Crimean Tatar (Qırımtatar tili/Къырымтатар тили)
Crimean Tatar is a member of the Kypchak branch of Turkic languages.
There are about 300,000 speakers of this language in Crimea, Central Asia,
mainly in Uzbekistan, and also in Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria.
Crimean Tatar (Qırımtatar tili, Qırımtatarca)
is also known as Crimean (Qırım tili, Qırımca)
or Crimean Turkish (Qırım Türkçesi).
Crimean Tatar has been written with the Perso-Arabic script, the Latin
alphabet between 1928 and 1938, the Cyrillic alphabet from 1938 to the 1990s,
and the Latin alphabet since then, though the Cyrillic alphabet is still
used by some people.
Crimean Tatar alphabets
Arabic alphabet for Crimean Tatar
Latin alphabet for Crimean Tatar (Qırımtatar elifbası)
Cyrillic alphabet for Crimean Tatar (Къырымтатар элифбасы)
Notes
- There is vowel harmony in Crimean Tatar: front vowels are e (э/е), i (и), ö (о/ё) and ü (у/ю), and back vowels are a (а), ı (ы), o (о) and u (у).
- ий (iy) = [i:] in Arabic and Persian loan words
- я/â = [ʲa] in Arabic and Russian loan words
- ж, ц and щ are only used in Russian loan words
Sample text in Crimean Tatar
Latin alphabet
Bütün insanlar ür, sayğı ve uquqlar itibarı ile musaviy doğalar. Aqıl ve vicdanğa saipler ve bir-birlerine qarşı ağa-qardaşlıq fikirnen areket etmelidirler.
Cyrillic alphabet
Бутюн инсанлар урь, сайгъы ве укъукълар итибары иле мусавий догъалар. Акъыл ве видждангъа саиплер ве бир-бирлерине къаршы агъа-къардашлыкъ фикирнен арекет этмелидирлер.
Tower of Babel in Crimean Tatar
Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Links
Information about the Crimean Tatar language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatar_language
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Крымскотатарский_язык
http://salpagarov.narod.ru/alfabet/page_1.htm
http://www.qurultay.org/eng/yazi_eng.asp?yazi_no=217
http://www.vatankirim.net/tatarca.asp
Crimean Tatar internet library
http://medeniye.org/en/node/695
Crimean Tatar dictionaries
http://medeniye.org/en/lugat
http://www.tatarcasozluk.com
Къырымтатар тилининъ лингвистик корпусы
(Linguistic corpus of Crimean Tatar Language)
http://korpus.juls.savba.sk/QIRIM/
Information about the Crimean Tatars
http://www.euronet.nl/users/sota/krimtatar.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_Tatars
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/crimean_tatars.shtml
ICC – International Committee for Crimea
http://www.iccrimea.org