Crimean Tatar language

Not to be confused with Tatar language.

Crimean Tatar
Qırımtatarca, Qırımtatar tili Къырымтатарджа, Къырымтатар тили
Pronunciation	[qɯrɯmtɑtɑrˈd͡ʒɑ]
Native to	Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey
Region	Black Sea
Ethnicity	Crimean Tatars
Native speakers	480,000  (2006)
Language family	Turkic Kypchak Kypchak-Cuman–Oghuz Crimean Tatar
Recognised minority language in	Ukraine (Autonomous Republic of Crimea),Romania (Dobroudja)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	crh
ISO 639-3	crh
Linguasphere	part of 44-AAB-a
Crimean Tatar-speaking world

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Crimean Tatars
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Sunni Islam (Hanafi)
Languages and dialects
Crimean Tatar
History
Khanate (1441–1783) Taurida Oblast (1783–1796) Taurida Governorate (1802–1917) People's Republic (1917–1918) Crimean ASSR (1921–1945) Sürgün (1944) Crimean Oblast (1945–1991) Autonomous Republic (since 1992)
People and groups
Famous Crimean Tatars Khans Mejlis Milliy Firqa

"Welcome to Crimea" (Qırımğa hoş kel'diñiz!) written in Crimean Tatar Cyrillic, airport bus, Simferopol International Airport

Crimean Tatar (Qırımtatarca, Qırımtatar tili, Къырымтатарджа, Къырымтатар тили) is the indigenous language of the Crimean Tatar peoples. It is a Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria as well as small communities in Poland, Finland, the United States, and Canada. It is not to be confused with the Kazan Tatar language spoken in Russia, to which it is remotely related and with which it is not mutually intelligible.

Number of speakers

Today, more than 260,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea, and approximately 150,000 are still in exile in Central Asia (mainly in Uzbekistan). 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. Smaller Crimean Tatar communities are also found in Romania (22,000), Bulgaria (6,000), Poland^{[citation needed]}, Finland^{[citation needed]}, Canada^{[citation needed]}, and the United States. It is one of the seriously endangered languages in Europe.

Respectively, almost all Crimean Tatars are bilingual or multilingual with the dominant languages of their respective home countries such as Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Turkish, Finnish, etc.

Dialects

Each of the three subethnic groups of the Crimean Tatars has its own dialect. The dialect of the Noğays – the former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe (should not be confused with Nogai people) – is of Kypchak origin, Yalıboylus, who lived on the southern coast of Crimea before 1944, speak an Oghuz dialect very close to Turkish, and the middle dialect of the Tat Tatars from the Crimean Mountains (should not be confused with Tat people) is a mixture of the two. This dialect is a direct descendant of the Cuman language, but it has been strongly influenced by the Oghuz Turkic.^{[citation needed]} The modern Crimean Tatar written language is based on this middle dialect because the Tats comprise about 55% of the total Crimean Tatar population and their dialect is equally intelligible to the speakers of the others.

History

The forming of the Crimean Tatar spoken dialects began with the first Turkic invasions to 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 the Islamization, Crimean Tatars wrote with an Arabic script.

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

In 1928, the alphabet was replaced with the Uniform Turkic Alphabet based on the Latin script. The Uniform Turkic Alphabet was itself replaced in 1938 by a Cyrillic alphabet. Since the 1990s, the script is in the process of being replaced 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 Turkish alphabet with two additional characters: Ñ ñ and Q q.

Crimean Tatar was the native language of the poet Bekir Çoban-zade.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front		Back
	UR	R	UR	R
+high	i	y	ɯ	u
-high	e	ø	ɑ	o

The vowel system of Crimean Tatar is similar to those of other Turkic languages, such as Turkish. Because high vowels in Crimean Tatar are short and reduced, /i/ and /ɯ/ are realized close to [ɪ], even though they are phonologically distinct.

Consonants

	Labial		Dental-alveolar		Post- alveolar		Velar		Uvular
Nasal		m		n				ŋ
Stop	p	b	t	d	t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ	k	ɡ	q
Fricative	f	v	s	z	ʃ		x	ɣ
Trill				r
Approximants				l		j

In additional to these phonemes, Crimean also displays marginal phonemes that occur in borrowed words, especially palatalized consonants.

Current situation

According to the constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as published in Russian by its Verkhovna Rada (see Конституция Автономной Республики Крым), Russian and Crimean Tatar languages enjoy a "protected" (Russian – обеспечивается ... защита) status; every citizen is entitled, at his request (Russian ходатайство), to receive government documents, such as "Passport, Birth certificate and others" in Crimean Tatar. According to the constitution of Ukraine, however, Ukrainian is the only official language in all of Ukraine, so the recognition of those languages is a matter of political and legal debate.

Before the Sürgün, the deportation of Crimean Tatars to the Uzbek SSR (18 May 1944), it had an official language status in the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Writing systems

Crimean Tatar can be written in either the Cyrillic or Latin alphabets, both modified to the specific needs of Crimean Tatar, and either used respective to where the language is used. The Latin variant is based on that of Modern Turkish.

Crimean Tatar Latin alphabet

 â symbol is not considered to be a separate letter.

a

b

c

ç

d

e

f

g

ğ

h

ı

i

j

k

l

m

n

ñ

o

ö

p

q

r

s

ş

t

u

ü

v

y

z

[a]

[b]

[dʒ]

[tʃ]

[d]

[e]

[f]

[ɡ]

[ɣ]

[x]

[ɯ]

[i], [ɪ]

[ʒ]

[k]

[l]

[m]

[n]

[ŋ]

[o]

[ø]

[p]

[q]

[r]

[s]

[ʃ]

[t]

[u]

[y]

[v], [w]

[j]

[z]

Crimean Tatar Cyrillic alphabet

а

б

в

г

гъ

д

е

ё

ж

з

и

й

к

къ

л

м

н

нъ

o

п

p

c

т

у

ф

x

ц

ч

дж

ш

щ

ъ

ы

ь

э

ю

я

[a]

[b]

[v],[w]

[ɡ]

[ɣ]

[d]

[ɛ],[jɛ]

[ø],[jø],[jo],[ʲo]

[ʒ]

[z]

[i],[ɪ]

[j]

[k]

[q]

[l],[ɫ]

[m]

[n]

[ŋ]

[o],[ø]

[p]

[r]

[s]

[t]

[u],[y]

[f]

[x]

[ts]

[tʃ]

[dʒ

[ʃ]

[ʃtʃ]

[(.j)]

[ɨ]

[ʲ]

[ɛ]

[y],[jy],[ju],[ʲu]

[ʲa], [ja]

гъ, къ, нъ and дж are separate letters.

Crimean Tatar in comparison with other languages

Crimean Tatar, Turkish and Azerbaijani

The following newspaper report compares the Crimean Tatar, Turkish, and Azerbaijani languages:

Crimean Tatar	Turkish	Azerbaijani	English
Meclis Haberleri 10.09.2003// Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisiniñ 120-cı toplaşuvı olıp keçti 2003 senesi sentâbr 7 künü Aqmescitteki İslâm Merkeziniñ binasında Qırımtatar Milliy Meclisiniñ 120-cı toplaşuvı olıp keçti. Toplaşuvda...	Meclis Haberleri 10.09.2003// Kırım Tatar Millî Meclisi'nin 120. toplantısı gerçekleşti 7 Eylül 2003 günü Akmescit'teki İslam Merkezi'nin binasında Kırım Tatar Millî Meclisi'nin 120. toplantısı gerçekleşti. Toplantıda...	Məclis Xəbərləri 10.09.2003// Qırım Tatar Milli Məclisinin 120-ci toplantısı keçirildi 2003-cü il sentyabrın 7-si günü Ağməsciddəki İslam Mərkəzinin binasına Qırım Tatar Milli Məclisinin 120-ci toplantısı keçirildi. Toplantıda...	Assembly News 10.09.2003// 120th meeting of Crimean Tatar National Assembly was held On 7 September 2003, 120th meeting of Crimean Tatar National Assembly was held at the Islamic Centre building in Simferopol. At the meeting...

Crimean Tatar and Kazan Tatar

Because of its common name, Crimean Tatar is sometimes mistaken to be a dialect of Kazan Tatar. Although these languages are related (as both are Turkic), the Kypchak languages closest to Crimean Tatar are (as mentioned above) Kumyk and Karachay-Balkar, not Kazan Tatar.

Bibliography

• Berta, Árpád (1998), "West Kipchak Languages", in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes, The Turkic Languages, Routledge, pp. 301–317, ISBN 978-0-415-08200-6 
• Kavitskaya, Darya (2010), Crimean Tatar, Munich: Lincom Europa 

External links

• Wiktionary's category of Crimean Tatar words
• Linguistic corpus of Crimean Tatar language
• Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People
• Kırımtatar Dili (Turkish)
• Wiktionary's category of Crimean Tatar words (Turkish)
• Crimean Tatar internet library
• Automatic Latin<>Cyrillic transliterator for Crimean Tatar texts

Dictionaries

• Russian-Crimean Tatar Dictionary
• Online Crimean Tatar (Northern dialect) -Turkish-English Dictionary tatarcasozluk.com