| Dobrujan Tatar | |
| Nativename: | Tatar tílí / Tatarşa |
| States: | Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey |
| Region: | Eastern Europe |
| Ethnicity: | Dobrujan Tatars |
| Speakers: | 70,000 |
| Familycolor: | Altaic |
| Fam1: | Turkic |
| Fam2: | Common Turkic |
| Fam3: | Kipchak |
| Fam4: | Kipchak–Nogai |
| Minority: |  Romania[1] |
| Glotto: | dobr1234 |
| Glottorefname: | Dobruja Tatar |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Agency: | Tatar Tílíñ Tílsîzga Şurasî |
Dobrujan Tatar is the Tatar language of Romania.[2] It includes Kipchak dialects,[3] [4] [5] [6] but today there is no longer a sharp distinction between the dialects and it is mostly seen as one language.[7] This language belongs to the Kipchak Turkic languages, specifically to Kipchak-Nogai.[2]
In Romania is it commonly called as Tatar language. But in some sources is also seen Romanian Tatar,[2] Dobrujan Tatar,[2] Danube Tatar, Budjak Tatar,[8] Moldovan-Romanian Tatar,[9] Nogai, Nogai-Tatar, Dobrujan Nogai, Budjak Nogai, Crimean Tatar, Dobrujan Crimean Tatar, Authentic Crimean Tatar or Colloquial Crimean Tatar.
In the grammar book by University of Bucharest are these dialects written: [10]
Some sources defined the dialects under their influence from Oghuz.[2] [11]
Tatar spoken in Romania has two distinct facets existing, interweaving and forming together the literary Tatar language "edebiy Tatarğa". One of these aspects is the authentic Tatar called "ğalpî Tatarğa" or "ğalpak Tatarğa" and the other is the academic Tatar language called "muwallímatça".[12]
Naturalization is shifting the spelling of academic speech sounds to authentic sounds following the patterns below, where a greater-than sign indicates that one sound changes to another.[12] f > p
v > w
v > b
ç > ş
ç > j
h > (skip over)
h > k
h > y
h > w
See main article: Dobrujan Tatar alphabet. There is a total of 10 letters used to represent determinant sounds of which 9 mark authentic determinant sounds: a, e, i, î, í, o, ó, u, ú while the letter á is used for an academic vowel. The writing system registers authentic consonants with 17 letters:b, ç, d, g, ğ, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, ş, t, z and has three signs standing for the academic consonants: f, h, v. There are also two authentic semivowels: y, w. An old authentic Turkic consonant, the sound /ç/ represented by the letter⟨Ç⟩ is rarely heard because authentic speakers of Tatar spoken in Dobruja spell it /ş/ as letter⟨Ş⟩. As the written language most often follows the spoken language shifting ⟨Ç⟩ to ⟨Ş⟩, the result is that in Tatar spoken in Romania letter ⟨Ç⟩ and sound /ç/ are often treated as academic.[12]
The Dobrujan Tatar language did get a Latin alphabet in 1956,[2] it was established as a section in University of Bucharest the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures in 1957 and also in 1977 it was disbanded.[13] Most of the teachers who taught at the Tatar language department graduated from the Faculty of History and Philology of Kazan State University (Tatarstan - Russian Federation), specializing in Tatar language and literature.[13] In the communist period, Tatar books were brought from the USSR to teach the Tatar language in Romania, but it failed. Nowadays the Tatar language is taught in some Romanian schools using Tatar language books.[2] [14]
There are some Tatar magazines in Romania, also novels, dictionaries, poetry books, school books and science books.[15] [16] [2] [14] Some of the dictionaries are printed by the help of UDTTMR.[17] In Romanian television broadcasts was also Tatar learning rubrics called „Tatarşa üyrenemĭz“ (Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan: Învățăm tătărește; "We learn Tatar") and the TV show „Romanya'dan Tatarlar“ (Romanian; Moldavian; Moldovan: Tătarii din România; "Tatars from Romania") showed.[18] [19] However, the language is not supported in language keyboards or in language codes.
The Government of Romania recognises the Tatar community. Also every 5 May is the official Tatar language Day in Romania.[20] Nilghuin Ismail describes the situation: "Nowadays the Romanian Tatar language is preserved only as spoken language. Even so in accordance with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in the Recommendation 1201 (1993), on an additional protocol on the rights of national minorities, is stipulated: Every person belonging to a national minority shall have theright to freely use his/her mother tongue in private and in public, both orally and inwriting. This right shall also apply to the use of his/her language in publications andin the audiovisual sector. Despite all these recommendations, in Romania we still do not have literary Tatar language."[2]