thumb|Text in Crimean Tatar
thumb|upright=1.13|"Welcome to Crimea" () written in Crimean Tatar Cyrillic, airport bus, [[Simferopol International Airport]]
thumb|upright=1.13|Crimean Tatar Latin script on a plate in [[Bakhchysarai in 2009, along with Ukrainian]]
thumb|upright=1.13|Crimean Tatar Latin script sign in [[Saky Raion in 2021, along with Russian and Ukrainian]]
thumb|upright=1.13|An example of Crimean Tatar Arabic script. The text reads in Modern Latin alphabet: "Yaşasın, Sotsialist Şuralar Cumhuriyetleri Birligindegi Qurtulış milletlerniñ hür birlikleri!" In Cyrillic: "Йашасын, Социалист Шуралар Джумхурийетлери Бирлигиндеги Къуртулыш миллетлернинъ хюр бирликлери!"
thumb|Crimean Tatar musician Negeadin Abit plays the song "Ay tek şatır", recorded in [[Romania.]]
Crimean Tatar (), also called Crimean (), 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. In Romania, the Crimean Tatar language is officially recognised as a minority language.
Number of speakers
Today, more than 260,000 Crimean Tatars live in Crimea. Approximately 120,000 reside in Central Asia (mainly in Uzbekistan), where their ancestors had been deported in 1944 during World War II by the Soviet Union. However, of all these people, mostly the older generations are the only ones still speaking Crimean Tatar.
An estimated 5 million people of Crimean origin live in Turkey, descendants of those who emigrated in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Smaller Crimean Tatar communities (such as Dobrujan Tatars) are also found in Romania () and Bulgaria (). Almost all Crimean Tatars are bilingual or multilingual, using the dominant languages of their respective home countries, such as Russian, Turkish, Romanian, Uzbek, Bulgarian or Ukrainian.
Classification and dialects
The Crimean Tatar language consists of three or four dialects. Among them is also the southern dialect, also known as the coastal dialect (yalıboyu, cenübiy), which is in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages commonly spoken in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Romania
There is also a variety of the Crimean Tatar language spoken in Romania. It includes Crimean Tatar and Nogai dialects, but today there is no longer a sharp distinction between the dialects.