Tatar language
Tatar (/ˈtɑːtər/ TAH-tər;[5] татар теле, tatar tele or татарча, tatarça) is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan (European Russia), as well as Siberia and Crimea.
For other uses, see Tatar languages.Tatar
5.2 million (2010 census)[1]
(may include some L2 speakers)
-
Common Turkic
- Kipchak
- Kipchak–Bulgar
- Tatar
- Kipchak–Bulgar
- Kipchak
- Mishar Tatar
- Nagaibak
- Siberian Tatar (may be a distinct language)
Tatar alphabet (Cyrillic, Latin, formerly Arabic)
44-AAB-be
During its history, Tatar has been written in Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic scripts.
Before 1928, Tatar was mostly written with in Arabic script (Иске имля/İske imlâ, "Old orthography", to 1920; Яңа имла/Yaña imlâ, "New orthography", 1920–1928).
During the 19th century Russian Christian missionary Nikolay Ilminsky devised the first Cyrillic alphabet for Tatar. This alphabet is still used by Christian Tatars (Kryashens).
In the Soviet Union after 1928, Tatar was written with a Latin alphabet called Jaꞑalif.
In 1939, in Tatarstan and all other parts of the Soviet Union, a Cyrillic script was adopted and is still used to write Tatar. It is also used in Kazakhstan.
The Republic of Tatarstan passed a law in 1999 that came into force in 2001 establishing an official Tatar Latin alphabet. A Russian federal law overrode it in 2002, making Cyrillic the sole official script in Tatarstan since. In 2004, an attempt to introduce a Latin-based alphabet for Tatar was further abandoned when the Constitutional Court ruled that the federal law of 15 November 2002 mandating the use of Cyrillic for the state languages of the republics of the Russian Federation[27] does not contradict the Russian constitution.[28] In accordance with this Constitutional Court ruling, on 28 December 2004, the Tatar Supreme Court overturned the Tatarstani law that made the Latin alphabet official.[29]
In 2012 the Tatarstan government adopted a new Latin alphabet but with limited usage (mostly for Romanization).
Examples[edit]
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1:
Барлык кешеләр дә азат һәм үз абруйлары һәм хокуклары ягыннан тиң булып туалар. Аларга акыл һәм вөҗдан бирелгән һәм бер-берсенә карата туганнарча мөнасәбәттә булырга тиешләр.
Barlıq keşelär dä azat häm üz abruyları häm xoquqları yağınnan tiñ bulıp tualar. Alarğa aqıl häm wöcdan birelgän häm ber-bersenä qarata tuğannarça mönasäbättä bulırğa tiyeşlär.
Tatar online learning[edit]
A common complaint among those curious about Tatar language outside of Russia has been its lack of non-Russian Latin alphabet sources. For this, a young Germany-based Tatar architect Aygul Ahmetcan (Aygöl Əxmətcan), with the help of her partner, a linguistics student Bulat Shaymi[33] (Bulat Şəymi), has created a Telegram channel Learn Tatar, which offers Tatar language teaching in English. It has gained thousands of viewers in few months after its creation in August 2023.[34] Shaymi himself has a Youtube channel dedicated to Tatar content.[35]
Among other helpful sources is the website Aybagar ("Sunflower"), which "publishes scientific works and original materials about Tatars, the Tatar language and Tatar culture, focusing especially on the Tatar diaspora worldwide".[36] Tatar pronunciations can be found in Forvo[37] and "Corpus of Written Tatar".[38]
Modern Tatar Identity is a podcast that has "conversations with people who have dedicated a part of their life to Tatar and Tatar language research".[39]