Tatar language is spoken by Tatar people and belongs to the Kipchak brunch of the Turkic languages family. Like all Turkic languages, Tatar is characterized by vowel harmony and agglutinative nature of grammatical relations between the words.

In Middle Ages up to early 20 century, the Tatar language was instrumental in connecting various Turkic people to carry on businesses and innovations. It served as an intermediary between Turkic languages-speaking people populating EurAsian continent and was promoting successful collaborations and opportunities. The Corpus of Written Tatar Language consists of over 500 mln of word occurrences.

Based on the lexicostatistical matrix of Turkic languages and according to the to recent article in Journal of Language Evolution, Tatar language exhibits more than 50% of basic lexical similarities with at least 12 Turkic languages (Azeri, Bashkir, Crimean Tatars, Kazakh, Karachi, Khakas, Kyrgyz, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Uyghur, Uzbek). Tatar language has several dialects (Volga/Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberian, Mishar). Crimean Tatar language is much closer grammatically, phonetically and lexically to Turkish language than to literary (Volga) Tatar language. The modern written Tatar language is based on the Cyrillic script since 1938. Between 1927 and 1938, Tatar books and documents were written with Latin script (1927-38), prior to that Arabic script and Turkic runes were utilised to deliver written communication and thought. If you are curious about politics of the alphabet, i.e. the powerful and painful-for-the-native-language process of ascribing a letter to a sound, checkout Language Arts page of Slavs and Tatars collective. 

There are between 2 and 5 million of Tatar language (and ~200 million all Turkic languages) active speakers worldwide with majority residing in the indigenous lands that are part of the modern Russian Federation. The number of the Tatar language speakers is rapidly declining due to urbanisation, assimilation and popularity of Russian and English languages as lingua franca.

The Tatar Language is classified as Vulnerable by UNESCO Atlas of World Languages in Danger. It is essential these days to take efforts to keep ancestral language utilized, as a heritage language is the most critical marker of the health of the community and versatility of the world. It is important for Tatar language – as well as for any other endangered languages – to have opportunities and supportive environment. Join the community of Tatar speakers! Consider introducing yourself to the Tatar language and culture to broaden your horizons!

Learn

• 8 weeks Tatar Language and Culture intensive summer course at Arizona State University and online
• Online synchronous individual and group Tatar sessions with Alima Academy
• Tutorials for beginner, intermediate and advanced Tatar Language learners: LearnTatar
• YouTube Channel of Bulat Shaymi offers fun and educational material in Tatar and English
• Tatar Alphabet, Tatar Phonetics and Pronunciation (with English pronunciation parallels)
• Tatar Alphabet for Kids: cute, short videos in Tatar
• 500 Tatar words: online, for iPhone. Sounds of Tatar speech
• Online dictionary: English-Tatar: GoogleTranslate. Russian-Tatar: Ganiev.org, Translate.Tatar
• Engaging Learning materials in Tatar and Russian: AnaTele, Language Heroes ,Tatar with Petrov, Tatar with Ләйсән
• Short Videos for Tatar Beginners (with English explanation)
• Tatar Grammar: Learn Tatar, MustGo, Electronic Textbooks by N.Poppe (1963), by G.Burbiel (2018)
• Corpus of Written Tatar (Corpus’ User’s Manual)
• Collection of softwares, applications localized for Tatar language – TatSoft.Tatar 
• Fun linguistic experiment on comprehension of Tatar sentences by Turkish speakers
• Tatar Dictionary
• Tatar Transliteration Tool (from Cyrillic script to Latinized script)

Read, Listen, Watch

• Animated children’s stories and cartoons: Bala.ru
• Children’s Tatar radio: Saf-radio.ru
• Talks on various topics: Elbette.ru
• Electronic books: Baigysh.tatar, WikiBooks
• Audiobooks: Telegram Channel, Tatkniga, Tatar Virtual School
• Internet radio with Tatar classic, folk music and literature citing: Tatarstan Avazy
• Internet and online radio, audio and video podcasts: Kitap.fm
• Internet radio with Tatar modern pop and folk music: Tartip FM
• Online radio of alternative Tatar music: UrbanTatar
• Daily news podcasts on Tatar: TRT
• Documentary of round-abouts and perceptions of Nurbek Batulla’s artistic work “әlif” about Tatar letters that were lost during painful alphabet transition from Persian-Arabic script to Latin to Cyrillic that happened within 10 years span.

Listen to Tatar Music

• Iconic Tatar singer Ilham Shakirov sings song “Chulpan” (“Morning Star”)
• Classical Tatar folk song “Umyrzaya” (snowdrop flower) by Elmira Kalimullina
• Beautiful songs by Saida Mukhametzyanova in the capturing Tatar settings
• Fun folk song “Almagaschlarim” (My Lovely Apple Trees) and dance by ZuLayLa
• Lesson on how to dance Tatar Folk dance 
• Elsa Zayari and Artur Islamov concert with numerous beautiful Tatar songs
• Folk song “Su Buylap”(“Along the Idel river”)
• Tatar classical music by DuoMong
• Works by Tatar composer, multi-instrumentalist Adeliia Faizullina 
• Beautiful Soviet-era Tatar song “Min sine shundyi sagyndym” (“I missed you so much”) in modern interpretation of young singers Saida and Ilnar with views of Kazan city
• Tatar Folk songs Interpretations by cellist Elena Korableva
• Soulful interpretation of “Qaytu” (“Returning”) song by Bulat Shaymi
• Original works of young Tatar poet and singer Shirin Al Ansi on her YouTube channel.

https://linktr.ee/tatarsummit