Crimean Tatar (), also called Crimean (), is a

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

spoken in

Crimea Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrain ...

and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

and

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, as well as small communities in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It should not be confused with Tatar, spoken in

Tatarstan Tatarstan, officially the Republic of Tatarstan, sometimes also called Tataria, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is a part of the Volga Federal District; and its capital city, capital and largest city i ...

and adjacent regions in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

; Crimean Tatar has been extensively influenced by nearby

Oghuz languages The Oghuz languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family, spoken by approximately 108 million people. The three languages with the largest number of speakers are Turkish, Azerbaijani and Turkmen, which, combined, account for more ...

and is mutually intelligible with them to varying degrees. A long-term ban on the study of the Crimean Tatar language following the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet government has led to the fact that at the moment

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

ranks the Crimean Tatar language among the languages under serious threat of extinction (''severely endangered''). However, according to the Institute 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. Crimean language is one of the official languages of the

Autonomous Republic of Crimea The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a ''de jure'' administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula,Republic of Crimea ( Russian occupation, considered " temporarily occupied territories" by the Ukrainian government), the other ones being Ukrainian and Russian.

Number of speakers

Today, more than 260,000

Crimean Tatars Crimean Tatars (), or simply Crimeans (), are an Eastern European Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group and nation indigenous to Crimea. Their ethnogenesis lasted thousands of years in Crimea and the northern regions along the coast of the Blac ...

live in

. Approximately 120,000 reside in Central Asia (mainly in

), where their ancestors had been deported in 1944 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

by the Soviet Union. However, of all these people, mostly the older generations are the only ones still speaking Crimean Tatar. 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. An estimated 5 million people of Crimean origin live in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Smaller Crimean Tatar communities such as ( Dobrujan Tatars) are also found in Romania () and Bulgaria (). Crimean Tatar is one of the most seriously endangered languages in Europe. 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.

Classification and dialects

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 the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages commonly spoken in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

History

The formation period of the Crimean Tatar spoken dialects began with the first Turkic invasions of Crimea by

Cuman The Cumans or Kumans were a Turkic nomadic people from Central Asia comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation who spoke the Cuman language. They are referred to as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Rus' chronicles, as " ...

s and Pechenegs and ended during the period of the

Crimean Khanate The Crimean Khanate, self-defined as the Throne of Crimea and Desht-i Kipchak, and in old European historiography and geography known as Little Tartary, was a Crimean Tatars, Crimean Tatar state existing from 1441 to 1783, the longest-lived of th ...

. However, the official written languages of the Crimean Khanate were Chagatai and

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...

. After

Islamization The spread of Islam spans almost 1,400 years. The early Muslim conquests that occurred following the death of Muhammad in 632 CE led to the creation of the caliphates, expanding over a vast geographical area; conversion to Islam was boosted ...

, Crimean Tatars wrote with an

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

. In 1876, the different Turkic 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 The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. In 1928, the language was reoriented to the middle dialect spoken by the majority of the people. In 1928, the alphabet was replaced with the Uniform Turkic Alphabet based on the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

. The Uniform Turkic Alphabet was replaced in 1938 by a

Cyrillic alphabet The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Easte ...

. During the 1990s and 2000s, the government of the

Autonomous Republic of Crimea The Autonomous Republic of Crimea is a ''de jure'' administrative division of Ukraine encompassing most of Crimea that was unilaterally annexed by Russia in 2014. The Autonomous Republic of Crimea occupies most of the peninsula,Turkish alphabet The Turkish alphabet () is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which ( Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements o ...

, with two additional characters: Ñ ñ and Q q. In the Russian-annexed " Republic of Crimea" all official communications and education in Crimean Tatar are conducted exclusively in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Phonology

Vowels

The vowel system of Crimean Tatar is similar to some other Turkic languages. Because high vowels in Crimean Tatar are short and reduced, and are realized close to , even though they are phonologically distinct.

Consonants

In addition to these phonemes, Crimean also displays marginal phonemes that occur in borrowed words, especially palatalized consonants. The southern (coastal) dialect substitutes for , e.g. standard ''qara'' 'black', southern ''xara''. At the same time the southern and some central dialects preserve glottal which is pronounced in the standard language. The northern dialect on the contrary lacks and , substituting for and for . The northern is usually , often in the place of , compare standard ''dağ'' and northern ''taw'' 'mountain' (also in other Oghuz and Kipchak languages, such as and ). and are usually fronted, close to and .

Grammar

The grammar of Crimean Tatar, like all Turkic languages, is

agglutinating An agglutinative language is a type of language that primarily forms words by stringing together morphemes (word parts)—each typically representing a single grammatical meaning—without significant modification to their forms ( agglutinations) ...

, with the exclusive use of suffixing to express grammatical categories. Generally, suffixes are attached to the ends of word stems, although derivational

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines *Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts *Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...

makes uses of compounding as well. Overall, the grammatical structure of the language is similar to that of other West Kipchak varieties. Crimean Tatar is a

pro-drop A pro-drop language (from "pronoun-dropping") is a language in which certain classes of pronouns may be omitted when they can be pragmatically or grammatically inferable. The precise conditions vary from language to language, and can be quite ...

language with a generally SOV word order.

Morphophonology

Crimean Tatar, like most Turkic languages, features pervasive

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

, which results in sound changes when suffixes are added to verb or noun stems.Kavitskaya 2010, p.25 Essentially, the vowel in a suffix undergoes assimilation to agree in certain categories with the vowel in the stem. The two main types of assimilation that characterize this agreement in Crimean Tatar morphophonology are backness harmony and

rounding Rounding or rounding off is the process of adjusting a number to an approximate, more convenient value, often with a shorter or simpler representation. For example, replacing $ with $, the fraction 312/937 with 1/3, or the expression √2 with ...

harmony. Using the

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

system in Kavitskaya (2010), non-high vowels undergoing backness harmony vary between and and are represented as A. High vowels that undergo both backness and rounding harmony alternate between �and and are represented as I. High vowels in suffixes that are never rounded and alternate between and �are represented as Y, whereas high vowels in suffixes that are always round and alternate between and are represented as U. 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 and �are represented as K, alternating and as G, alternating and by D, and alternating ʃand ʒas Ç.Kavitskaya 2010, p.34 Thus, the suffix -''şAr'' could be rendered as "şar" or "şer" depending on the vowel in the morpheme preceding it.

Verbs

Crimean Tatar verbal morphology is fairly complex, inflecting for tense, number, person, aspect, mood and voice.Kavitskaya 2010, p.61 Verbs are conjugated according to the following paradigm:Kavitskaya 2010, p.75 :: It is possible, albeit rare, for a single verb to contain all of these possible components, as in: 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.Kavitskaya 2010, p.73

Infinitive Infinitive ( abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all ...

verbs take the -''mAK'' suffix and can be negated by the addition of the suffix -''mA'' between the verb stem and the infinitive suffix, creating verb constructions that do not easily mirror English.Kavitskaya 2010, p.75

Verb derivation Novel verb stems are derived chiefly by applying a verbalizing suffix to a noun or adjective, as demonstrated in the following examples:

Bare verb stems can also be compounded with noun stems to create new verbs, as in: Person markers There are two types of person markers for finite verbs,

pronominal In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not con ...

and

possessive A possessive or ktetic form (Glossing abbreviation, abbreviated or ; from ; ) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession (linguistics), possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a numbe ...

. Depending on tense and mood, verbs will take one or the other set of endings.

:::

Grammatical person In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically, the distinction is between the speaker ( first person), the addressee ( second person), and others ( third p ...

is not marked in third person singular, and the marker is optional in third person plural.Kavitskaya 2010, p.63 As shown above, these markers come as the last element in the broader verb complex. Tense and aspect markers

Grammatical tense In grammar, tense is a grammatical category, category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their grammatical conjugation, conjugation patterns. The main tenses found ...

and aspect 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. :: A separate set of compound tenses are formed by adding the past tense copula ''edi''- to the derived forms listed above. :: Mood The imperative 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 with ''unut'' ("to forget"):

Other moods are constructed similarly to tense/aspect forms. :: Voice

Grammatical voice In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the goal of which is to formu ...

is expressed by the addition of suffixes which come in sequence before negation, tense, aspect, mood and person markers. There are several

causative In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...

suffixes which vary depending on the ending of the verb stem.

:::

Participles Past, future and present

participle In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...

s are formed by the addition of suffixes and are negated in the same way as other verbs.

Copula The copula ''ol'' ("to be, become, exist") is generally expressed as a predicate suffix in the present tense, closely resembling the pronominal person endings, as displayed below. The third person endings are frequently deleted in

colloquial Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

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''.

Converbs

Converb In theoretical linguistics, a converb ( abbreviated ) is a nonfinite verb form that serves to express adverbial subordination: notions like 'when', 'because', 'after' and 'while'. Other terms that have been used to refer to converbs include ''adv ...

s, a characteristic of many Turkic languages, 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''. Thus:

Nouns

Crimean Tatar noun stems take suffixes which express grammatical number,

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

and possession. As in all other Turkic languages, there is no

grammatical gender In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...

in Crimean Tatar.Kavitskaya 2010, p.35 Nouns are declined according to the following paradigm: :: 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. Similarly, a bare verb stem can take a deverbal suffix that converts it into a noun. There are many such denominal and deverbal suffixes in Crimean Tatar; some common suffixes are shown below:

Noun stems can also be reduplicated, which lends a more generalized meaning. The last method of noun derivation is through the compounding of two noun stems.Kavitskaya 2010, p.44 Thus:

Number 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. Use of the plural can also express

respect Respect, also called esteem, is a positive feeling or deferential action shown towards someone or something considered important or held in high esteem or regard. It conveys a sense of admiration for good or valuable qualities. It is also th ...

,Kavitskaya 2010, p.36 as in: Possession Possession is expressed through person-specific suffixing. As with the plural suffix, possession suffixes harmonize with the preceding vowel in regular ways.

Case Crimean Tatar has six grammatical cases.Kavitskaya 2010, p.37 The nominative case is unmarked, and the remaining cases are expressed through suffixing. These suffixes come last in a fully declined noun. ::

Pronouns

Like nouns, pronouns are inflected for number, person and case but not for gender. :: The second person plural pronoun can be used to denote formality or respect, even if its referent is a single person.Kavitskaya 2010, p.45 There are two roots, ''öz''- and ''kendi''-, 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. Possessive pronouns are formed by adding the suffix -''ki'' to the genitive form of a personal pronoun, as in: ::

Adjectives

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.Kavitskaya 2010, p.52 Adjectives can be derived by the addition of certain suffixes to a noun or verb stem.

The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are expressed, respectively, by the suffix -''ÇA'' and the particle ''eñ'', as in the following examples:

An idiomatic superlative form using ''episi'' ("all") in the ablative case is also possible.

Postpositions

Crimean Tatar uses postpositions. Each postposition governs a specific case, either dative, genitive or ablative. Some common postpositions are shown below: ::

Writing systems

Crimean Tatar is written in either the

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

alphabets, both modified to the specific needs of Crimean Tatar, and either used respective to where the language is used. Historically, the

was used from the sixteenth century. In the Soviet Union, it was replaced by a Latin alphabet based on

Yañalif The New Turkic Alphabet or Yañalif ( Tatar: jaꞑa əlifba/yaña älifba → jaꞑalif/yañalif, , Cyrillic: Яңалиф, "new alphabet"), is the first Latin alphabet used during the latinisation in the Soviet Union in the 1930s for the Turkic ...

in 1928, and by a Cyrillic alphabet in 1938. After Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Cyrillic became the sole script allowed in Russian occupied Crimea because according to the

Constitutional Court of Russia The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation () is a high court within the judiciary of Russia which is empowered to rule on whether certain laws or presidential decrees are in fact contrary to the Constitution of Russia. Its objective is o ...

decision made in 2004, all languages of Russia must use Cyrillic. However there are some contradictions to the decision: virtually all

Finnic languages The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, ...

, including distantly-related

Skolt Sámi Skolt Sámi (, , ; or , , ) is a Sámi languages, Sámi language that is spoken by the Skolts, with approximately 300 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi and approximately 20–30 speakers of the (Notozero) dialect in an area surround ...

, spoken in Russia, however, currently use the Latin script as their sister languages Finnish and

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

do, despite the historical existence of Karelian Cyrillic alphabet. In 1992, a Latin alphabet based on Common Turkic Alphabet was adopted by the decision of the Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People, which was formally supported by the Supreme Council of Crimea in 1997 but never implemented officially on practical level. However, in 2021, the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories of Ukraine has announced it begins the implementation of the decision, with vice premier Oleksii Reznikov supporting the transition by stating that Latin corresponds better to Turkic phonetics. The ministry revealed it plans to finish the transition to Latin by 2025, which was supported by the

Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People () is the single highest executive-representative body of the Crimean Tatars in period between sessions of the Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People. The Mejlis is a member institution of the Platform of E ...

. The alphabet is co-developed by A. Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies,

Potebnia Institute of Linguistics Potebnia Institute of Linguistics is a research institute in Ukraine, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine department of literature, language, and art studies. It is focused on linguistic research and studies of linguistic ...

, Institute of Philology of

Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv The Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (; also known as Kyiv University, Shevchenko University, or KNU) is a public university in Kyiv, Ukraine. The university is the third-oldest university in Ukraine after the University of Lviv and ...

and Tavrida National V.I. Vernadsky University.

Arabic alphabet

Crimean Tatars used Arabic script from the 16th century to 1928. Note: # The letter ﻙ (kef) is often used in place of ﮒ and ﯓ.

Latin alphabet

Â â is not considered to be a separate letter. Usually it represents the

near-open front unrounded vowel The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase of the ligature. Both the symbol and the sound ar ...

, /æ/.

Cyrillic alphabet

The digraphs гъ, къ, нъ and дж are separate letters.

Sample

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...

, Article 1: Bütün insanlar serbestlik, menlik ve uquqlarda musaviy olıp dünyağa keleler. Olar aqıl ve vicdan saibidirler ve biri-birilerinen qardaşçasına munasebette bulunmalıdırlar.

Legal status

The Crimean peninsula is internationally recognized as territory of Ukraine, but since the 2014 annexation by the Russian Federation is de facto administered as part of the Russian Federation. According to Russian law, by the April 2014 constitution of the Republic of Crimea and the 2017 Crimean language law, the Crimean Tatar language is a state language in Crimea alongside Russian and Ukrainian, 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. In Ukrainian law, according to the constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as published in Russian by its

Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada ( ; VR), officially the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, is the unicameralism, unicameral parliament of Ukraine. It consists of 450 Deputy (legislator), deputies presided over by a speaker. The Verkhovna Rada meets in the Verkhovn ...

, Russian and Crimean Tatar languages enjoy a "protected" () status; every citizen is entitled, at his request (), 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. Before the Sürgünlik, the 18 May 1944 deportation by the Soviet Union of Crimean Tatars to internal exile in

Uzbek SSR The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (, ), also known as Soviet Uzbekistan, the Uzbek SSR, UzSSR, or simply Uzbekistan and rarely Uzbekia, was a union republic of the Soviet Union. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist P ...

, Crimean Tatar had an official language status in the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Media

The first Crimean Tatar newspaper was '' Terciman'' published in 1883-1918 by Ismail Gasprinsky. Some other Crimean Tatar media include: '' ATR'', '' Qırım Aqiqat'', '' Qırım'', '' Meydan'', '' Qırım Alemi'', '' Avdet'', '' Yañı Dünya'', '' Yıldız''.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * *

External links

National corpus of Crimean Tatar language

Linguistic corpus of Crimean Tatar language

Crimean Tatar internet library

Automatic Latin–Cyrillic transliterator for Crimean Tatar texts

Crimean Tatar Online Dictionary

Crimean Tatar in Omniglot
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crimean Tatar Language Agglutinative languages Kipchak languages Crimean Tatar culture Languages of Turkey Languages of Romania Languages of Bulgaria Western Kipchak Indigenous languages of European Russia Indigenous languages of Ukraine