hos keldiiz!) written in Crimean Tatar Cyrillic,

airport bus, Simferopol International Airport

Crimean Tatar Latin script on a plate in Bakhchisaray

An example of Crimean Tatar Arabic script

Crimean Tatar (?????????????? Qirimtatarca, ??????????? ???? Qirimtatar tili), also
called Crimean Turkish[1] or simply Crimean,[1] is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken
in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania and
Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should
not be confused with Tatar proper, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in
Russia; the languages are related but not mutually intelligible. Crimean Tatar
arrived in the 13th century with the Mongol Golden Horde, succeeding the Crimean
Greek and Crimean Gothic Principality of Theodoro, and continued through the
15th18th century Crimean Khanate period. Though only distantly related, it has
been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz Turkic languages such as Turkish,
Turkmen and Azerbaijani.

Contents [hide]
1 Number of speakers
2 Dialects
3 History
4 Phonology
4.1 Vowels
4.2 Consonants
5 Current situation
6 Writing systems
6.1 Arabic alphabet
6.2 Latin alphabet
6.3 Cyrillic alphabet
7 Comparison with other languages
7.1 Turkish and Azerbaijani
7.2 Tatar proper
8 Notes
9 References
10 Bibliography
11 External links
Number of speakers[edit]
Today, more than 260,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea. Approximately 150,000
reside in Central Asia (mainly in Uzbekistan), where their ancestors had been
exiled in 1944 during World War II by the Soviet Union. However, of all these
people, mostly the older generations are the only ones still speaking Crimean
Tatar.[6] In 2013, the language was estimated to be on the brink of extinction,
being taught in only around 15 schools in Crimea. Turkey has provided support to
Ukraine, to aid in bringing the schools teaching in Crimean Tatar to a modern
state.[7] An estimated 5 million people of Crimean origin live in Turkey,
descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries.[citation
needed] Of these an estimated 2,000 still speak the language.[6] Smaller Crimean
Tatar communities are also found in Romania (22,000), Bulgaria (6,000), and the
United States.[6] Crimean Tatar is one of the seriously endangered languages in
Europe.[8]

Almost all Crimean Tatars are bilingual or multilingual, using as their first
language the dominant languages of their respective home countries, such as
Russian, Turkish, Uzbek, or Ukrainian.

Dialects[edit]
Each of the three subethnic groups of the Crimean Tatars has its own dialect. The
dialect of the Nogays, the former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe (should not be
confused with Nogai people), is of KypchakNogay origin.

The Yaliboylus, who lived on the southern coast of Crimea before 1944, speak an
Oghuz dialect.

The Tat Tatars from the Crimean Mountains (should not be confused with Tat people)
use a middle dialect of KypchakCuman origin. The dialect is a direct descendant of
the Cuman language, but it has been strongly influenced by Oghuz.[citation needed]
The modern Crimean Tatar written language is based on Tat because the Tats comprise
about 55% of the total Crimean Tatar population.

History[edit]
The forming of the Crimean Tatar spoken dialects began with the first Turkic
invasions of Crimea and ended during the period of the Crimean Khanate. However,
the official written languages of the Crimean Khanate were Chagatai and Ottoman
Turkish. After Islamization, Crimean Tatars wrote with an Arabic script.

In 1876, the different Turkic Crimean dialects were made into a uniform written
language by Ismail Gasprinski. A preference was given to the Oghuz dialect of the
Yaliboylus, in order to not break the link between the Crimeans and the Turks of
the Ottoman Empire. In 1928, the language was reoriented to the middle dialect
spoken by the majority of the people.

In 1928, the alphabet was replaced with the Uniform Turkic Alphabet based on the
Latin script. The Uniform Turkic Alphabet was replaced in 1938 by a Cyrillic
alphabet. Since the 1990s, the government has encouraged replacing the script with
a Latin version again, but the Cyrillic is still widely used (mainly in published
literature and newspapers). The current Latin-based Crimean Tatar alphabet is the
same as the