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The Tatar language (Tatar tele, Tatarça) is an Turkic language belonging to the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages.

Classification

Tatar is a Turkic language, which is considered part of the disputed Altaic language family.

Other European (see Crimean Tatar), Caucasian and West-Siberian Turco-Tatar languages are quite similar to Kazan Tatar, but not necessarily mutually intelligible with it.

Geographic distribution

Tatar is spoken in some parts of Europe, Russia, Siberia, China, Turkey, Ukraine, Finland, Estonia and Central Asia.

Kazan Tatar is also native for 400,000 Bashkirs, especially those living in Ufa, and some thousands of Maris. Mordva's Qaratay group also speak Tatar. The Tatar language is an international communication language between Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvashs, Kazakhs, Maris, Mordvins, and Udmurts.

Official status

Tatar is the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan. Official script of Tatar language is considired to be a Cyrillic script, but sometimes other scripts are used, mostly Latin and Arabic. All official sources in Tatarstan use Cyrillic script at their web-sites and publishing. In other cases, where Tatar has no official status, using of concrete alphabet depend only on author's desire. Guides in Tatarstan are also in two scripts.

The Tatar language was used as official since 1917 first after Kazan Khanate was adsorbed to Russia in 1552, but only in Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Socialist Republic. Tatar is also considered the only official language in Idel-Ural State.

In the Soviet period the term official language wasn't in use, but the same meaning was a language could be used in trial in some republics. In Soviet epoch Tatar was a language could be used in trial in Bashkortostan, Mari El and other regions of RSFSR.

Since 1930s use of the Tatar language declined. In the 1980s it wasn't studied in city schools even for Tatar pupils. In rural schools it was used, but Tatar-speaking pupils had no chance to enter university, because all high education was only in Russian.

In the beginning of the 1990s most Russian republics declared titular nation's language as official. In Bashkortostan Tatar population exceed Bashkir, but Tatar language hasn't official status, even though 0.5 million Bashkirs and all Bashkortostan Tatars speaks it. At the last presidential election current president Murtaza Rakhimov was supported by Tatars only because he promised to make Tatar the third official language of Bashkortostan.

Today the Tatar language is not viewed by some people as an endangered language, but it is viewed as a low prestige language. High education in Tatar only takes place in Tatarstan and only for humanitarian sciences. In other regions Tatar is a spoken language firstly, the number of speakers as well as quality of knowledge outside Tatarstan tends to decrease. As a written language Tatar is popular only in Tatar-speaking areas where schools with Tatar language lessons are situated. On the other hand, in pure Tatar rural districts of Tatarstan Tatar language is, in fact, the only language in use.

Dialects of Kazan Tatar

There are 3 main dialects of Tatar: Western (Mişär), Middle (Tatarstan's most popular language), and Eastern (Siberian). All of these dialects also have subdivisions.

In the Western (Mişär) dialect Ç is pronounced as [ʧ], C as [ʤ], [ʦ] sound also pronounced.

In the Minzälä subdialect of the Central Dialect z is pronounced as [ð], as opposed to other dialects where it is silent.

In come cases Y is pronounced as C ([ʓ]) before a consonant (rural speech).

In bilingual people's city slang there are differences between x and h, q and k, ğ and g, v and w which are less stronger than earlier. This can be viewed as an influence of the use of the Cyrillic alphabet.

Siberian Tatar

Siberian Tatar use language, differ than literary Kazan Tatar. Kazan Tatar was used as lterary writing language before 1930s, but then only Russian was used as writing language.

Siberian Tatars pronounce [ts] instead of ç, [j] instead of c and sometimes [p] and [t] instead of b and d.

Tatar in Russia

There are ~5,300,000 Tatar speakers in Russia. Only ~4,500,000 of them are Tatars. (5,500,000 in Russia). Other speakers are Bashkirs (520,000), Russians (130,000), Chuvashs (70,000), Maris (42,000), Udmurts and Mordvins. There are local Tatar language speakers in Tatarstan, this nomber includes Azeri, Armenian, Kazakh and Jewish communities.

Sounds

Pronunciation

Native Tatar words do not have the consonants [ʒ], [f] or [v], but they are prounounced by Tatars well. Kazan Tatars cannot pronounce affricates at all. They usually pronounce Tatar [ʆ] (soft Esh) instead of [ʧ] (Tesh), [d][ʒ] or [ʓ] (Ezh) instead of [ʤ] (Dezh), [s] instead of [ʦ]. However, pronounciation of affricates in loanwords is recommended by literary traditions. All loanwords are usually pronounced as they are in their native languages.

If there are more than 2 consonants, ı or e sounds are inserted into speech. Sometimes this process occurs in non-Tatar words without apparent reason.

tekst → [tekest]
bank → [banık] (not [bañk])

It is frequent to devoice a final voiced consonant:

tabíb (doctor) → [tabíp]

Vowels

There are 5 pairs of vowels: a-ä, o-ö, u-ü, ı-e and í-i. The a letter is used for two sounds: the more long a and more short å; ä is also used to represent [ə].

The Tatar language has vowel harmony.

Grammar

There are only 4 types of syllables (c – consonant, v - vowel)

• • c+v
  • v+c
  • c+v+c
  • c+v+c+c

Writing system

Tatar has been written in a number of different alphabets.

Pre-1928

Before 1928 Tatar was written with a variant of the Arabic alphabet (Iske imla ...- 1920; Yanga imla 1920-1928).

1927-1938

In Soviet Union Tatar has been written with a Latin alphabet named Janalif.

Cyrillic

In Tatarstan (a republic of Russia where Tatar is most commonly used) and all other parts of Russia a Cyrillic alphabet is used to write Tatar; also in Kazakhstan.

Modern Latin

A Latin alphabet-based system has been used mostly in Tatarstan since 2000 and generally on the Internet, although this has been less common more recently due to the Russian law that all languages of Russia must be written in the Cyrillic alphabet.

History

Tatar's ancestors are the extinct Bolgar and Kipchak languages.

The literary Tatar language is based on Kazan Tatar's Middle (Tatarstan) dialect and the Old Tatar language (İske Tatar Tele). Both are members of the Kypchak (or Northwestern) group of Turkic languages, although they are also partly derived from the ancient Volga Bolgar language.

The Tatar language strongly influenced most of the Caucasian, Slavic and Finnic languages in the Volga River area.

Examples

• äye - yes
• yuq - no
• isänme(sez)/sawmı(sız) - hello
• sälâm - hi
• saw bul(ığız)/xuş(ığız) - goodbye
• zínhar öçen - please
• min - I
• sin - you
• ul - he / she / it
• bez - we
• sez - you
• alar - they
• millät - nation
• İngliz(çä) - English

See also

• Tatars
• Tatar alphabet
• Russification

External links

• Tatar language on Ethnologue
• Dmoz.org: links about Tatar language
• Dmoz.org: links about Tatar language in Tatar
• Dmoz.org: links to Tatar dictionaries
• Dmoz.org: Web resources in Tatar
• Tatar.Net

Language studies

• Information about Tatar writing
• Tatar tele turında säxifä (Tatar dili hakkinda sahife)

Forums

• Tatar mailing list (English)
• Tatar forum (Tatar)
• IRC channel #tatar on the FreeNode network

History and literature

• Tatar myths, including the story of tt:Şüräle (Russian)
• Tatar library
• Links to other Tatar language resources
• Tatars' history in the Turkic world perspective (Volga Bulgars links are under the "History" and "Genetics" tabs)

Dictionaries

• English-Tatar dictionary
• Tatar-Russian-English dictionary

jp:タタール語