World Language Map

Where is Crimean Tatar spoken?

Crimean Tatar (Kîrîm tatarğa) is a Turkic language, spoken in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania and 5 more. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Where Crimean Tatar is spoken

Crimean Tatar is spoken in 9 countries: Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania and 5 more. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Ukraine0.6%199,706
BulgariaNot givenNot given
KyrgyzstanNot givenNot given
LithuaniaNot givenNot given
MoldovaNot givenNot given
RomaniaNot givenNot given
RussiaNot givenNot given
TurkeyNot givenNot given
UzbekistanNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Crimean Tatar has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Crimean Tatar?

Wikidata gives about 553,000 speakers (ethnologue.com, 2021). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Threatened. Glottolog lists it as threatened: it is still spoken by all generations, but there are signs that the number of speakers is falling.

Where Crimean Tatar sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Crimean Tatar as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Turkic
  2. Common Turkic
  3. Kipchak-Turkestan
  4. Kipchak
  5. Northwest Kipchak
  6. West Kipchak
  7. Crimean Tatar-Urum
  8. Crimeaic
  9. Crimean Tatar

Related languages

Other languages in the Crimeaic group:

More about Crimean Tatar

Codes: ISO 639-3 crh, Glottolog crim1257. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Crimean Tatar

Where is Crimean Tatar spoken?

Crimean Tatar is spoken in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania and 5 more. Unicode CLDR puts it at 0.6% of the population of Ukraine, which is about 199,706 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Crimean Tatar?

Wikidata gives about 553,000 speakers (ethnologue.com, 2021). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Crimean Tatar in?

Glottolog places Crimean Tatar in the Turkic family, in the branch Common Turkic, Kipchak-Turkestan, Kipchak, Northwest Kipchak, West Kipchak, Crimean Tatar-Urum and Crimeaic.

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