Tatar language

The Tartar (татар теле, татарча/tatar tele, tatarça) is a Turkic language, the language of the Volga Tatars. It is the second most spoken language in the Russian Federation and is spoken by more than six million people in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and other regions of the country.

It is a co-official language along with Russian in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Crimea and Sevastopol.

Writing

The ancestors of the Tatar people used the Orkhon alphabet. In the X century, the Arabic alphabet began to be used. In 1927, the yanalif (in Russian: яналиф), an alphabet based on Latin, was adopted, since at that time the communist authorities wanted to Latinize the writing of all the languages of the former USSR. But by 1939 this alphabet was replaced by one based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

On September 15, 1999, a law in Tatarstan reintroduced the Latin-based alphabet, now called yanalif-2. But on November 16, 2004, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation repealed said law due to incompatibilities with the Constitution of Russia. Therefore de iure the Tatar alphabet is the one based on the Cyrillic alphabet, although the Latinized alphabet is often used de facto.

Cyrillic (since 1939):

Latin:

Classification

Tatar is a Turkic language. Other Europeans (see Crimean Tatar and Caucasian languages) and Western Siberian Tatars speak languages similar to Kazan Tatar, but they are not necessarily mutually intelligible.

The significant contribution to the study of the Tatar language and its dialects made world famous linguist Gabdulkhai Akhatov.

Geographic distribution

Tatar is spoken in various parts of Europe: Russia, Ukraine, as well as Central Asia, Asia Minor (such as Turkey) and areas of the People's Republic of China.

Kazan Tatar is also the native language of 400,000 Bashkirs, especially those living in Ufa, and several thousand inhabitants of Mari. The Qaratay ethnic group from Mordovia also speaks Tatar. Tatar is the language of interethnic communication between Tatars, Bashkirs, Chuvash, Kazakhs, Maris, Mordvins, and Udmurts, in addition to Russian.

Example

Example of Tatar with translation into Spanish:

No idem package, xäzer TV qarap tormas idem.

If I were you, I'd stop watching TV right now.

Common phrases in Tatar

• äye — yes
• yuq — no
• isänme(sez)/sawmı(sız) — hello
• sälâm — hello (more informal)
• saw bul(ığız)/xuş(ığız) — goodbye
• zínhar öçen — please
• min — me
• without — you
• ul — he/she/it
• bez — we
• sez — you
• elar — they
• millät — nation