| Population |
5,715,000 speakers (86%) out of an ethnic group of 6,645,588 in the former USSR (1989 census), including 6,017,000 ethnic Tatar, of whom 86% speak Tatar as mother tongue, and an additional 370,000 Bashkir speak it as mother tongue. Population total all countries 7,000,000. |
| Region |
Tatarstan, from Moscow to eastern Siberia. Capital is Kazan (Kasan), on the Volga River. Also spoken in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkey (Europe), Turkmenistan, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan. |
| Alternate names |
TARTAR |
| Dialects |
MIDDLE TATAR (KAZAN), WESTERN TATAR (MISHER), EASTERN TATAR (SIBERIAN TATAR). |
| Classification |
Altaic, Turkic, Western, Uralian. |
| Comments |
Eastern Tatar is divided into 3: Tobol-Irtysh, Baraba, and Tom. Tobol-Irtysh is divided into 5: Tyumen, Tobol, Zabolotny, Tevriz, and Tara (Tumasheva). Mixed dialects are: Astrakhan, Kasimov, Tepter, and Ural (Poppe). 43,000 Astrakhan have assimilated to the Middle dialect. Kasim (5,000) is between Middle and Western Tatar. Tepter (300,000) is reported to be between the Tatar and Bashkir languages. Uralic Tatar (110,000) is spoken by the Kerashen Tatar. The Karatai are ethnically Erzya, who speak Tatar. Not endangered. Different from Crimean Tatar (Crimean Turkish). Literacy rate in second language: High. Cyrillic script. Agriculturalists, oil workers, coal miners. Sunni Muslim, some Christian. Bible portions 1864-1995. |
