Official status

The word Qazan – قازان is written in Arabic script in the semblance of a Zilant.

Bilingual guide in Kazan Metro

A subway sign in Tatar (top) and Russian

Tatar, along with Russian, is the official language of the Republic of Tatarstan. The official script of Tatar language is based on the Cyrillic script with some additional letters. The Republic of Tatarstan passed a law in 1999, which came into force in 2001, establishing an official Tatar Latin alphabet. A Russian federal law overrode it in 2002, making Cyrillic the sole official script in Tatarstan since. Unofficially, other scripts are used as well, mostly Latin and Arabic. All official sources in Tatarstan must use Cyrillic on their websites and in publishing. In other cases, where Tatar has no official status, the use of a specific alphabet depends on the preference of the author.

The Tatar language was made a de facto official language in Russia in 1917, but only within the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Tatar is also considered to have been the official language in the short-lived Idel-Ural State, briefly formed during the Russian Civil War.

The usage of Tatar declined from during the 20th century. By the 1980s, the study and teaching of Tatar in the public education system was limited to rural schools. However, Tatar-speaking pupils had little chance of entering university because higher education was available in Russian almost exclusively.

As of 2001 Tatar was considered a potentially endangered language while Siberian Tatar received "endangered" and "seriously endangered" statuses, respectively.^[7] Higher education in Tatar can only be found in Tatarstan, and is restricted to the humanities. In other regions Tatar is primarily a spoken language and the number of speakers as well as their proficiency tends to decrease. Tatar is popular as a written language only in Tatar-speaking areas where schools with Tatar language lessons are situated. On the other hand, Tatar is the only language in use in rural districts of Tatarstan.

Since 2017, Tatar language classes are no longer mandatory in the schools of Tatarstan.^[8] According to the opponents of this change, it will further endanger the Tatar language and is a violation of the Tatarstan Constitution which stipulates the equality of Russian and Tatar languages in the republic.^[9][10]

Central or Middle

The Central or Middle dialectal group is spoken in Kazan and most of Tatarstan and is the basis of the standard literary Tatar language. Middle Tatar includes the Nagaibak dialect.

Mishar

The Western (Mişär) dialect is distinguished from the Central dialect especially by the absence of the uvular q and ğ and the rounded å of the first syllable. Letters ç and c are pronounced as affricates.^[11] Regional differences exist also.^[12]

Mishar is the dialect spoken by the Tatar minority of Finland.^[13]

Siberian Tatar

Two main isoglosses that characterize Siberian Tatar are ç as [ts] and c as [j], corresponding to standard [ɕ] and [ʑ]. There are also grammatical differences within the dialect, scattered across Siberia.^[14]

Many linguists claim the origins of Siberian Tatar dialects are actually independent of Volga–Ural Tatar; these dialects are quite remote both from Standard Tatar and from each other, often preventing mutual comprehension. The claim that this language is part of the modern Tatar language is typically supported by linguists in Kazan, Moscow^[15] and by Siberian Tatar linguists^[16][17][18] and denounced by some Russian and Tatar^[19] ethnographs.

Over time, some of these dialects were given distinct names and recognized as separate languages (e.g. the Chulym language) after detailed linguistic study. However, the Chulym language was never classified as a dialect of Tatar language. Confusion arose because of the endoethnonym "Tatars" used by the Chulyms. The question of classifying the Chulym language as a dialect of the Khakass language was debatable. A brief linguistic analysis shows that many of these dialects exhibit features which are quite different from the Volga–Ural Tatar varieties, and should be classified as Turkic varieties belonging to several sub-groups of the Turkic languages, distinct from Kipchak languages to which Volga–Ural Tatar belongs.

Vowels

Tatar vowel formants F1 and F2

There exist several interpretations of the Tatar vowel phonemic inventory. In total Tatar has nine or ten native vowels, and three or four loaned vowels (mainly in Russian loanwords).^[20][21]

According to Baskakov (1988) Tatar has only two vowel heights, high and low. There are two low vowels, front and back, while there are eight high vowels: front and back, round (R+) and unround (R-), normal and short (or reduced).^[20]

Poppe (1963) proposed a similar yet slightly different scheme with a third, higher mid, height, and with nine vowels.^[20]

According to Makhmutova (1969) Tatar has three vowel heights: high, mid and low, and four tongue positions: front, front-central, front-back and back.^[20]

The mid back unrounded vowel ''ë is usually transcribed as ı, though it differs from the corresponding Turkish vowel.

The tenth vowel ï is realized as the diphthong ëy (IPA: [ɯɪ]), which only occurs word-finally, but it has been argued to be an independent phoneme.^[20][21]

Phonetically, the native vowels are approximately thus (with the Cyrillic letters and the usual Latin romanization in angle brackets):

In polysyllabic words, the front-back distinction is lost in reduced vowels: all become mid-central.^[20] The mid reduced vowels in an unstressed position are frequently elided, as in кеше keşe [kĕˈʃĕ] > [kʃĕ] 'person', or кышы qışı [qɤ̆ˈʃɤ̆] > [qʃɤ̆] '(his) winter'.^[21] Low back /ɑ/ is rounded [ɒ] in the first syllable and after [ɒ], but not in the last, as in бала bala [bɒˈlɑ] 'child', балаларга balalarğa [bɒlɒlɒrˈʁɑ] 'to children'.^[21] In Russian loans there are also [ɨ], [ɛ], [ɔ], and [ä], written the same as the native vowels: ы, е/э, о, а respectively.^[21]

Consonants

Notes

^* The phonemes /v/, /ts/, /tɕ/, /ʒ/, /h/, /ʔ/ are only found in loanwords. /f/ occurs more commonly in loanwords, but is also found in native words, e.g. yafraq 'leaf'.^[21] /v/, /ts/, /tɕ/, /ʒ/ may be substituted with the corresponding native consonants /w/, /s/, /ɕ/, /ʑ/ by some Tatars.

^† /dʑ/ and /tɕ/ are the dialectal Western (Mişär) pronunciations of җ ⟨c⟩ /ʑ/ and ч ⟨ç⟩ /ɕ/, the latter are in the literary standard and in the Central (Kazan) dialect. /ts/ is the variant of ч ⟨ç⟩ /ɕ/ as pronounced in the Eastern (Siberian) dialects and some Western (Mişär) dialects. Both /tɕ/ and /ts/ are also used in Russian loanwords (the latter written ц).

^‡ /q/ and /ʁ/ are usually considered allophones of /k/ and /ɡ/ in the environment of back vowels, so they are never written in the Tatar Cyrillic orthography in native words, and only rarely in loanwords with къ and гъ. However, /q/ and /ʁ/ also appear before front /æ/ in Perso-Arabic loanwords which may indicate the phonemic status of these uvular consonants.

Syllables

In native words there are six types of syllables (Consonant, Vowel, Sonorant):

• V (ı-lıs, u-ra, ö-rä)
• VC (at-law, el-geç, ir-kä)
• CV (qa-la, ki-ä, su-la)
• CVC (bar-sa, sız-law, köç-le, qoş-çıq)
• VSC (ant-lar, äyt-te, ilt-kän)
• CVSC (tört-te, qart-lar, qayt-qan)

Loanwords allow other types: CSV (gra-mota), CSVC (käs-trül), etc.

Prosody

Stress is usually on the final syllable. However, some suffixes cannot be stressed, so the stress shifts to the syllable before that suffix, even if the stressed syllable is the third or fourth from the end. A number of Tatar words and grammatical forms have the natural stress on the first syllable. Loanwords, mainly from Russian, usually preserve their original stress (unless the original stress is on the last syllable, in such a case the stress in Tatar shifts to suffixes as usual, e.g. sovét > sovetlár > sovetlarğá).

Phonetic alterations

Tatar phonotactics dictate many pronunciation changes which are not reflected in the orthography.

• Unrounded vowels ı and e become rounded after o or ö:

коры/qorı > [qoro]

борын/borın > [boron]

көзге/közge > [közgö]

соры/sorı > [soro]

• Nasals are assimilated to the following stops:

унбер/unber > [umber]

менгеч/mengeç > [meñgeç]

• Stops are assimilated to the preceding nasals (this is reflected in writing):

урманнар/urmannar ( < urman + lar)

комнар/komnar ( < kom + lar)

• Voicing may also undergo assimilation:

күзсез/küzsez > [küssez]

• Unstressed vowels may be syncopated or reduced:

урыны/urını> [urnı]

килене/kilene > [kilne]

• Vowels may also be elided:

кара урман/qara urman > [qarurman]

килә иде/kilä ide > [kiläyde]

туры урам/turı uram > [tururam]

була алмыйм/bula almıym > [bulalmıym]

• In consonant clusters longer than two phones, ı or e (whichever is dictated by vowel harmony) is inserted into speech as an epenthetic vowel.

банк/bank > [bañqı]

• Final consonant clusters are simplified:

артист/artist > [artis]

• Final devoicing is also frequent:

табиб/tabib > [tabip]

Nouns

Tatar nouns are inflected for cases and numbers. Case suffixes change depending on last consonants of the noun, while nouns ending in п/к are voiced to б/г (китабым) when a possessive suffix was added. Suffixes below are in back vowel, with front variant can be seen at #Phonology section.

The declension of possessive suffixes is even more irregular, with the dative suffix -а used in 1st singular and 2nd singular suffixes, and the accusative, dative, locative, and ablative endings -н, -на, -нда, -ннан is used after 3rd person possessive suffix. Nouns ending in -и, -у, or -ү, although phonologically vowels, take consonantic endings.^[24]

Declension of pronouns

Declension of personal and demonstrative pronouns tends to be irregular. Irregular forms are in bold.

Verbs

The distribution of present tense suffix is complicated, with the former (also with vowel harmony) is used with verb stems ending in consonants, and latter is used with verb stem ending in vowels (with the last vowel being deleted, эшләү — эшли, compare Turkish işlemek — continuous işliyor). The distribution of indefinite future tense is more complicated in consonant-ending stems, it is resolved by -арга/-ырга infinitives (язарга — язар). However, because some have verb citation forms in verbal noun (-у), this rule becomes somewhat unpredictable.

Tenses are negated with -ма, however in the indefinite future tense and the verbal participle they become -мас and -мыйча instead, respectively. Alongside with vowel-ending stems, the suffix also becomes -мый when negates the present tense. To form interrogatives, the suffix -мы is used.

Definite past and conditional tenses use type II personal inflections instead. When in the case of present tense, short ending (-м) is used. After vowels, the first person imperative forms deletes the last vowel, similar to the present tense does (эшләү — эшлим). Like plurals of nouns, the suffix -лар change depending the preceding consonants (-алар, but -ганнар).

Some verbs, however, have irregular imperative forms by adding a final historic vowel (уку — укы, төзү — төзе), instead of leaving the verb's stem.

Predicatives

These predicative suffixes now fallen into disuse, or rarely used.^[25]