Crimean Tatar
Qırımtatarca, Qırımtatar tili Къырымтатарджа, Къырымтатар тили
Pronunciation	[qɯrɯmtɑtɑrˈd͡ʒɑ]
Spoken in	Ukraine  Uzbekistan  Romania  Bulgaria  Turkey
Region	Black Sea
Ethnicity	Crimean Tatars
Native speakers	480,000  (2006)[1]
Language family	Turkic Kypchak Kypchak-Cuman–Oghuz Crimean Tatar
Official status
Official language in	Ukraine (Crimea)
Recognised minority language in	Romania (Dobroudja)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	crh
Linguasphere	part of 44-AAB-a
Crimean Tatar-speaking world
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Crimean Tatar
History
Khanate (1441–1783) Taurida Oblast (1783–1796) Taurida Governorate (1802–1917) People's Republic (1917–1918) Crimean ASSR (1921–1945) Sürgün (1944) Crimean Oblast (1945–1991) Autonomous Republic (since 1992)
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v t e

The Crimean Tatar language^[2] is the language of the Crimean Tatars. It is a Turkic language spoken in Crimea, Central Asia (mainly in Uzbekistan), and the Crimean Tatar diasporas in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria. It is not to be confused with the Tatar language.

Number of speakers[link]

Today, more than 260,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea, and approximately 150,000 are still in exile in Central Asia (mainly in Uzbekistan).^[3] An estimated 5 million people of Crimean origin live in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries.^{[citation needed]} Of these an estimated 2,000 still speak the language.^[3] Smaller Crimean Tatar communities are also found in Romania (22,000),^[3] Bulgaria (6,000),^[3] Poland^{[citation needed]}, Finland^{[citation needed]}, and the United States.^[3] It is one of the seriously endangered languages in Europe.^[4]

Dialects[link]

Each of the three subethnic groups of the Crimean Tatars has its own dialect. The dialect of the Noğays – the former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe (should not be confused with Nogai people) – is of Kypchak origin, Yalıboylus, who lived on the southern coast of Crimea before 1944, speak an Oghuz dialect very close to Turkish, and the middle dialect of the Tat Tatars from the Crimean Mountains (should not be confused with Tat people) is a mixture of the two. This dialect is a direct descendant of the Cuman language, but it has been strongly influenced by the Oghuz Turkic. The modern Crimean Tatar written language is based on this middle dialect because the Tats comprise about 55% of the total Crimean Tatar population and their dialect is equally intelligible to the speakers of the others.

History[link]

The forming of the Crimean Tatar spoken dialects began with the first Turkic invasions to Crimea and ended during the period of the Crimean Khanate. However, the official written languages of the Crimean Khanate were Chagatai and Ottoman Turkish. After the Islamization, Crimean Tatars wrote with an Arabic script.

In 1876, the different Turkish 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. In 1928, it was reoriented to the middle dialect.

In 1928, the alphabet was replaced with the Uniform Turkic Alphabet based on the Latin script. The Uniform Turkic Alphabet was itself replaced in 1938 by a Cyrillic alphabet. Since the 1990s, the script is in the process of being replaced with a Latin version again, but the Cyrillic is still widely used (mainly in published literature and newspapers). The current Latin-based Crimean Tatar alphabet is the same as the Turkish alphabet with two additional characters: Ñ ñ and Q q.

Crimean Tatar was the native language of the poet Bekir Çoban-zade.

Phonology[link]

Vowels[link]

The vowel system of Crimean Tatar is similar to those of other Turkic languages, such as Turkish.^[5] While /i/ and /ɯ/ are phonologically distinct, since high vowels in Crimean are short and reduced, they are realized close to [ɪ].^[6]

Consonants[link]

In additional to these phonemes, Crimean also displays marginal phonemes that occur in borrowed words, especially palatalized consonants.^[7]

Current situation[link]

According to the constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as published in Russian by its Verkhovna Rada (see Конституция Автономной Республики Крым), Russian and Crimean Tatar languages enjoy a "protected" (Russian – обеспечивается ... защита) status; every citizen is entitled, at his request (Russian ходатайство), to receive government documents, such as "Passport, Birth certificate and others" in Crimean Tatar. According to the constitution of Ukraine, however, Ukrainian is the only official language in all of Ukraine, so the recognition of those languages is a matter of political and legal debate.

Before the Sürgün, the deportation of Crimean Tatars to the Uzbek SSR (18 May 1944), it had an official language status in the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Writing systems[link]

Crimean Tatar Latin alphabet[link]

 â symbol is not considered to be a separate letter.

Crimean Tatar Cyrillic alphabet[link]

гъ, къ, нъ and дж are separate letters.

Crimean Tatar in comparison with other languages[link]

Crimean Tatar, Turkish and Azerbaijani[link]

The following newspaper report compares the Crimean Tatar, Turkish and Azerbaijani languages:

Crimean Tatar and Tatar[link]

Because of its common name, Crimean Tatar is sometimes mistaken to be a dialect of the Tatar language. Although these languages are related (as both are Turkic), the Kypchak languages closest to Crimean Tatar are (as was mentioned above) Kumyk and Karachay-Balkar, not the Tatar language.

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Berta, Árpád (1998), "West Kipchak Languages", in Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Ágnes, The Turkic Languages, Routledge, pp. 301–317, ISBN 978-0-415-08200-6 
• Kavitskaya, Darya (2010), Crimean Tatar, Munich: Lincom Europa 

External links[link]

	Crimea portal
	Languages portal

Crimean Tatar language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Wiktionary's category of Crimean Tatar words
• Linguistic corpus of Crimean Tatar language
• Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People
• Kırımtatar Dili (Turkish)
• Wiktionary's category of Crimean Tatar words (Turkish)
• Crimean Tatar internet library
• Automatic Latin<>Cyrillic transliterator for Crimean Tatar texts

Dictionaries[link]

• Russian-Crimean Tatar Dictionary
• Online Crimean Tatar (Northern dialect) -Turkish-English Dictionary tatarcasozluk.com

Tatar
татар теле / tatar tele / تاتار تيلی
Spoken in	Russia, other post-Soviet states
Ethnicity	Tatars
Native speakers	6.5 million  (2002)[1]
Language family	Turkic Kipchak Kipchak–Bolgar Tatar
Writing system	Cyrillic, Latin, Arabic
Official status
Official language in	Tatarstan (Russia)
Regulated by	Institute of Language, Literature and Arts of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tt
ISO 639-2	tat
ISO 639-3	tat
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

The Tatar language (татар теле, татарча, tatar tele, tatarça), or more specifically Kazan Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars of historical Kazan Khanate, including modern Tatarstan and Bashkortostan. It should not be confused with the Crimean Tatar language, to which it is remotely related.

Geographic distribution[link]

Tatar is spoken in Russia (about 5.3 million people), Central Asia, Ukraine, Poland, China, Finland, Turkey and other countries.

Tatar is also native for some thousands of Maris. Mordva's Qaratay group also speak Tatar. 94% of ethnic Tatar claimed knowledge of Tatar language during the 2002 census.^[2]

Official status[link]

The word Qazan – قازان is written in Yaña imlâ in the semblance of a Zilant

Tatar Latin Janalif Arabic script 1927

Cover page of Tatar Yana imla book, printed with Separated Tatar language in Arabic script in 1924

A Ğabdulla Tuqay's gravestone in 2011 with name iscription in Tatar language in Arabic script

File:Хальфин Азбука татарского языка 1778.pdf

Bilingual guide in Kazan Metro.

A subway sign in Tatar (top) and Russian

Tatar, along with Russian, is the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan. The official script of Tatar language is based on the Cyrillic script with some additional letters. Sometimes other scripts are used, mostly Latin and Arabic. All official sources in Tatarstan use Cyrillic at their web-sites and publishing. In other cases, where Tatar has no official status, the use of a specific alphabet depends on the preference of the author. Guides in Tatarstan are published in two alphabets.

The Tatar language was made a de facto official language in Russia in 1917, but only in the Tatar Soviet Socialist Republic. Tatar is also considered the official language in short-lived Idel-Ural State, briefly formed during the Russian Civil War. One should note, however, that Bolshevist Russia did not recognize official languages as such; however, there were a number of languages that could be used in trial in some republics. In the Soviet era, Tatar was such a language^{[citation needed]} in Bashkortostan, Mari El and other regions of the Russian SFSR.

The usage of Tatar declined from the 1930s onwards. In the 1980s it was not studied in city schools, not even by Tatar pupils. Although the language was used in rural schools, Tatar-speaking pupils had little chance to enter a university, because all higher education was in Russian.

Tatar is no longer classified as an endangered language,^[3] although it is still a low prestige language. Higher education in Tatar can only be found in Tatarstan, and is restricted to the humanities. In other regions Tatar is primarily a spoken language and the number of speakers as well as their proficiency tends to decrease. Tatar is popular as a written language only in Tatar-speaking areas where schools with Tatar language lessons are situated. On the other hand, Tatar is the only language in use in rural districts of Tatarstan.

Dialects of Tatar[link]

There are 3 main dialects of Tatar: Western (Mişär or Mishar), Middle (Kazan), and Eastern (Siberian). All of these dialects also have subdivisions. Significant contribution to the study of the Tatar language and its dialects, made ​​famous scientist, a professor of philology Gabdulkhay Akhatov, who is considered the founder of modern Tatar dialectological school.

Mişär[link]

In the Western (Mişär) dialect Ç is pronounced [tʃ] (southern or lambir mishars) and as [ts] (northern mishars or nizhgars). C is pronounced [dʒ]. There are no differences between v and w, q and k, g and ğ in the Mişär dialect. (The Cyrillic alphabet doesn't have special letters for q, ğ and w, so Mişär speakers have no difficulty reading Tatar written in Cyrillic.)

This is the dialect spoken by the Tatar minority of Finland.

Middle[link]

Minzälä

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

Slang

In bilingual cities people often pronounce h as [x], q as [k], ğ as [ɡ], w as [v]. This could be due to Russian influence. Another possibility is that these cities were places where both the western and middle dialects were used.

The influence of Russian is significant. Russian words and phrases are used with Tatar grammar or Russian grammar in Tatar texts. Some Russian verbs are taken entirely, un-nativized, and followed with itärgä. Some English words and phrases are also used.

There was a distinct cryptolect, the Gäp, spoken predominantly in Kazan, but now it is extinct or near extinction.

Siberian Tatar[link]

Siberian Tatars pronounce ç as [ts], c as [j] and sometimes b as [p], d as [t], f as p, j as ch, t as d, z as s and h as k. There are also grammatical differences within the dialect, scattered across Siberia.^[4]

Many linguists claim the origins of Siberian Tatar dialects are actually independent of Volga–Ural Tatar; these dialects are quite remote both from Standard Tatar and from each other, often preventing mutual comprehension. The claim that this language is part of the modern Tatar language is typically supported by linguists in Kazan and denounced by Siberian Tatars.

Over time, some of these dialects were given distinct names and recognized as separate languages (e.g. the Chulym language) after detailed linguistic study. A brief linguistic analysis shows that many of these dialects exhibit features which are quite different from the Volga–Ural Tatar varieties, and should be classified as Turkic varieties belonging to several sub-groups of the Turkic languages, distinct from Kipchak languages to which Volga–Ural Tatar belongs.

By studying the phonetic peculiarities of dialect of the local population of Siberia, professor Gabdulkhay Akhatov first among the scientists discovered in the Speech of Siberian Tatars is such a thing as the pronounce,^[5] which in his opinion, was obtained for the Siberian Tatars of Kipchaks.^[6] In his classic fundamental research work "Dialect West Siberian Tatars" (1963) professor Gabdulkhay Akhatov wrote about a territorial resettlement of the Tobol-Irtysh Tatars Tyumen and Omsk areas. Subjecting a comprehensive integrated analysis of the phonetic system, the lexical composition and grammatical structure, the scientist concluded that the language of the Siberian Tatars is a separate dialect, it is not divided into sub-dialects and it is one of the most ancient Turkic languages.^[5]

Phonology[link]

Vowels[link]

Phonemically, Tatar may be argued to have two vowel heights, high and low. The low vowels are two, front and back, whereas the high vowels are eight: front and back, round and unround, long and short. However, phonetically, the short high vowels are reduced: they are mid-centralized. They are therefore generally transcribed with mid vowel letters such as e and o: high front i ü, high back ï u, reduced (mid) front e ö, reduced (mid) back ë o, and low ä, a. The high back unrounded vowel ï is only found in Russian loans, though the native diphthong ëy, which only occurs word-finally, has been argued to be phonemically ï..^[7] Loaned vowels are considered to be back vowels.

Phonetically, the native vowels are approximately high и/i [i], ү/ü [ʉ], у/u [u], reduced е (э)/e [ɘ̆], ө/ө [ɵ̆], ы/ı [ɤ̆~ʌ̆] о/o [ŏ] (ë may be mid-low), and low ә/ə [a~æ], а/а [ɑ]. In polysyllabic words, the front-back distinction is lost in reduced vowels: all become mid-central.^[7] Reduced vowels in unstressed position are frequently elided. Low back /ɑ/ is rounded [ɒ] word-initially and after [ɒ], as in bala 'child'. In Russian loans there are also [ɨ], [ɛ], and [ɔ]^[8]

Historically, the Turkic high vowels have become the Tatar reduced series, whereas the Turkic mid vowels have replaced them. Thus Kazakh til 'language' and kün 'day' correspond to Tatar tel and kön, while Kazakh men 'I', qol 'hand', and kök 'sky' are in Tatar min, qul, kük.

Consonants[link]

Uvular consonants are allophones of velars before back vowels.

Most of these phonemes are common to or have equivalents in all Turkic languages, but the phonemes /v/, /ts/, /h/ and /ʒ/ are only found in loanwords in Literary Tatar. /f/ is also of foreign origin, but is also found in native words, e.g. yafraq "leaf".^[9]

Pronunciation of loanwords[link]

While the consonants [ʒ], [f] and [v] are not native to Tatar, they are well established. However, Tatars usually substitute fricatives for affricates, for example [ɕ] for [tʃ], [ʒ] or [ʑ] for [dʒ], and [s] for [ts]. Nevertheless, literary traditions recommend the pronunciation of affricates in loanwords.

[ʔ] (hamza) is a sound found in Arabic loanwords and Islamic prayers. It is usually pronounced [e] in loanwords.

Palatalisation[link]

Palatalisation is not common in Tatar. As a result, speakers have no problem using the Arabic and Jaꞑalif scripts, neither of which has an accepted method for indicating palatalisation.

In general, Russian words with palatalisation have entered into the speech of bilingual Tatars since the 1930s. When writing in the Cyrillic alphabet, Russian words are spelled as they are in Russian. In today's Latin orthography, palatalisation is sometimes represented by an acute diacritic under the vowel.

Some Tatars speak Russian without palatalisation, which is known as a Tatar accent.

Syllable types[link]

• V (ı-lıs, u-ra, ö-rä)
• VC (at-law, el-geç, ir-kä)
• CV (qa-la, ki-ä, su-la)
• CVC (bar-sa, sız-law, köç-le, qoş-çıq)
• VCC (ant-lar, äyt-te, ilt-kän)
• CVCC (tört-te, qart-lar, 'qayt-qan)

Stress is on the final syllable.

Phonetic replacement[link]

Tatar sign on a madrasah in Nizhny Novgorod, written in both Arabic and Cyrilic Tatar scripts

Tatar phonotactics dictate many pronunciation changes.

Unrounded vowels may be pronounced as rounded after o or ö:

qorı /qoro/
borın /boron/
közge /közgö/
sorı /soro/)

Nasals are assimilated to following stops:

unber /umber/
mengeç /meñgeç/

Voicing may also undergo assimilation:

küzsez /küssez/

Unstressed vowels may be syncopated or reduced:

urını /urnı/
kilene /kilne/
bezne /bĕzne/
kerdem /kĕrdem/
qırğıç /qĭrğıç/

Vowels may also be elided:

qara urman /qar'urman/
kilä ide /kilä'yde/
turı uram /tur'uram/
bula almím /bul'almím/

In consonant clusters longer than two phones, ı or e (whichever is dictated by vowel harmony) is inserted into speech as an epenthetic vowel.

tekst → /tekest/
bank → /banık/ (not /bañk/)

Final devoicing is also frequent:

tabíb (doctor) → [tabíp]

Grammar[link]

Like other Turkic languages, Tatar is an agglutinative language.

Plural[link]

• After vowels, consonants, hard: -lar (bala-lar, abí-lar, kitap-lar, qaz-lar, malay-lar, qar-lar, ağaç-lar)
• After vowels, consonants, soft: -lär (äni-lär, sölge-lär, däftär-lär, kibet-lär, süz-lär, bäbkä-lär, mäktäp-lär, xäref-lär)
• After nasals, hard: -nar (uram-nar, urman-nar, tolım-nar, moñ-nar, tañ-nar, şalqan-nar)
• After nasals, soft: -när (ülän-när, keläm-när, çräm-när, iñ-när, ciñ-när, isem-när)

Declension of Pronouns[link]

^[10]

This section requires expansion.

Writing system[link]

Some guides in Kazan are in Latin script, especially in fashion boutiques

Tatar has been written in a number of different alphabets.

Writing was adopted from the Bolgar language, which used the Orkhon script, before the 920s. Later, the Arabic script was also used, as well as Latin and Cyrillic.

Before 1928 Tatar was written with an Arabic alphabet (Iske imla to 1920; Yanga imla 1920–1928).

In the Soviet Union after 1928, Tatar was written with a Latin alphabet called Jaꞑalif.

In 1939, in Tatarstan (a republic of Russia where Tatar is most commonly used) and all other parts of the Soviet Union a Cyrillic script was developed and is still used to write Tatar. It is also used in Kazakhstan.

In 2004, an attempt to introduce a Latin-based alphabet for Tatar was aborted when the Constitutional Court ruled that the 15 November 2002 federal law mandating the use of Cyrillic for the state languages of the republics of the Russian Federation^[11] does not contradict the Russian constitution.^[12] 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.^[13]

In China, Tatars still use the Arabic script.

• Tatar Cyrillic alphabet (letter order adopted in 1997):

• 1999 Tatar Latin alphabet, made official by a law adopted by Tatarstani authorities but annulled by the Tatar Supreme Court in 2004:^[13]

History[link]

Tatar's ancestors are the extinct Bolgar and Kipchak languages. Crimean Tatar is not closely related, being more akin to standard Turkish.

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

The Tatar language has been strongly influenced by most of the Uralic languages in the Volga River area,^[14] as well as Arabic, Persian and Russian languages.^[15]

Examples[link]

• äye – yes
• yuq – no
• isänme(sez)/sawmı(sız) – hello
• sälâm – hi
• sau bul(ığız)/xuş(ığız) – bye bye
• zínhar öçen – please
• räxmät – thank you
• ğafu it(egez) – excuse me
• min – I
• sin – you (sg.)
• ul – he / she / it
• bez – we
• sez – you (pl.)
• alar – they
• millät – nation
• İngliz(çä) – English

Further reading[link]

• Akhatov G. (1982). "Phraseological Dictionary of the Tatar Language" (monograph). Kazan. (Russian) (Tatar language)
• Akhatov G. (1984). "Tatar Dialectology" (Textbook for university students). Kazan. (Russian) (Tatar language)
• Bukharaev, R., & Matthews, D. J. (2000). Historical anthology of Kazan Tatar verse: voices of eternity. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-1077-9
• PEN (Organization). (1998). Tatar literature today. Kazan: Magarif Publishers.
• Poppe, N. N. (1963). Tatar manual: descriptive grammar and texts with a Tatar-English glossary. Bloomington: Indiana University.

See also[link]

• Tatar alphabet
• Tatar name
• Tatars

Notes[link]

8. Čaušević, Ekrem: Kazantatarisch. (= Wieser Enzyklopaedie des Europaeischen Ostens / Okuka, Miloš & Krenn, Gerald (ur.). Klagenfurt-Wien-Ljubljana : Wieser Verlag, 2002.. Str. 793–797.]; http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/eeo/Kasantatarisch.pdf

External links[link]

Tatar language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Tatar language on Ethnologue
• Tatar language at the Open Directory Project (English)
• Tatar language at the Open Directory Project (Tatar), (Russian)
• Tatar dictionaries at the Open Directory Project (English)
• Web directory at the Open Directory Project (Tatar)
• Tatar.Net
• website of the National Library of the Republic of Tatarstan

Language studies[link]

• Information about Tatar writing
• Textbook on morphology of Tatar language (Russian)
• Course of Tatar language (Russian)
• tatar.org.ru
• Tatar tele turında säxifä
• Tatar.com.ru: Tatar language course (Russian)

Forums[link]

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

History and literature[link]

• Tatar poetry (Tatar)
• Tatar myths, including the story of Şüräle (Russian)
• Tatar library
• Tatar Electronic Library (Russian) (Tatar)
• Links to other Tatar language resources

Dictionaries[link]

• Russian-Tatar On-Line Dictionary (a)
• Russian-Tatar On-Line Dictionary (b)
• Turkish-Tatar On-Line Dictionary
• Concise English-Tatar On-Line Dictionary

vep:Tataran kel'

Crimean Tatar may refer to:

• Crimean Tatars, ethnic group
• Crimean Tatar language, language of the Crimean Tatars

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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Crimean Tatars
(Qırımtatarlar)

80px
Mamai • Taras Triasylo • Ayşe Hafsa Sultan I. Gasprinski • N. Çelebicihan • Aziz Nesin
Total population
unknown[citation needed]
Regions with significant populations
Crimea: 243,400[1] (out of 248,200[2] in  Ukraine)
Turkey unknown[citation needed]  Uzbekistan 10,046[3], 90,000[4], 188,772[5]  Romania 24,137[6]  Russia 4,131[7]  Bulgaria 1,803[8]  Kazakhstan 1,532[9]
Languages
Crimean Tatar, Russian, Turkish, Urum
Religion
Islam, Orthodox Christianity[10]
Related ethnic groups
other Turkic peoples

Crimean Tatars (sg. Qırımtatar, pl. Qırımtatarlar) or Crimeans (sg. Qırım, Qırımlı, pl. Qırımlar, Qırımlılar) are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language. They are not to be confused with the Volga Tatars.

In modern times, in addition to living in Crimea, Ukraine, there is a large diaspora of Crimean Tatars in Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Western Europe, the Middle East and North America, as well as small communities in Finland, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus and Poland. (See Crimean Tatar diaspora)

Distribution[link]

Today, more than 240,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea and about 150,000 remain in exile in Central Asia, mainly in Uzbekistan. There is an unspecified number of people of Crimean Tatar origin living in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the Dobruja region straddling Romania and Bulgaria, there are more than 27,000 Crimean Tatars: 24,000 on the Romanian side, and 3,000 on the Bulgarian side^{[citation needed]}.

Subethnic groups[link]

The Crimean Tatars are subdivided into three sub-ethnic groups:

• the Tats (not to be confused with Tat people, living in the Caucasus region) who used to inhabit the mountainous Crimea before 1944 (about 55%),
• the Yalıboyu who lived on the southern coast of the peninsula (about 30%),
• the Noğay (not to be confused with Nogai people, living now in Southern Russia) – former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe (about 15%).

The Tats and Yalıboyus have a Caucasoid physical appearance, while the Noğays retain some Mongoloid physical appearance.

Historians suggest that the inhabitants of the mountainous parts of Crimea lying to the central and southern parts (the Tats), and those of the Southern coast of Crimea (the Yalıboyu) were the direct descendants of the Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Scythians, Ostrogoths (Crimean Goths) and Kipchaks along with the Cumans while the latest inhabitants of the northern steppe represent the descendants of the Nogai Horde of the Black Sea nominally subjects of the Crimean Khan.^[11][12] It is largely assumed that the Tatarization process that mostly took place in the 16th century brought a sense of cultural unity through the blending of the Greeks, Armenians, Italians and the newly arrived Ottoman Turks of the southern coast, Goths of the central mountains, and Kipchak Tatars and Cumans of the plains and forming of the Crimean Tatar ethnic.^[13] However, the Cuman language is considered the direct ancestor of the current language of the Crimean Tatars with possible incorporations of the other languages like Crimean Gothic.^{[14][15][16][17]}

History[link]

Crimean Khanate[link]

The Crimean Tatars emerged as a nation at the time of the Crimean Khanate. The Crimean Khanate was a Turkic-speaking Muslim state which was among the strongest powers in Eastern Europe until the beginning of the 18th century.^[18] The nobles and rulers of the Crimean Tatars were the progeny of Hacı I Girai a Jochid descendant of Genghis Khan, and thus of Batu Khan of the Golden Horde. The Crimean Tatars mostly adopted Islam in the 14th century and thereafter Crimea became one of the centers of Islamic civilization. This was signified by Uzbeg Khan erecting the first mosque and medrese in Eski Qırım in 1314.^[19] According to Baron Iosif Igelström, in 1783 there were close to 1600 mosques and religious schools in Crimea. In Bakhchisaray, the khan Meñli I Giray built Zıncırlı Medrese (literally "Chain Madrassah"), an Islamic seminary where one has to bow while entering from its door because of the chain hanging over. This symbolized the Crimean society's respect for learning. Meñli I Giray also constructed a large mosque on the model of Hagia Sophia (which was ruined in 1850s). Later, the khans built a greater palace, Hansaray in Bakhchisaray, which survives to this day. Sahib I Giray patronized many scholars and artists in this palace. During the reign of Devlet I Giray the architect Mimar Sinan built a mosque, Juma-Jami, in Yevpatoria. The Crimean Khanate became a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire in 1475, when the Ottoman general Gedik Ahmed Pasha conquered the southern coast of Crimea. The alliance with the Ottomans became an important factor in the survival of the khanate until the 18th century.

Slave trade[link]

Until the beginning of the 18th century, Crimean Tatars were known for frequent, at some periods almost annual, devastating raids into Ukraine and Russia.^[20] For a long time, until the early 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East which was the most important basis of its economy.^[20] One of the most important trading ports and slave markets was Kefe.^[20] Some researchers estimate that altogether more than 3 million people, predominantly Ukrainians but also Russians, Belarusians and Poles, were captured and enslaved during the time of the Crimean Khanate in what was called "the harvest of the steppe".^[21][22] On the other hand, lands of Crimean Tatars were also being raided by Cossacks.^[23] Cossacks, armed Slavic horsemen, who often savagely attacks and plunders the land of Crimean Tatars.^{[citation needed]} The Don and Zaporozhian Cossacks also managed to raid Crimean Tatars land.^{[citation needed]} The last recorded major Crimean raid, before those in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) took place during the reign of Peter I (1682–1725)^[23] However, Cossack raids continued during that time, Ottoman Grand Vizier complained to the Russian consul about raids to Crimea and Özi in 1761.^[23]

In the Russian Empire[link]

The Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 resulted in the defeat of the Ottomans by the Russians, and according to the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) signed after the war, Crimea became independent and Ottomans renounced their political right to protect the Crimean Khanate. After a period of political unrest in Crimea Russia violated the treaty and annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783. After the annexation, many Crimean Tatars were massacred and exiled into Siberia and under pressure of Slavic colonization, Crimean Tatars began to abandon their homes and move to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration. Particularly, the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the laws of 1860–63 The Tsarist delebarete policy of annihilating Crimean Tatar existence in Crimea and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 caused an exodus of the Crimean Tatars. Of total Tatar population 300,000 of the Tauride Province about 200,000 Crimean Tatars emigrated.^[24] Many Crimean Tatars perished in the process of emigration, including those who drowned while crossing the Black Sea. Today the descendants of these Crimeans form the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey.

Ismail Gasprinski (1851–1914) was a renowned Crimean Tatar intellectual, whose efforts laid the foundation for the modernization of Muslim culture and the emergence of the Crimean Tatar national identity^{[citation needed]}. The bilingual Crimean Tatar-Russian newspaper Terciman-Perevodchik he published in 1883–1914, functioned as an educational tool through which a national consciousness and modern thinking emerged among the entire Turkic-speaking population of the Russian Empire^{[citation needed]}. His New Method (Usul-i Cedid) schools, numbered 350 across the Crimean peninsula helped create a new Crimean Tatar elite^{[citation needed]}. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 this new elite, which included Noman Çelebicihan and Cafer Seydamet proclaimed the first democratic republic in the Islamic world, named the Crimean People's Republic on 26 December 1917. However, this republic was short-lived and destroyed by the Bolshevik uprising in January 1918^{[citation needed]}.

In the Soviet Union: 1917–1991[link]

Percentage of Crimean Tatars by region in Crimea (according to 1939 Soviet census)

During Stalin's Great Purge, statesmen and intellectuals such as Veli Ibraimov and Bekir Çoban-zade (1893–1937), were imprisoned or executed on various charges.

Soviet collectivization of the peninsula led to widespread starvation in 1921^{[citation needed]}. Food was confiscated for shipment to central Russia, while more than 100,000 Tatars starved to death, and tens of thousands fled to Turkey or Romania.^[25] Thousands more were deported or slaughtered during the collectivization in 1928–29.^[25] The government campaign led to another famine in 1931–33. No other Soviet nationality suffered the decline imposed on the Crimean Tatars; between 1917 and 1933 half the Crimean Tatar population had been killed or deported.^[25]

During World War II, the entire Crimean Tatar population in Crimea fell victim to Soviet policies. Although a great number of Crimean Tatar men served in the Red Army and took part in the partisan movement in Crimea during the war, the existence of the Tatar Legion in the Nazi army and the collaboration of Crimean Tatar religious and political leaders with Hitler during the German occupation of Crimea provided the Soviets with a pretext for accusing the whole Crimean Tatar population of being Nazi collaborators. Modern researchers also point to the fact that a further reason was the geopolitical position of Crimea where Crimean Tatars were perceived as a threat^[26]. This belief is based in part on an analogy with numerous other cases of deportations of non-Russians from boundary territories (see, e.g., Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union), as well as the fact that other non-Russian populations, such as Greeks, Armenians and Bulgarians were also removed from Crimea^{[citation needed]}.

All Crimean Tatars were deported en masse, in a form of collective punishment, on 18 May 1944 as special settlers to Uzbek SSR and other distant parts of the Soviet Union.^[27] The decree "On Crimean Tatars" describes the resettlement as a very humane procedure. The reality described by the victims in their memoirs was different. 46.3% of the resettled population died of diseases and malnutrition.^{[citation needed]} This event is called Sürgün in the Crimean Tatar language. Many of them were re-located to toil as indentured workers in the Soviet GULAG system.^[28]

Although a 1967 Soviet decree removed the charges against Crimean Tatars, the Soviet government did nothing to facilitate their resettlement in Crimea and to make reparations for lost lives and confiscated property. Crimean Tatars, differing from other Soviet nations like Ukrainians, having definite tradition of non-communist political dissent, succeeded in creating a truly independent network of activists, values and political experience.^[29] Crimean Tatars, led by Crimean Tatar National Movement Organization,^[30] were not allowed to return to Crimea from exile until the beginning of the Perestroika in the mid 1980s.

After Ukrainian independence[link]

Percentage of Crimean Tatars by region in Crimea (according to 2001 Ukrainian census)

Today, more than 250,000 Crimean Tatars have returned to their homeland, struggling to re-establish their lives and reclaim their national and cultural rights against many social and economic obstacles. In 1991, the Crimean Tatar leadership founded the Qurultay, or Parliament, to act as a representative body for the Crimean Tatars which could address grievances to the Ukrainian central government, the Crimean government, and international bodies.^[31] Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People is the executive body of the Qurultay.

Since the 1990s, the political leader of the Crimean Tatars and the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People is a former Soviet dissident Mustafa Abdülcemil Qırımoğlu.

See also[link]

Part of a series on
Crimean Tatars
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Religion
Sunni Islam
Languages and dialects
Crimean Tatar
History
Khanate (1441–1783) Taurida Oblast (1783–1796) Taurida Governorate (1802–1917) People's Republic (1917–1918) Crimean ASSR (1921–1945) Sürgün (1944) Crimean Oblast (1945–1991) Autonomous Republic (since 1992)
People and groups
Famous Crimean Tatars Khans · Mejlis · Milliy Firqa
v t e

• Index of Crimean Tatars related articles
• Crimean Karaites
• Giray dynasty
• Baibars
• Taras Fedorovych
• Krymchaks
• Lipka Tatars
• Mustafa Edige Kirimal
• Nogay
• Tatars
• Volga Tatars

References[link]

Literature[link]

External links[link]