Tatar language
Turkic language spoken by Tatars
Tatar ( TAH-tər; Tatar: татар теле, romanized: tatar tele or татарча, romanized: tatarça) is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars mainly located in modern Republic of Tatarstan, wider Volga-Ural region, as well as many other regions of Russia. Tatar belongs to the Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, the same branch as Bashkir, Kazakh, Nogai and Kyrgyz.
The two main dialects of Tatar are the Central Dialect (urta / qazan; most common), and the Western Dialect (könbatış / mişər). The literary Tatar language is based on the Central Dialect and on a local variant of Türki. Tatar should not be confused with Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar, which are different languages, although also part of the Kipchak language group.
Like other Turkic languages, Tatar was traditionally written in the Arabic script for most of its history. Since 1939, the alphabet has been Cyrillic, though a number of Latin-based versions have also been used over the years.
Geographic distribution
The Tatar language is spoken by about 5 million people.
Most speakers live in Russia, but there are also communities in Azerbaijan, China, Finland, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, the United States, Uzbekistan.
Mordva's Qaratay group also speak a variant of Kazan Tatar.
The public source identifies “Tatar language” as turkic language spoken by Tatars. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tatar, language and Turkic.
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