Krymchak language

Krymchak
кърымчах тыльы
Krymchak written in modern Cyrillic and Latin scripts, along with obsolete Latin and Hebrew scripts
Native toCrimea, Israel, Turkey
Ethnicity1,800 Krymchaks (2007)[1]
Native speakers
200 (2007)[1]
Cyrillic alphabet, Latin script, Hebrew script
Official status
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-3jct
Glottologkrym1236
ELPKrymchak
Linguaspherepart of 44-AAB-a

Krymchak (/ˈkrɪmæk/ KRIM-chak; кърымчах тыльы, 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Over the 20th century the language has disappeared and been replaced by Russian, with approximately 70% of the population perishing in the Holocaust.[4] When in May 1944 almost all Crimean Tatars were deported to Soviet Uzbekistan,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[which?] 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.[citation needed]

  1. ^ a b Krymchak at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "To which languages does the Charter apply?". European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe. p. 3. Archived from the original on 2013-12-27. Retrieved 2014-04-03.
  3. ^ "Про затвердження переліку мов національних меншин (спільнот) та корінних народів України, яким загрожує зникнення". Official webportal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. 7 June 2024.
  4. ^ Green, Warren (1984). "The Fate of the Crimean Jewish Communities: Ashkenazim, Krimchaks and Karaites". Jewish Social Studies. 46 (2): 169–176. ISSN 0021-6704.