TATAR (Russia, Europe)

Family
Idil- Ural-Turkish

Country
Russia, Europe

Language code
TTR

Continent
Europe

Alternate language names
TARTAR

Dialect names
KAZAN TATAR, MISHER, TURA, BARABA, TOM, TYUMEN, ISHIM, YALUTOROV, IRTYSH, TOBOL, TARA, ASTRAKHAN TATAR, KASIMOV-TATAR, TEPTYAR, URALIAN TATAR

Genetic affiliation
Altaic, Turkic, Western, Uralian

Geographical region
Tatarstan, from Moscow to eastern Siberia. Capital is Kazan, on the Volga River. Also in Turkey and Finland

Population
5,715,000 speakers (86%) out of an ethnic group of 6,645,588 in Russia (1989 census), including 6,017,000 ethnic Tatar, of whom 86% speak Tatar as mother tongue, and an additional 370,000 Bashkir who speak it as mother tongue; 7,000 to 10,000 in New York City and San Francisco, USA; 1,000 in China (1990); 350 in Afghanistan; 7,000,000 total (1991 WA)

New Testament printings
in press (1989)

Printings of whole books of Bible
1864-1986

Remarks
Has literary status, based on Kazan dialect. Cyrillic script. High literacy rate. Distinct from Crimean Tatar (Crimean Turkish). Baraba may be a distinct language

Subsistence type
Agriculturalists, oil workers, coal miners

Total speakers
7,000,000

Religion
Sunni Muslim, some Christians

Also in
Turkey, China, USA, Afghanistan, Finland