Volga Tatar

Because of its common name, Crimean Tatar is sometimes mistaken to be a dialect of Tatar proper, or both being two dialects of the same language. However, Tatar spoken in Tatarstan and the Volga-Ural region of Russia belongs to the different Bulgaric (Russian: кыпчакско-булгарская) subgroup of the Kipchak languages, and its closest relative is Bashkir. Both Volga Tatar and Bashkir differ notably from Crimean Tatar, particularly because of the specific Volga-Ural Turkic vocalism and historical shifts.

Vowels

The vowel system of Crimean Tatar is similar to some other Turkic languages.^[13] Because high vowels in Crimean Tatar are short and reduced, /i/ and /ɯ/ are realized close to [ɪ], even though they are phonologically distinct.^[14]

Consonants

In addition to these phonemes, Crimean also displays marginal phonemes that occur in borrowed words, especially palatalized consonants.^[15]

The southern (coastal) dialect substitutes /x/ for /q/, e.g. standard qara 'black', southern xara.^[16] At the same time the southern and some central dialects preserve glottal /h/ which is pronounced /x/ in the standard language.^[16] The northern dialect on the contrary lacks /x/ and /f/, substituting /q/ for /x/ and /p/ for /f/.^[16] The northern /v/ is usually [w], often in the place of /ɣ/, compare standard dağ and northern taw 'mountain' (also in other Oghuz and Kipchak languages, such as Azerbaijani: dağ and Kazakh: taw).

/k/ and /ɡ/ are usually fronted, close to [c] and [ɟ].

Morphophonology

Crimean Tatar, like most Turkic languages, features pervasive vowel harmony, which results in sound changes when suffixes are added to verb or noun stems.^[23] Essentially, the vowel in a suffix undergoes assimilation to agree in certain categories with the vowel in the stem.^[24] The two main types of assimilation that characterize this agreement in Crimean Tatar morphophonology are backness harmony and rounding harmony.^[25]

Using the transliteration system in Kavitskaya (2010), non-high vowels undergoing backness harmony vary between [a] and [e], and are represented as A. High vowels that undergo both backness and rounding harmony alternate between [i], [y], [ɪ] and [u] and are represented as I. High vowels in suffixes that are never rounded and alternate between [i] and [ɪ] are represented as Y, whereas high vowels in suffixes that are always round and alternate between [u] and [y] are represented as U.^[26]

Some consonants undergo similar harmonizing changes depending on whether the preceding segment is voiced or voiceless, or whether the segment demonstrates backness harmony. Consonants that alternate between [k], [q], [g] and [ɣ] are represented as K, alternating [k] and [g] as G, alternating [t] and [d] by D, and alternating [tʃ] and [dʒ] as Ç.^[27]

Thus, the suffix -şAr could be rendered as "şar" or "şer" depending on the vowel in the morpheme preceding it.^[28]

Verbs

Crimean Tatar verbal morphology is fairly complex, inflecting for tense, number, person, aspect, mood and voice.^[29] Verbs are conjugated according to the following paradigm:^[30]

[STEM] + [reflexive] + [causative] + [passive] + [negation] + [tense/aspect/mood] + [person/number]

It is possible, albeit rare, for a single verb to contain all of these possible components, as in:

For the most part, each type of suffix would only appear once in any given word, although it is possible in some circumstances for causative suffixes to double up.^[32]

Infinitive verbs take the -mAK suffix and can be negated by the addition of the suffix -mA between the verb stem and the infinitive suffix, creating verb constructions that do not easily mirror English.^[33]

Verb derivation

Novel verb stems are derived chiefly by applying a verbalizing suffix to a noun or adjective, as demonstrated in the following examples:^[34]

Bare verb stems can also be compounded with noun stems to create new verbs,^[35] as in:

Person markers

There are two types of person markers for finite verbs, pronominal and possessive. Depending on tense and mood, verbs will take one or the other set of endings.^[36]

Grammatical person is not marked in third person singular, and the marker is optional in third person plural.^[37] As shown above, these markers come as the last element in the broader verb complex.

Tense and aspect markers

Grammatical tense and aspect are expressed in combination by the addition of various markers to the verb stem. Some of these markers match with pronominal person markers, while others take possessive person markers. Each tense/aspect has an associated negation marker; most of these are -mA but there is some variation.^[38]

	Marker	Negation	Person Marker	Example
General Present	-A/y	-mAy	pronominal	alam ("I take")
Present Progressive	-mAKtA	-mA	pronominal	yazmaqtamız ("We are writing.")
Future/Present	-Ar/Ir	-mAz	pronominal	bağırırım ("I will yell.")
Categorical Future	-cAK	-mAy	pronominal	alacağım ("I will [probably] take")
General Past	-DY	-mA	possessive	Qırımğa keldik ("We returned to Crimea.")
Evidential Past	-KAn	-mA	pronominal	bergenler ("they [apparently] gave")
Conditional	-sA	-mA	possessive	alsam ("if I take")

A separate set of compound tenses are formed by adding the past tense copula edi- to the derived forms listed above.^[39]

	Formed With	Negation	Example
Habitual Past	Future/Present	-mAz	alır edim ("I often used to take")
Compound Past	General Present	-A/y	ala edik ("we were taking")
Pluperfect	Evidential Past	-mA	alğan edim ("I had taken")
Counterfactual Past	Categorical Future	-mA	yazacaq edim ("I would have written")
Progressive Past	Progressive	-mA	Ketmekte edim. ("I kept going.")
Past Conditional	Conditional	-mA	alsa edim ("if I had taken")

Mood

The imperative is formed using a specific set of person markers, and negated using -mA. In second person imperatives, only the bare verb stem is used. A first person imperative expresses an "I/we should do X" sentiment, whereas third person expresses "let him/her do X," as shown below with unut ("to forget"):^[40]

Other moods are constructed similarly to tense/aspect forms.^[41]

	Marker	Negation	Person Marker	Example
Optative	-KAy(dI)	-mAy	pronominal	Aytqaydım ("I wish I had spoken.")
Obligative	-mAlY	-mA	possessive	Aytmalım ("I have to speak.")

Voice

Grammatical voice is expressed by the addition of suffixes which come in sequence before negation, tense, aspect, mood and person markers.^[42] There are several causative suffixes which vary depending on the ending of the verb stem.^[43]

Participles

Past, future and present participles are formed by the addition of suffixes and are negated in the same way as other verbs.^[44]

Copula

The copula ol ("to be, become, exist") is generally expressed as a predicate suffix in the present tense, closely resembling the pronominal person endings, as displayed below.^[45] The third person endings are frequently deleted in colloquial speech. The copula’s past tense form, edi, is suppletive. Future tense copular forms are constructed by the addition of the categorical future suffix -cAK.^[46]

Converbs

Converbs, a characteristic of many Turkic languages,^[47] express sequential or dependent action. Present tense converbs are formed by the addition of the suffixes -A (used after consonants) and -y (used after vowels). In past tense, converbs take the suffix -Ip.^[48] Thus:

Nouns

Crimean Tatar noun stems take suffixes which express grammatical number, case and possession. As in all other Turkic languages, there is no grammatical gender in Crimean Tatar.^[49] Nouns are declined according to the following paradigm:^[50]

[STEM] + [number] + [possession] + [case]

Noun derivation

Noun stems are derived in a number of ways. Most commonly, a bare noun stem can take a denominal suffix which alters its basic meaning.^[51] Similarly, a bare verb stem can take a deverbal suffix that converts it into a noun.^[52] There are many such denominal and deverbal suffixes in Crimean Tatar;^[53] some common suffixes are shown below:

Noun stems can also be reduplicated, which lends a more generalized meaning.^[54] The last method of noun derivation is through the compounding of two noun stems.^[55] Thus:

Number

Nouns are pluralized by the addition of the suffix -lAr to the noun stem. The vowel in this plural suffix agrees phonetically with the final vowel in the stem.^[56]

Use of the plural can also express respect,^[57] as in:

Possession

Possession is expressed through person-specific suffixing. As with the plural suffix, possession suffixes harmonize with the preceding vowel in regular ways.^[58]

Case

Crimean Tatar has six grammatical cases.^[59] The nominative case is unmarked, and the remaining cases are expressed through suffixing. These suffixes come last in a fully declined noun.^[60]

	Suffix	Example with bala ("child")
Nominative	Ø	bala ("the child" [subject])
Accusative	-nY	balanı ("the child" [direct object])
Genitive	-nYñ	balanıñ ("of the child")
Dative	-KA	balağa ("to the child")
Locative	-DA	balada ("at the child")
Ablative	-Dan	baladan ("away from the child")

Pronouns

Like nouns, pronouns are inflected for number, person and case but not for gender.^[61]

	Singular			Plural
	1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Nominative	men	sen	o	biz	siz	olar
Accusative	meni	seni	onı	bizni	sizni	olarnı
Genitive	menim	seniñ	onıñ	bizim	siziñ	olarnıñ
Dative	maña	saña	oña	bizge	sizge	olarǧa
Locative	mende	sende	onda	bizde	sizde	olarda
Ablative	menden	senden	ondan	bizden	sizden	olardan

The second person plural pronoun can be used to denote formality or respect, even if its referent is a single person.^[62]

There are two roots, öz- and kendi-, that express reflexivity. Of the two, kendi- is more common in the southern dialect, but both are used throughout the entire area in which Crimean Tatar is spoken.^[63]

Possessive pronouns are formed by adding the suffix -ki to the genitive form of a personal pronoun,^[64] as in:

	Singular	Plural
1st Person	menimki	bizimki
2nd Person	seniñki	siziñki
3rd Person	onıñki	olarnıñki

Adjectives

Adjectives in Crimean Tatar precede the nouns they modify. They do not show agreement, and as such do not take any of the case, person or possession suffixes.^[65]

Adjectives can be derived by the addition of certain suffixes to a noun or verb stem.^[66]

The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are expressed, respectively, by the suffix -ÇA and the particle eñ,^[67] as in the following examples:

An idiomatic superlative form using episi ("all") in the ablative case is also possible.^[68]

Postpositions

Crimean Tatar uses postpositions. Each postposition governs a specific case, either dative, genitive or ablative.^[69] Some common postpositions are shown below:

Postposition	English	Case'
qadar	until	DAT
taba	towards	DAT
zarfında	during	GEN
ile	with	GEN
içün	for	GEN
soñ	after	ABL
sebep	due to	ABL

Arabic alphabet

Crimean Tatars used Arabic script from 16th century to 1928.

Latin alphabet

 â is not considered to be a separate letter. Usually it represents the near-open front unrounded vowel, /æ/.

Cyrillic alphabet

The digraphs гъ, къ, нъ and дж are separate letters.