Tatar language facts for kids

The Tatar language is a cool language spoken by the Tatar people. It's a type of Turkic language, which means it's related to languages like Turkish. Tatar is the official language in a place called Tatarstan, which is a republic inside Russia. About 6.5 million people speak Tatar.

Writing Tatar: Different Alphabets

Just like many other languages in the Turkic family, Tatar has been written using different alphabets over time. It's interesting how one language can have several ways to write it!

Cyrillic Alphabet

In Russia, the Tatar language is mainly written using the Cyrillic alphabet. This was made official by a law in 2002. The Tatar Cyrillic alphabet has 39 letters. Most of these letters, 33 of them, are the same as in the Russian alphabet.

The Tatar Cyrillic alphabet also has 6 special letters that are not in Russian:

• Ә (sounds like the 'a' in "cat")
• Җ (sounds like the 'j' in "jump")
• Ң (sounds like the 'ng' in "sing")
• Ө (sounds like the 'o' in "bird" in some accents)
• Ү (sounds like the 'oo' in "moon")
• Һ (sounds like the 'h' in "hello")

Latin Alphabet

In 2001, the government of Tatarstan tried to create a new Latin alphabet for Tatar. They called it Zamanälif. However, the Russian government did not allow this new Latin alphabet to become official.

The Zamanälif alphabet has 35 letters. It includes some letters you might know, plus some special ones: A, Ä, B, C, Ç, D, E, F, G, Ğ, H, I, İ, Í, J, K, L, M, N, Ñ, O, Ö, P, Q, R, S, Ş, T, U, Ü, V, W, X, Y, Z

Before Zamanälif, there was another Latin alphabet for Tatar called Yañalif. This alphabet was used from 1928 to 1940. Then, a law from the Soviet Union changed it back to Cyrillic.

Arabic Alphabet

The Tatar language has also been written using two different versions of the Arabic alphabet. These were called İske imlâ and Yaña imlâ.

İske imlâ is the older version. It was used until 1920. Then, it was updated and became Yaña imlâ. This newer Arabic alphabet was used until the Latin Yañalif alphabet took over. Interestingly, some Tatar people in China still use the İske imlâ Arabic script today.

Since 2012, people and groups can write to the Tatarstan government using either the Latin or Arabic scripts. But the government always replies in Cyrillic.

Images for kids

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  A subway sign in Tatar (top) and Russian

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  Tatar vowel formants F1 and F2

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  Tatar Latin (Jaᶇalif) and Arabic scripts, 1927

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  Tatar sign on a madrasah in Nizhny Novgorod, written in both Arabic and Cyrilic Tatar scripts

See also

In Spanish: Idioma tártaro para niños