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What does the татарча (Tatar) language have in common with اردو, മലയാളം, Qhichwa Simi, فارسی, isiZulu, ಕನ್ನಡ, नेपाली, Afrikaans, कोंकणी, Setswana, বাংলা, తెలుగు, ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, and Lëtzebuergisch ?
That's easy.... it too has a Language Interface Pack, available for download right here!
Some background info on Tatar (courtesy of Soren):
Number of speakers: 6-7 million Name in the language itself: татарча The Tatar language is one of the two official languages of the republic of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation (Russian being the other one). Tatar is spoken there by around 5.7 million speakers; smaller communities of Tatar speakers can be found in neighboring regions like Bashqortostan, in southwestern Siberia and in central Asia and eastern Europe. During the Soviet era, Tatar lost ground to Russian; it is estimated that in the last 30 years of the Soviet Union more than 8 percent of the population of Tatarstan switched from Tatar to Russian as their preferred language. The language of high education as well as the mass media is still predominantly Russian, and in urban areas more Russian is heard. But the Tatar language is being promoted by an active language policy in the republic, and since the end of the 20th century there has been a renaissance of the language. Tatar has a large number of dialects, which can be classified into three major groups: Central, Western/Misharian and Eastern/Siberian. Modern standard Tatar shows features mostly of both the Central dialects (especially in lexicon, phonology) and the Western/Misharian dialects (more in morphology). Tatar is an agglutinative language. Fun facts: In Turkish, the Tatar language is called Turkish Tatar (Tatar Türkçesi) to stress its membership in the Turkic language family. Tatar literature flourished in the empire of the Golden Horde, founded by Ghengis Khan's grandson, Batu Khan (The empire existed from the early 13th to the middle of the 15th century). Classification: Tatar belongs to the Northern Kypchak branch of the Turkic languages, which might belong to the (disputed) Altaic language family. The classification of Tatar itself is not undisputed either (as for most Turkic languages). The closest relative of Tatar is Bashkir, other relatives include Crimean Tatar or Kazakh. Script: Until the late 1920s Tatar was written in a modified Arabic script (which did not suit Tatar very well and imposed very complex spelling rules). The Latin alphabet introduced then was replaced by a Cyrillic one already in 1939. The second introduction of a Latin alphabet, which was made official in September 2001, was reverted by the Russian Supreme Court. Therefore today Tatar is written in a Cyrillic script with 6 special characters unknown in Russian.
Number of speakers: 6-7 million
Name in the language itself: татарча
The Tatar language is one of the two official languages of the republic of Tatarstan in the Russian Federation (Russian being the other one). Tatar is spoken there by around 5.7 million speakers; smaller communities of Tatar speakers can be found in neighboring regions like Bashqortostan, in southwestern Siberia and in central Asia and eastern Europe.
During the Soviet era, Tatar lost ground to Russian; it is estimated that in the last 30 years of the Soviet Union more than 8 percent of the population of Tatarstan switched from Tatar to Russian as their preferred language. The language of high education as well as the mass media is still predominantly Russian, and in urban areas more Russian is heard. But the Tatar language is being promoted by an active language policy in the republic, and since the end of the 20th century there has been a renaissance of the language.
Tatar has a large number of dialects, which can be classified into three major groups: Central, Western/Misharian and Eastern/Siberian. Modern standard Tatar shows features mostly of both the Central dialects (especially in lexicon, phonology) and the Western/Misharian dialects (more in morphology).
Tatar is an agglutinative language.
Fun facts:
Classification: Tatar belongs to the Northern Kypchak branch of the Turkic languages, which might belong to the (disputed) Altaic language family. The classification of Tatar itself is not undisputed either (as for most Turkic languages). The closest relative of Tatar is Bashkir, other relatives include Crimean Tatar or Kazakh.
Script: Until the late 1920s Tatar was written in a modified Arabic script (which did not suit Tatar very well and imposed very complex spelling rules). The Latin alphabet introduced then was replaced by a Cyrillic one already in 1939. The second introduction of a Latin alphabet, which was made official in September 2001, was reverted by the Russian Supreme Court. Therefore today Tatar is written in a Cyrillic script with 6 special characters unknown in Russian.
Enjoy!
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