"Welcome to Crimea" (Qırımğa hoş keldiñiz!) written in Crimean Tatar Cyrillic, airport bus,Simferopol International AirportCrimean Tatar Latin script on a plate inBakhchysarai in 2009, along with UkrainianCrimean Tatar Latin script sign inSaky Raion in 2021, along with Russian and UkrainianAn example of Crimean Tatar Arabic script. The text reads in Modern Latin alphabet: "Yaşasın, Sotsialist Şuralar Cumhuriyetleri Birligindegi Qurtulış milletlerniñ hür birlikleri!" In Cyrillic: "Йашасын, Социалист Шуралар Джумхурийетлери Бирлигиндеги Къуртулыш миллетлернинъ хюр бирликлери!"
A long-term ban on the study of the Crimean Tatar language following thedeportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet government has led to the fact that at the momentUNESCO ranks the Crimean Tatar language among the languages under serious threat of extinction (severely endangered).[7][8] However, according to theInstitute of Oriental Studies, due to negative situations, the real degree of the threat has elevated to critically endangered in recent years, which are highly likely to face extinction in the coming generations.[9]
Today, more than 260,000Crimean Tatars live inCrimea. Approximately 120,000 reside in Central Asia (mainly inUzbekistan), where their ancestors had been deported in 1944 duringWorld War II by the Soviet Union. However, of all these people, mostly the older generations are the only ones still speaking Crimean Tatar.[1] 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.[14]An estimated 5 million people of Crimean origin live in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries.[15] Smaller Crimean Tatar communities such as (Dobrujan Tatars) are also found in Romania (22,000) and Bulgaria (1,400).[1]
Crimean Tatar is one of the most seriously endangered languages in Europe.[16] Almost all Crimean Tatars are bilingual or multilingual, using the dominant languages of their respective home countries, such as Russian, Turkish, Romanian, Uzbek, Bulgarian or Ukrainian.
The Crimean Tatar language consists of three or four dialects. Among them is also the southern dialect, also known as the coastal dialect (yalıboyu, cenübiy), which is in theOghuz branch of Turkic languages commonly spoken in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.[17]
There is also a variety of the Crimean Tatar language spoken inRomania.[18] It includesCrimean Tatar andNogai dialects,[19][20] but today there is no longer a sharp distinction between the dialects.[i] This language belongs to theKipchakTurkic languages, specifically to the Kipchak-Nogai group.[18]
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".[21]
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.[21]
f > p v > w v > b ç > ş ç > j h > (skip over) h > k h > y h > w
Some sources define the dialects according to their level of influence byOghuz languages.[18][23]
The language with moderate Oghuz influence is spoken by about 70% of Tatars. It is spoken mainly in the south and center ofConstanța.
The language with little Oghuz influence is spoken by about 20% Tatars. It is spoken inTulcea, near and far north of Constanța, and is the most conservative in preserving Kipchak elements.
The language with high Oghuz influence is spoken by about 10% of Tatars. It is spoken around the city of Hacıoğlu Pazarcık (Dobrich) and is the closest to Oghuz languages.
The formation period of the Crimean Tatar spoken dialects began with the first Turkic invasions of Crimea byCumans andPechenegs and ended during the period of theCrimean Khanate. However, the official written languages of the Crimean Khanate wereChagatai andOttoman Turkish. AfterIslamization, Crimean Tatars wrote with anArabic script.
In 1876, the different Turkic Crimean dialects were made into a uniform written language byIsmail 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 theOttoman 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 theUniform Turkic Alphabet based on theLatin script. The Uniform Turkic Alphabet was replaced in 1938 by aCyrillic alphabet. During the 1990s and 2000s, the government of theAutonomous Republic of Crimea under Ukraine encouraged replacing the script with a Latin version again, but the Cyrillic has still been widely used (mainly in published literature, newspapers and education). The current Latin-based Crimean Tatar alphabet is the same as theTurkish alphabet, with two additional characters:Ñ ñ andQ q. In theRussian-annexed "Republic of Crimea" all official communications and education in Crimean Tatar are conducted exclusively in the Cyrillic alphabet.[24]
The vowel system of Crimean Tatar is similar to some other Turkic languages.[25] Because high vowels in Crimean Tatar are short and reduced,/i/ and/ɯ/ are realized close to[ɪ], even though they are phonologically distinct.[26]
In addition to these phonemes, Crimean also displays marginal phonemes that occur in borrowed words, especiallypalatalized consonants.[27]
The southern (coastal) dialect substitutes/x/ for/q/, e.g. standardqara 'black', southernxara.[28]At the same time the southern and some central dialects preserve glottal/h/ which is pronounced/x/ in the standard language.[28] The northern dialect on the contrary lacks/x/ and/f/, substituting/q/ for/x/ and/p/ for/f/.[28] The northern/v/ is usually[w], often in the place of/ɣ/, compare standarddağ and northerntaw 'mountain' (also in other Oghuz and Kipchak languages, such asAzerbaijani:dağ andKazakh:taw).
/k/ and/ɡ/ are usually fronted, close to[c] and[ɟ].
The grammar of Crimean Tatar, like all Turkic languages, isagglutinating,[29] with the exclusive use of suffixing to express grammatical categories.[30] Generally, suffixes are attached to the ends of word stems, although derivationalmorphology makes uses of compounding as well.[29] Overall, the grammatical structure of the language is similar to that of other West Kipchak varieties.[31] Crimean Tatar is apro-drop language[32] with a generallySOV word order.[33]
Crimean Tatar, like most Turkic languages, features pervasivevowel harmony, which results in sound changes when suffixes are added to verb or noun stems.[34] Essentially, the vowel in a suffix undergoesassimilation to agree in certain categories with the vowel in the stem.[35] The two main types of assimilation that characterize this agreement in Crimean Tatar morphophonology arebackness harmony androunding harmony.[34]
Using thetransliteration system in Kavitskaya (2010), non-high vowels undergoing backness harmony vary between [a] and [e], and are represented asA. High vowels that undergo both backness and rounding harmony alternate between [i], [y], [ɪ] and [u] and are represented asI. High vowels in suffixes that are never rounded and alternate between [i] and [ɪ] are represented asY, whereas high vowels in suffixes that are always round and alternate between [u] and [y] are represented asU.[36]
Some consonants undergo similar harmonizing changes depending on whether the preceding segment is voiced or voiceless, or whether the segment demonstrates backness harmony. Consonants that alternate between [k], [q], [g] and [ɣ] are represented asK, alternating [k] and [g] asG, alternating [t] and [d] byD, and alternating [tʃ] and [dʒ] asÇ.[37]
Thus, the suffix -şAr could be rendered as "şar" or "şer" depending on the vowel in the morpheme preceding it.[37]
Crimean Tatar verbal morphology is fairly complex, inflecting for tense, number, person, aspect, mood and voice.[38] Verbs areconjugated according to the following paradigm:[39]
For the most part, each type of suffix would only appear once in any given word, although it is possible in some circumstances for causative suffixes to double up.[40]
Infinitive verbs take the -mAK suffix and can benegated by the addition of the suffix -mA between the verb stem and the infinitive suffix, creating verb constructions that do not easily mirror English.[39]
яшамакъ
yaşamaq
яшамакъ
yaşamaq
"to live"
яшамамакъ
yaşamamaq
яшамамакъ
yaşamamaq
"not to live"
Verb derivation
Novel verb stems are derived chiefly by applying a verbalizing suffix to a noun or adjective, as demonstrated in the following examples:[41]
There are two types of person markers for finite verbs,pronominal andpossessive. Depending on tense and mood, verbs will take one or the other set of endings.[43]
Pronominal
Singular
Plural
1st Person
-(I)m
-mIz
2nd Person
-sIñ
-sI(ñI)z
3rd Person
-∅
(-lAr)
Possessive
Singular
Plural
1st Person
-m
-K
2nd Person
-ñ
-ñIz
3rd Person
-∅
(-lAr)
Grammatical person is not marked in third person singular, and the marker is optional in third person plural.[44] As shown above, these markers come as the last element in the broader verb complex.
Tense and aspect markers
Grammatical tense andaspect are expressed in combination by the addition of various markers to the verb stem. Some of these markers match with pronominal person markers, while others take possessive person markers. Each tense/aspect has an associated negation marker; most of these are -mA but there is some variation.[44]
A separate set of compound tenses are formed by adding the past tense copulaedi- to the derived forms listed above.[45]
Formed With
Negation
Example
Habitual Past
Future/Present
-mAz
alır edim ("I often used to take")
Compound Past
General Present
-mA
ala edik ("we were taking")
Pluperfect
Evidential Past
-mA
alğan edim ("I had taken")
Counterfactual Past
Categorical Future
-mA
yazacaq edim ("I would have written")
Progressive Past
Progressive Present
-mA
Ketmekte edim. ("I kept going.")
Past Conditional
Conditional
-mA
alsa edim ("if I had taken")
Mood
Theimperative is formed using a specific set of person markers, and negated using -mA. In second person imperatives, only the bare verb stem is used. A first person imperative expresses an "I/we should do X" sentiment, whereas third person expresses "let him/her do X," as shown below withunut ("to forget"):[46]
Singular
Plural
1st Person
-(A)yIm
-(A)yIK
2nd Person
Ø
-IñIz
3rd Person
-sIn
-sInlAr
Унутайым.
Unutayım
Унутайым.
Unutayım
"I should have to forget."
Унут!
Unut!
Унут!
Unut!
"Forget!"
Унутсын.
Unutsın.
Унутсын.
Unutsın.
"Let him/her forget."
Othermoods are constructed similarly to tense/aspect forms.[47]
Marker
Negation
Person Marker
Example
Optative
-KAy(dI)
-mAy
pronominal
Aytqaydım ("I wish I had spoken.")
Obligative
-mAlY
-mA
possessive
Aytmalım ("I have to speak.")
Voice
Grammatical voice is expressed by the addition of suffixes which come in sequence before negation, tense, aspect, mood and person markers.[48] There are severalcausative suffixes which vary depending on the ending of the verb stem.[40]
Voice
Marker
Example
Passive
-(I)l
aşal ("be eaten")
Reflexive
-(I)n
boğul ("drown oneself")
Reciprocal
-(I)ş
tapış ("find each other")
Causative
Marker
Added To
Example
-t
polysyllabic stems ending in vowel
işlet ("force to work")
-It
stems ending in -rk, -lk, -k
qorqut ("to scare [someone]")
-Ir
monosyllabic stems ending in -t, -ç, -ş
uçur ("allow to fly away")
-Ar
monosyllabic stems
qopar ("break off [something]")
-DIrm
most remaining stems
töktür ("force to spill")
Participles
Past, future and presentparticiples are formed by the addition of suffixes and are negated in the same way as other verbs.[49]
Thecopulaol ("to be, become, exist") is generally expressed as a predicate suffix in the present tense, closely resembling the pronominal person endings, as displayed below.[38] The third person endings are frequently deleted incolloquial speech. The copula’s past tense form,edi, is suppletive. Future tense copular forms are constructed by the addition of the categorical future suffix -cAK.[38]
Converbs, a characteristic of many Turkic languages,[50] express sequential or dependent action. Present tense converbs are formed by the addition of the suffixes -A (used after consonants) and -y (used after vowels). In past tense, converbs take the suffix -Ip.[51] Thus:
Crimean Tatar noun stems take suffixes which express grammatical number,case and possession. As in all other Turkic languages, there is nogrammatical gender in Crimean Tatar.[52] Nouns aredeclined according to the following paradigm:[52]
[STEM] + [number] + [possession] + [case]
Noun derivation
Noun stems are derived in a number of ways. Most commonly, a bare noun stem can take a denominal suffix which alters its basic meaning.[53] Similarly, a bare verb stem can take a deverbal suffix that converts it into a noun.[54] There are many such denominal and deverbal suffixes in Crimean Tatar;[55] some common suffixes are shown below:
Denominal
Marker
Meaning
Example
Gloss
-dAş
belonging to group
yaşdaş ("of same age")
age-SUF
-kir
association/inclination
işkir ("hard worker")
work-SUF
-lIK
abstraction
dostluq ("friendship")
friend-SUF
-şınas
performer of act
tilşınas ("linguist")
tongue-SUF
-ÇI
performer of act
arabaçı ("driver")
cart-SUF
-çYK
diminutive
buzçıq ("piece of ice")
ice-SUF
Deverbal
Marker
Meaning
Example
Gloss
-mA
result of action
aşıqma ("a hurry")
hurry-SUF
-KI
instrument of action
bilgi ("knowledge")
know-SUF
-KIç
utility of action
tutquç ("holder, handle")
hold-SUF
-I
general noun formation
ölü ("dead man")
die-SUF
-(I)k
general noun formation
kürek ("shovel")
scoop-SUF
-(U)v
general noun formation
quruv ("building")
build-SUF
Noun stems can also bereduplicated, which lends a more generalized meaning.[56] The last method of noun derivation is through the compounding of two noun stems.[57] Thus:
Nouns are pluralized by the addition of the suffix -lAr to the noun stem. The vowel in this plural suffix agrees phonetically with the final vowel in the stem.[52]
Use of the plural can also expressrespect,[58] as in:
Oсмановлар
Osmanovlar
кельди.
keldi.
Oсмановлар кельди.
Osmanovlar keldi.
"Osmanov came."
Possession
Possession is expressed through person-specific suffixing. As with the plural suffix, possession suffixes harmonize with the preceding vowel in regular ways.[58]
Crimean Tatar has six grammatical cases.[59] The nominative case is unmarked, and the remaining cases are expressed through suffixing. These suffixes come last in a fully declined noun.[59]
Like nouns, pronouns are inflected for number, person and case but not for gender.[57]
Singular
Plural
1st
2nd
3rd
1st
2nd
3rd
Nominative
men
sen
o
biz
siz
olar
Accusative
meni
seni
onı
bizni
sizni
olarnı
Genitive
menim
seniñ
onıñ
bizim
siziñ
olarnıñ
Dative
maña
saña
oña
bizge
sizge
olarǧa
Locative
mende
sende
onda
bizde
sizde
olarda
Ablative
menden
senden
ondan
bizden
sizden
olardan
The second person plural pronoun can be used to denoteformality or respect, even if its referent is a single person.[60]
There are two roots,öz- andkendi-, that express reflexivity. Of the two,kendi- is more common in the southern dialect, but both are used throughout the entire area in which Crimean Tatar is spoken.[60]
Possessive pronouns are formed by adding the suffix -ki to the genitive form of a personal pronoun,[61] as in:
Adjectives in Crimean Tatar precede the nouns they modify. They do not show agreement, and as such do not take any of the case, person or possession suffixes.[62]
Adjectives can be derived by the addition of certain suffixes to a noun or verb stem.[63]
Thecomparative and superlative forms of adjectives are expressed, respectively, by the suffix -ÇA and the particleeñ,[62] as in the following examples:
узунджур
uzuncur
узунджур
uzuncur
"hotter"
энъ
eñ
балабан
balaban
энъ балабан
eñ balaban
"biggest"
An idiomatic superlative form usingepisi ("all") in the ablative case is also possible.[62]
Crimean Tatar uses a standarddecimal system with individual lexical terms for cardinal numbers 0-10, multiples of 10 up to 100, and large numbers, where Crimean follows thelong scale system. Other numerals are formed by combining numerals without inflection, such as 15 ‘on beş’ (lit. ten five) or 287 ‘eki jüz seksen jedi’ (lit. two hundred eighty seven).
For inflection of numerals, suffixes are added only to the rightmost member of the complex number. Inflection of numerals does not differ from that of nouns. Inflection within a complex numeral is used to form fractions with cardinal numbers, with the denominator first in ablative case and numerator second in the case required by the sentence, e.g. ⅔ ‘üçten eki’.[64]
Crimean Tatar usespostpositions. Each postposition governs a specific case, either dative, genitive or ablative.[65] Some common postpositions are shown below:
Crimean Tatar is written in either theCyrillic orLatin alphabets, both modified to the specific needs of Crimean Tatar, and either used respective to where the language is used.
Historically, theArabic script was used from the sixteenth century. In the Soviet Union, it was replaced by a Latin alphabet based onYañalif in 1928, and by a Cyrillic alphabet in 1938.
The Crimean Tatar language in Romania did get a Latin alphabet in 1956,[18] it was established as a section inUniversity of Bucharest the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures in 1957 and also in 1977 it was disbanded.[68] Most of the teachers who taught at theTatar language department graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology ofKazan State University (located inTatarstan,Russia), specializing in Tatar language and literature.[68] In the communist period, Tatar books were brought from theUSSR to teach the Tatar language inRomania, but it failed. Nowadays the Tatar language is taught in some Romanian schools using their own Tatar language books.[18][69]
InRomania the Crimean Tatar language uses a different orthography. 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.[21]
Bütün insanlar serbestlik, menlik ve uquqlarda musaviy olıp dünyağa keleler. Olar aqıl ve vicdan saibidirler ve biri-birilerinen qardaşçasına munasebette bulunmalıdırlar.[70]
The Crimean peninsula is internationally recognized as territory of Ukraine, but since the 2014annexation by the Russian Federation is de facto administered as part of the Russian Federation.
According to Russian law, by the April 2014constitution of the Republic of Crimea and the 2017 Crimean language law,[24] the Crimean Tatar language is a state language in Crimea alongsideRussian andUkrainian, while Russian is the state language of the Russian Federation, the language of interethnic communication, and required in public postings in the conduct of elections and referendums.[24]
In Ukrainian law, according to theconstitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as published in Russian by itsVerkhovna Rada,[71] Russian and Crimean Tatar languages enjoy a "protected" (Russian:обеспечивается ... защита) status; every citizen is entitled, at his request (ходатайство), to receive government documents, such as "passport, birth certificate and others" in Crimean Tatar; but Russian is the language of interethnic communication and to be used in public life. According to the constitution of Ukraine, Ukrainian is the state language. Recognition of Russian and Crimean Tatar was a matter of political and legal debate.
There are some Tatar magazines in Romania, as well as novels, dictionaries, poetry books, school books and science books.[73][74][18][69] Some of the dictionaries are printed by the help ofUDTTMR.[75] Tatar learning rubrics called "Tatarşa üyrenemĭz" (Romanian:Învățăm tătărește; "We learn Tatar") and the TV show "Romanya'dan Tatarlar" (Romanian:Tătarii din România; "Tatars from Romania") were also broadcast on Romanian television.[76][77] However, this version of the language is not supported in language keyboards or in machine translation. But there is a project trying to collect text data for Crimean Tatar (Romania).[78] The project is titled asCrimean Tatar (Romania) Language Corpus, “this focuses on collecting text sources specifically for the Dobrujan Tatar dialect, adhering to a particular orthography and linguistic norm established by Taner Murat and the Tatar language section of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Bucharest.”[79]
^abcThe former is used for consonant-final endings, the latter for vowel-final.
^Tatar language spoken in Romania today has resulted from the recent fusion of two dialects: the Northern Nogai spoken north of Constanta since the first part of the second millennium and the Southern Crimean, which was spoken south of the city to Bulgarian Dobruja, likely since the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Empire. Today there is no longer a sharp distinction between these dialects.[21]
^abcdThe Sounds of Tatar Spoken in Romania: The Golden Khwarezmian Language of the Nine Noble Nations, Taner Murat, Anticus Press, Constanța, 2018, ISBN 978-606-94509-4-9
Johanson, Lars (1995). "On Turkic Converb Clauses". In Haspelmath, Martin; König, Ekkehard (eds.).Converbs in Cross-Linguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 313–347.
Kavitskaya, Darya (2010).Crimean Tatar. Munich: Lincom Europa.
Изидинова, С. Р. (1997). "Крымскотатарский язык" [Crimean Tatar language].Языки мира. Тюркские языки [Languages of the world. Turkic languages] (in Russian).
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