Krymchak ( ; , Qrımçah tılyı; also called Judeo-Crimean Tatar, Krimchak, Chagatai, Dzhagatay) is a moribund Turkic language spoken in Crimea by the Krymchak people. The Krymchak community was composed of Jewish immigrants who arrived from all over Europe and Asia and who continuously added to the Krymchak population. The Krymchak language, as well as culture and daily life, was similar to Crimean Tatar, the peninsula's majority population, with the addition of a significant Hebrew influence.
Like most Jewish languages, it contains many Hebrew loanwords. Before the Soviet era, it was written using Hebrew characters. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s, it was written with the Uniform Turkic Alphabet (a variant of the Latin script), like Crimean Tatar and Karaim. Now it is written in the Cyrillic script.
Over the 20th century the language has disappeared and been replaced by Russian, with approximately 70% of the population perishing in the Holocaust. When in May 1944 almost all Crimean Tatars were deported to Soviet Uzbekistan, many speakers of Krymchak were among them, and some remained in Uzbekistan.
Nowadays, the language is almost extinct. According to the Ukrainian census of 2001, fewer than 785 Krymchak people remain in Crimea. One estimate supposes that of the approximately 1500-2000 Krymchaks living worldwide, mostly in Israel, Crimea, Russia and the United States, only 5-7 are native speakers.
Classification
Krymchak is within the Turkic language family. It has alternatively been considered as a separate language or as an ethnolect of Coastal/Middle Crimean Tatar, along with Crimean Karaite. Glottochronological reckoning evidenced that these subdialects became distinct from Crimean Tatar around 600-800 AD. Krymchak and Karaite became distinguishable around 1200–1300.
History
The Krymchak community formed over hundreds of years as Jews from all over Europe and Asia immigrated to the Crimean peninsula. and other Jewish peoples settled there over time as well. The Krymchak community originated during the Middle Ages, grew intensely in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, became a unified group in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and continued to grow until the nineteenth century. This growth occurred continuously as Jewish emigrants arrived from the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Persia, and many other regions. The study of Krymchak surnames affirms that their community formed slowly and was composed from elements of different origins.
The general switch from Krymchak to Russian began after the Russian Revolution and intensified in the 1930s. In 1897, 35% of Krymchak men and 10% of women spoke Russian. In 1926, the majority of Krymchaks considered Crimean Tatar as their native language, however the youth attending Russian schools preferred to speak the Russian language, though they usually spoke incorrectly. Neither did they have a firm command of the Krymchak language.
Dialects
Though itself considered a dialect of Crimean Tatar, Krymchak differed geographically depending on the dialect of the surrounding Tatar population.
Phonology
Krymchak employs a five-vowel system. Their phonology contains only short vowels. They do not distinguish between front and back labial vowels, such as o / ö and u / ü.
Speakers intone words differently than speakers of Crimean Tatar.
{| class="wikitable" border="1"
|+Krymchak Vowels
|- align="center" cellpadding="4"
!
! Front
! Central
! Back
|- align="center"
! High
|| i
|
| u
|- align="center"
! Mid
| e
|
| o
|- align="center"
! Low
|
| a
|
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|+Krymchak Consonants
{| style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS; font-size:1.4em; border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style:solid; border-collapse:collapse; background-color:#F8F8EF"
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | A a
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | B ʙ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | C c
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ç ç
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | D d
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | E e
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | F f
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | G g
|-
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | H h
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | I i
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | J j
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ь ь
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | K k
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Q q
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ƣ ƣ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | L l
|-
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | M m
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | N n
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ꞑ ꞑ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | O o
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ɵ ɵ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | P p
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | R r
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | S s
|-
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ş ş
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | T t
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | U u
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Y y
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | V v
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Z z
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ƶ ƶ
|
|}
{| style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS; font-size:1.4em; border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style:solid; border-collapse:collapse; background-color:#F8F8EF"
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | А а
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Б б
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | В в
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Г г
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Гъ гъ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Д д
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Е е
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | З з
|-
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | И и
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Й й
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | К к
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Къ къ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Л л
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | М м
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Н н
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Нъ нъ
|-
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | О о
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ӧ ӧ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | П п
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Р р
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | С с
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Т т
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | У у
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ӱ ӱ
|-
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ф ф
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Х х
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ч ч
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Чъ чъ
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ш ш
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ы ы
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Ь ь
| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | Э э
|}
The Krymchak alphabet can be found on Omniglot.
Examples
Krymchak translation by B. Baginski-Gurdzhi of "The Cloud" by Pushkin
References
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