What is Tatar Language?

Tatar (татарча / Tatarça / تاتارچ?)
Spoken in:	Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, China, Finland, former Soviet Union
Region:
Total speakers:	5,350,000 (self-reported speakers, 2002 Russian Census); 1,610,032 (apparently mistaken Ethnologue number [1])
Ranking:
Genetic classification:
Official status
Official language of:	Tatarstan
Regulated by:
Language codes
ISO 639-1	tt
ISO 639-2	tat
SIL
See also: Language – List of languages

The Tatar language (Tatar tele, Tatarça, Татар теле, Татарча) is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars.

Classification

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

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

Geographic distribution

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

Kazan Tatar is also native for 400,000 Bashkirs, especially those living in Ufa, and some thousands of Maris. Mordva's Qaratay group also speak Tatar. 94% of ethnic Tatar and 7% of the people of other ethnicities living in Tatarstan claimed knowledge of Tatar language during the 2002 census.^[1]

Official status

Tatar is the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan. The official script of Tatar language is based on the Cyrillic alphabet with some additional letters not used in Slavic languages. 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 (for the first time since 1552, when the Kazan Khanate was annexed by Russia), but only in the Tatar–Bashkir Soviet Socialist Republic. Tatar is also considered the official language in Idel-Ural State.

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 epoch, Tatar was such a language in Bashkortostan, Mari El and other regions of the Russian SFSR (the Soviet Republic comprised of the area of modern-day Russia).

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 university, because all higher education was in Russian.

According to some, Tatar is no longer an endangered language, 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 Kazan Tatar

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

Mişär

In the Western (Mişär) dialect Ç is pronounced as [ʧ] (southern or lambir mishars) and as [ʦ] (northern mishars or nizhgars). C is pronounced as [ʤ]. There are no differences between v and w, q and k, g and ğ in Mişär dialect. So, modern Tatar Cyrillic alphabet represent Mishar pronunciation WYSIWYS, but for the main speakers of the language Cyrillic has difficult rules to pronounce right. (Cyrillic Tatar doesn't have special letters for q, ğ and w)

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

Middle

=Minzälä

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

=Slang

=

Main article: Tatar-Russian code-switching

In bilingual city people often pronounce x instead of h, k instead of q, g instead of ğ , v instead of w - or making the distinction is less common than it used to be. This could be viewed as an influence of the Russian language. Another theory is that these cities were places where both the Western and Middle dialects were used.

The influence of Russian language 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 the extinction.

Siberian Tatar

The Siberian Tatars use a different language from literary Kazan Tatar. Kazan Tatar was used as literary writing language before 1930, but since then only Russian has been used as a written language.

Siberian Tatars pronounce [ts] instead of ç, [j] instead of c and sometimes [p] and [t] instead of b and d. There are also grammatical differences within the dialect, scattered across Western Siberia.

The language of the Chulym Tatars is considered to be an independent language, as are the other "Tatar" languages to the East of them.

Tatar in Russia

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

Phonology

Vowels

Tatar has 16 vowel symbols representing a variable number of sounds. As a Turkic language, Tatar exhibits vowel harmony, with some of the vowels considered front and others back.

Front vowels: ä [æ~ə], â [æ], e [e], é [ɛ], i [i], ó [ø], ö [œ], ü [y]

Back vowels: a [ɑ~ʌ], á [ɑ], í [ɯɪ], ı [ɯ~ɨ:], o [o~o:], u–ú [u]

The usage of í, â, á, ó, ú, é is not universal, and sometimes ıy, a, ya, yo, yu and e are used instead.

Some of them are found only in Slavic loanwords, such as é, ó, long o, long ı. Acute in á, ó, ú denotes palatalisation, but sometimes a palatalisated consonant is marked by following y before the vowel. This is only a problem for Russian loanwords.

The commonly pronounced 10 vowels are native Tatar vowels: a–ä, u–ü, í–i, o–ö, ı–e. The last two pairs are considered to be short vowels. They also could mean a long vowels, but only in loanwords. [ə] and [ʌ] are not considered to be independent vowels. Loaned vowels are considered to be back vowels.

Consonants

The consonants of Tatar

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular	Glottal
Plosives	p /p/	b /b/			t /t/	d /d/							k /k/	ɡ /ɡ/	q /q/
Nasals	m /m/				n /n/								ñ /ŋ/
Fricatives			f /f/	v /v/	s /s/	z /z/			ş /ʃ/ ç /ɕ/	j /ʒ/ c /ʑ/				ğ /ɣ/		h /h/
Trill							r /r/
Approximant											y /j/ ([j~ɪ])
Lateral approximant									l /l/

Most of these phonemes are common to or have equivalents in all Turkic languages.

The phonemes /f/, /x/ and /ʒ/ were borrowed from Arabic and European languages in the Middle Ages, while /v/ was borrowed in the beginning of 20th century. Differentiation between /h/ and /x/ appeared in the 10th century with the appearance of the word Allah and the strongest influence of Arabic and Persian languages. During the atheistic Soviet period, the occurrence of /h/ greatly reduced.

Pronunciation of loanwords

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 [ʃʲ] for [ʧ], [ʒ] or [ʒʲ] for [ʤ] and [s] for [ʦ]. Nevertheless, literary traditions recommend pronunciation of affricates in loanwords.

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

Palatalisation

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

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 were spelled as they were in the Russian language. 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

• 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)

Phonetic replacement

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

Like other Turkic languages, Tatar is an agglutinative language.

Plural

• 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)

Writing system

Main articles: Tatar alphabet and Jaŋalif

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 alphabet was also used, as well as the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.

Pre–1928

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

1927–1938

In the Soviet Union Tatar was written with a Latin orthography called Jaŋalif.

Cyrillic

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

Modern Latin

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

History

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

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

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

Examples

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

Further reading

• Bukharaev, R., & Matthews, D. J. (2000). Historical anthology of Kazan Tatar verse: voices of eternity. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. ISBN 0700710779
• 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

• Tatars
• Tatar alphabet
• Russification

Notes

External links

• Tatar language on Ethnologue
• Tatar language at the Open Directory Project (English)
• Tatar language at the Open Directory Project (Tatar)
• Tatar dictionaries at the Open Directory Project (English)
• Web directory at the Open Directory Project (Tatar)
• Tatar.Net

Language studies

• Information about Tatar writing
• Tatar tele turında säxifä (Tatar dili hakkinda sahife)
• Tatar.com.ru: Tatar language course (Russian)

Forums

• Tatar mailing list (English)
• Tatar forum (Tatar)
• IRC channel [irc://irc.freenode.net/tatar #tatar] on the freenode network

History and literature

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

Dictionaries

• Tatar-Russian-English dictionary

•  • [ e] Altaic languages
Turkic languages • Mongolic languages • Tungusic languages • Japonic languages* • Korean language*
Notes: *Japonic and Korean are not generally recognized as belonging to the Altaic language family. A hypothetical language family that would include both the Japonic languages and Korean is sometimes referred to as the Buyeo language family.

•  • [ e] Turkic languages
Oghur	Bulgar† | Chuvash | Hunnic† | Khazar† | Turkic Avar†
Uyghur	Old Turkic† | Aini| Chagatay† | Ili Turki | Lop | Uyghur | Uzbek
Kypchak	Baraba | Bashkir | Crimean Tatar | Cuman† | Karachay-Balkar | Karaim | Karakalpak | Kazakh | Kipchak† | Krymchak | Kumyk | Nogai | Old Tatar† | Tatar | Urum | Altay | Kyrgyz
Oghuz	Afshar | Azerbaijani | Crimean Tatar | Gagauz | Khorasani Turkish | Ottoman Turkish† | Pecheneg† | Qashqai | Salar | Turkish | Turkmen | Urum
Arghu	Khalaj
Northeastern	Chulym | Dolgan | Fuy Grgs | Khakas | Northern Altay | Shor | Tofa | Tuvan | Western Yugur | Sakha/Yakut
Notes: Listed in more than one group, Mixed language, Disputed, †Extinct