Crimean Tatar is written in both theLatin andCyrillic scripts. Before 1928, thePerso-Arabic script was the main orthography.

Before the official introduction of theCommon Turkic-based Latin alphabet by theVerkhovna Rada of Crimea in the 1990s, the Cyrillic alphabet was the main orthography. After the2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the Russian government required solely the use of the Cyrillic script. In 2021, the Ukrainian government began the transition to the Latin script.^[1]

TheTatars of Romania use a different orthography.^[2] The lettersÁ,Ç,Ğ,Í,Î,Ñ,Ó,Ş, andÚ were added in theDobrujan Tatar orthography in 1956.^[3][4][5]

Crimean Tatars used thePerso-Arabic script from the 16th century to 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin alphabet based onYañalif. The Crimean variant contained a couple of modified Arabic letters.

Prior to its replacement, same as and in parallel with several other Arabic-based orthographies of Turkic and Caucasian languages across the Soviet Union, several improvements and standardizations were introduced in order to make the writing more clear and more closely matching spoken pronunciations, the first one being adopted in 1921, and the second in 1924.

Below table lists the letters used in Crimean Tatar Arabic script.^[6]

1. In initial position, when the letterع (ayn) is used, the vowel letter is usually dropped. Examples includeعسكه‌ر (asker),عبره‌ت (ibret),عثمان (osman),عمه‌ر (ömer).
   • The exception to this rule is that it can be followed by a vowel letter, in matching with the original Arabic writing of a word.عایشه (Ayşe),عالیم (Alim)
2. The letterﻙ (kef) was often used in place ofﮒ andﯓ.
3. The letter is actuallyﮒ, some words withﮒ are also readed as "y", to simplified this was the character by some writers used.^[7]
4. The divergence of the three variants of the lettervav is one of the implemented conventions in the early 1920s into Crimean Tatar Arabic alphabet.
5. Used as anh sound, and as ae sound (at the end of words). With the above mentioned modifications, the role of this letter expanded notably, in that the "final formـه ه came to be used for the vowel sounde in the middle of the word in a lot more cases.
6. Not an actual letter, but a commonligature.
7. Letters shown with beige background are only used for writing of loanwords fromArabic language. They do not represent unique Crimean Tatar sounds, but sounds that are also written with other letters. Therefore, one of the implemented conventions in the early 1920s into Crimean Tatar Arabic alphabet was the acceptance (but not full enforcement, remaining optional) the removal of such letters.
   • All loandwords written with eitherث (se),س (sin), orص (sad) were to be written usingس (sin).
   • All loandwords written with eitherذ (zal),ز (ze),ض (zad), orظ (za) were to be written usingز (ze).
   • All loandwords written with eitherث (te) orط (ta) were to be written usingث (te).
   • The letterح (ha) in initial position is not pronounced in Crimean Tatar. Thus, the letter is dropped fully in the 1924 conventions.

As per the 1921 and 1924 Crimean Tatar Arabic alphabet orthographic conventions, all vowels were to be written, as shown in the table below.^[6]

The distinction between front and back vowel sounds "o, u, ı" versus "ö, ü, i" weren't marked. These were derived and understood from context and in followingvowel harmony rules. Below general rules are noted in Crimean Tatar, same as other Turkic languages.

• Words that contain the vowelآ ـا (a), contain back vowels, and thus the other vowels in the word will match.
• Words that contain the vowelاِ ـه‌ ه (e), contain front vowels, and thus the other vowels in the word will match.
• Words that contain the consonant soundsق (q) orغ (ğ), are followed by back vowels, and thus the other vowels in the word will match.
• Words that contain the consonant soundsك (k) orگ (g), are followed by front vowels, and thus the other vowels in the word will match.
• Various grammatical suffixes that attach a word, also follow vowel harmony rules, which will follow the above-mentioned rules as well.

In 1928, duringlatinisation in the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatar Arabic alphabet was replaced by the Latin alphabet based on theYañalif script. This alphabet contained a number of differences from the modern variant. Particularly, the lettersЬ ь,Ƣ ƣ,Ꞑ ꞑ,Ɵ ɵ,X x,Ƶ ƶ,I i instead of the modern â,Ğ ğ,I ı,İ i,Ñ ñ,Ö ö, andÜ ü.

Cyrillic for Crimean Tatar wasintroduced in 1938 as part of Cyrillization of languages inSoviet Union. It is based onRussian alphabet with no special letters. From 1938 to 1990s, that was the only alphabet used for Crimean Tatar.

*Гъ (ğ),къ (q),нъ (ñ) andдж (c) are separate letters of the alphabet (digraphs).

Modern Latin alphabet for Crimean Tatar was introduced in 1990s. It is based onTurkish alphabet with three special letters —Q,Ñ,Â. Its official use in Crimea was accepted in 1997 byCrimean Parliament. In 2021 it was approved by the government of Ukraine, to be adopted in education by September 2025.^[8]

*Ââ is not recognized as separate letter. It is used to show softness of a consonant followed byAa (Яя).

Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights:

Crimean Tatar alphabet Kîrîm Tatarşasîñ elifbesí
Tatarşa written in the Latin script
Script type	Alphabet
Period	1956 – present
Languages	Crimean Tatar
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician alphabet Greek alphabet Latin alphabet Crimean Tatar alphabet
Unicode
Unicode range	subset ofLatin (U+0000...U+024F)
This article containsphonetic transcriptions in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. For the distinction between[ ],/ / and ⟨ ⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Tatar spoken in Romania has two distinct facets existing, interweaving and forming together the literary Tatar language "edebiy Tatarğa". One of these aspects is the authentic Tatar called "ğalpî Tatarğa" or "ğalpak Tatarğa" and the other is the academic Tatar language called "muwallímatça".^[11]

• Academic Tatar language, means writing and pronouncing Arabic and Persian neologisms - occurring mostly in science, religion, literature, arts or politics - in their original form.

• Authentic Tatar language, means writing and pronouncing words, including those of Arabic and Persian origin, by strictly adapting them to the own phonetic system.

Naturalization is shifting the spelling of academic speech sounds to authentic sounds following the patterns below, where a greater-than sign indicates that one sound changes to another.^[11]

f > p
v > w
v > b
ç > ş
ç > j
h > (skip over)
h > k
h > y
h > w

There is a total of 10 letters used to represent determinant sounds of which 9 mark authentic determinant sounds: a, e, i, î, í, o, ó, u, ú while the letter á is used for an academic vowel. The writing system registers authentic consonants with 17 letters:b, ç, d, g, ğ, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, ş, t, z and has three signs standing for the academic consonants: f, h, v. There are also two authentic semivowels: y, w. An old authentic Turkic consonant, the sound /ç/ represented by the letter⟨Ç⟩ is rarely heard because authentic speakers of Tatar spoken in Dobruja spell it /ş/ as letter⟨Ş⟩. As the written language most often follows the spoken language shifting ⟨Ç⟩ to ⟨Ş⟩, the result is that in Tatar spoken in Romania letter ⟨Ç⟩ and sound /ç/ are often treated as academic.^[11]

The letters b, d, g, ğ, i, ó, u, ú, v can't occur at the end, as a last letter of the word (exception:ald anddad). Also the letter ñ can't occur as an initial letter of a word.^[12]

The group of lettersaá does not symbolize two adjacent vowels, being a writing convention that shows that the reading is done according to the first vowel in the group and the inflection of the word is done according to the second vowel in the group. For example, the reading of the wordkaár "care" is identical to that ofkar "snow", but in the ablative case they will becomekaárden "of/from care", respectivelykardan "of/from snow". The group of lettersáa must be treated similarly. For example, the wordnikáa "wedding" is read as "niká" and its dative will benikáaga "to/to the wedding".

In 1956 were the discussions about the alphabet problems ofDobrujan Tatar, which was regulated by Vladimir Drîmba, a well-knownTurkologist, including other professors and teachers.^[3] The result was 33 letters, 10 of them vowels and 23 consonants. It was used inUniversity of Bucharest, the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures.^[4][13][11] The letter "Ç ç" is to see as "Č č" in the document of alphabet discussions, also "Ğ ğ" is more like "Ǧ ǧ".^[3] But they did appear as "Ç ç" and "Ğ ğ" in the grammar books.^[13] There was actually also the letter "Ţ ţ" (name:ţe).^[3] The letter "Ţ ţ" was originally an academic letter representing the soundvoiceless alveolar affricate [ts] and naturalized to authentic as [s] "S s".^[14] It is calculated that the letter "Ţ ţ" is fully naturalized to "S s", probably by Şukran Vuap-Mocanu in 1985,^[15] this means the words, which needed to be written with "Ţ ţ" are only written in authentic.

Arabic script forTurkic languages was used since the 10th century byKara Khanids. Dobrujan Tatar did use a variant ofChagatai alphabet. It was the same version asOttoman Turkish alphabet. The writerTaner Murat, along with some others, revived theArabic script, he did use it in sometranslations and did also maketransliterations toArabic script.Taner Murat did write in a different way from the traditional version. He did marked the vowels all the time byArabic diacritics,^[16] likeXiao'erjing and different writing signs were used. Some letters unique to Arabic, were in the works ofTaner Murat mostly replaced by other letters. The journal "Nazar Look" (نَظَرْ لُوقٌ‎), which was founded byTaner Murat, did also have a logo withArabic script.

1 — Only between hard vowels (a, î, o, u).

• Shaddah (ـّ‎) is used for lettergemination.

The vowels are created with theharakats (ـَ / ـِ / ـُ‎) also with small-alif (ـٰ / ـٖ‎), the long vowels are represented by «ـَا / ـِی / ـُو‎». The long vowels loose there function only when they are fallowed by «ـَ‎» and are withoutsukun (ـْ‎), these‌ (ـَا / ـَى / ـَو‎) are readed as „a“. The exceptional long vowels (aa, ee, ii) can be made by addingmaddah (ـٓ‎) on the long vowel (ـَآ / ـِیٓ‎). The letter «ا‎» or «ء‎» [randomly] is used as a initial letter when the vowel is the first letter of the word. Also when a vowel is fallowed by a vowel or when «ـِ‎» is fallowed byshaddah (ـّ‎), «ا‎» is written.

Vowels as a first letter of the word

Vowels in middle and end of the word

Long vowels

• Sometimes is Tanwin mute, when it replaces Sukun, mostly end of the sentence, headline, or single word.

There is aCyrillic alphabet designed forDobrujan Tatar byTaner Murat, including the letters Ә ә, Җ җ, Ң ң, Ө ө, Ў ў, Ү ү, І і.^[5] It was also used intranslations withtransliteration.^[5]

Dobrujan Tatar has a version ofOld Turkic script, which is designed byTaner Murat. It was also used intranslations withtransliteration.^[5]

• The vowels are mostly in begin and middle of the word not written.

• Кай И.С. Руководство для обучения крымско-татарскому языку по новому алфавиту — Симферополь, 1928.
• Alem-i-Medeniye

• Latin alphabets
• Cyrillic alphabets
• Arabic alphabets
• Persian alphabets
• Alphabets used by Turkic languages
• Crimean Tatar culture

• CS1 Romanian-language sources (ro)
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles containing Crimean Tatar-language text
• Pages with plain IPA