Crimean Tatar language

Crimean Tatar
Crimean
qırımtatar tili, къырымтатар тили, قریم تاتار تلی qırım tili, къырым тили, قریم تلی
Crimean Tatar in Latin, Cyrillic, and Perso-Arabic scripts.
Native toUkraine, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria
RegionEastern Europe
EthnicityCrimean Tatars
Native speakers
60,000 (2020)
Turkic
Dialects
  • Northern
  • Central
  • Southern
  • Northeastern
Crimean Tatar alphabet (Latin and Cyrillic; previously Arabic)
Official status
Official language in
Republic of Crimea (Russia)
Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine)
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-2crh
ISO 639-3crh
Glottologcrim1257
ELPCrimean Tatar
Crimean Tatar-speaking world
Crimean Tatar is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Crimean Tatar (qırımtatar tili, къырымтатар тили, قریم تاتار تلی), also called Crimean (qırım tili, къырым тили, قریم تلی), is a Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; Crimean Tatar has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz languages and is mutually intelligible with them to varying degrees.

A long-term ban on the study of the Crimean Tatar language following the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet government has led to the fact that at the moment UNESCO ranks the Crimean Tatar language among the languages under serious threat of extinction (severely endangered). However, according to the Institute of Oriental Studies, due to negative situations, the real degree of the threat has elevated to critically endangered in recent years, which are highly likely to face extinction in the coming generations.

Crimean language is one of the official languages of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine), along with Ukrainian and Russian. It is also one of the state languages of the Republic of Crimea (Russian occupation, considered "temporarily occupied territories" by the Ukrainian government), the other ones being Ukrainian and Russian.