Old Tatar

The Old Tatar language was a literary language used by some ethnic groups of the Idel-Ural region (Tatars and Bashkirs) from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century.

Old Tatar is a member of the Kipchak (or Northwestern) group of Turkic languages, although it was derived from the ancient Bulgar language. The first poem, considered to be written by Qul Ghali in Volga Turki dates back to the period of Volga Bulgaria. It included many Persian and Arabic loans.

In its written form, the language was spelled uniformly among different ethnic groups, speaking different Turkic languages of the Kipchak sub-group. The pronunciation differed from one people to another, approximating to the spoken language, making the written form universal for different languages.

The language formerly used the Arabic script and its later updated alphabets of İske imlâ and Yaña imlâ. Old Tatar language was a language of Idel-Ural poetry and literature. With the Ottoman Turkish, Azeri, Cuman, Khaqani Turkic and Chagatai, they were the only Turkic literary languages used in the Middle Ages. It was actively used in publishing until 1905, when the first Tatar and Bashkir newspapers begun to be published in modern Tatar and Bashkir language.

Alphabet

	Name	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial	Modern Cyrillic Bashkir alphabet	Modern Latin Bashkir alphabet	IPA	Notes
1		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
2		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink
3		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
4		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
5		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Before front towels
6		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink	Only in borrowings from Arabic, and in Bashkir words in 19th century modification
7		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink
8		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink
9		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Only in borrowings from Arabic
10		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
11		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
12		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink	Only in Arabic loanwords, and in Bashkir words in 19th century modification
13		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
14		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
15		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Only in Persian, French and Russian borrowings
16		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink	Before front vowels
17		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
18		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Before back vowels
19		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink	Only in borrowings from Arabic
20		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Before back vowels
21		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink	Only in borrowings from Arabic
22		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Only in borrowings from Arabic
23		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
24		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
25		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
26		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
27		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
28		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	—			Template:IPAlink	Initial form was never used due to phonetic reasons
29		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
30		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
31		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink
32		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink
33		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink/Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink/Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink	Alternative Cyrillic transcription:
34		Template:Script	Template:Script		Template:Script			Template:IPAlink	Only in borrowings from European languages
35		Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script	Template:Script			Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink, Template:IPAlink

Bibliography

• Template:TES

See also

• Turki
• Bashkir language
• Tatar language