Crimean Tatar is written in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Before 1928, the Perso-Arabic script was the main orthography.
Before the official introduction of the Common Turkic-based Latin alphabet by the Verkhovna Rada of Crimea in the 1990s, the Cyrillic alphabet was the main orthography. After the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the Russian government required solely the use of the Cyrillic script. In 2021, the Ukrainian government began the transition to the Latin script.
The Tatars of Romania use a different orthography. The letters ÃÂ, ÃÂ, ÃÂ, ÃÂ, ÃÂ, ÃÂ, ÃÂ, Ã Â, and ÃÂ were added in the Dobrujan Tatar orthography in 1956.
Crimean Tatars used the Perso-Arabic script from the 16th century to 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin alphabet based on Yañalif. The Crimean variant contained a couple of modified Arabic letters.
Prior to its replacement, same as and in parallel with several other Arabic-based orthographies of Turkic and Caucasian languages across the Soviet Union, several improvements and standardizations were introduced in order to make the writing more clear and more closely matching spoken pronunciations, the first one being adopted in 1921, and the second in 1924.
Below table lists the letters used in Crimean Tatar Arabic script.
As per the 1921 and 1924 Crimean Tatar Arabic alphabet orthographic conventions, all vowels were to be written, as shown in the table below.
The distinction between front and back vowel sounds "o, u, ñ" versus "ö, ü, i" weren't marked. These were derived and understood from context and in following vowel harmony rules. Below general rules are noted in Crimean Tatar, same as other Turkic languages.
In 1928, during latinisation in the Soviet Union, the Crimean Tatar Arabic alphabet was replaced by the Latin alphabet based on the Yañalif script. This alphabet contained a number of differences from the modern variant. Particularly, the letters ì ÃÂ, â ã, ê êÂÂ, àõ, X x, õ ö, I i instead of the modern àâ, àÃÂ, I ñ, ð i, àñ, àö, and àü.
Cyrillic for Crimean Tatar was introduced in 1938 as part of Cyrillization of languages in Soviet Union. It is based on Russian alphabet with no special letters. From 1938 to 1990s, that was the only alphabet used for Crimean Tatar.
<nowiki>*</nowiki>ÃÂà(ÃÂ), úà(q), ýà(ñ) and ôö (c) are separate letters of the alphabet (digraphs).
Modern Latin alphabet for Crimean Tatar was introduced in 1990s. It is based on Turkish alphabet with three special letters â Q, ÃÂ, ÃÂ. Its official use in Crimea was accepted in 1997 by Crimean Parliament. In 2021 it was approved by the government of Ukraine, to be adopted in education by September 2025.
<nowiki>*</nowiki>ÃÂâ is not recognized as separate letter. It is used to show softness of a consonant followed by Aa (ïÃÂ).
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Tatar spoken in Romania has two distinct facets existing, interweaving and forming together the literary Tatar language "edebiy TatarÃÂa". One of these aspects is the authentic Tatar called "ÃÂalpî TatarÃÂa" or "ÃÂalpak TatarÃÂa" and the other is the academic Tatar language called "muwallÃÂmatça".
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.
f > p<br> v > w<br> v > b<br> ç > à Â<br> ç > j<br> h > (skip over)<br> h > k<br> h > y<br> h > w<br>
There is a total of 10 letters used to represent determinant sounds of which 9 mark authentic determinant sounds: a, e, i, î, ÃÂ, 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, ÃÂ, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, r, s, à Â, 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 â¨ÃÂâ© is rarely heard because authentic speakers of Tatar spoken in Dobruja spell it /à Â/ as letter â¨à Ââ©. As the written language most often follows the spoken language shifting â¨ÃÂâ© to â¨à Ââ©, the result is that in Tatar spoken in Romania letter â¨ÃÂâ© and sound /ç/ are often treated as academic.
The letters b, d, g, ÃÂ, i, ó, u, ú, v can't occur at the end, as a last letter of the word (exception: ald and dad). Also the letter ñ can't occur as an initial letter of a word.
The group of letters aá does not symbolize two adjacent vowels, being a writing convention that shows that the reading is done according to the first vowel in the group and the inflection of the word is done according to the second vowel in the group. For example, the reading of the word kaár "care" is identical to that of kar "snow", but in the ablative case they will become kaárden "of/from care", respectively kardan "of/from snow". The group of letters áa must be treated similarly. For example, the word nikáa "wedding" is read as "niká" and its dative will be nikáaga "to/to the wedding".
In 1956 were the discussions about the alphabet problems of Dobrujan Tatar, which was regulated by Vladimir Drîmba, a well-known Turkologist, including other professors and teachers. The result was 33 letters, 10 of them vowels and 23 consonants. It was used in University of Bucharest, the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures. The letter "àç" is to see as "àÃÂ" in the document of alphabet discussions, also "àÃÂ" is more like "æ ç". But they did appear as "àç" and "àÃÂ" in the grammar books. There was actually also the letter "à ¢ à £" (name: à £e). The letter "à ¢ à £" was originally an academic letter representing the sound voiceless alveolar affricate [ts] and naturalized to authentic as [s] "S s". It is calculated that the letter "à ¢ à £" is fully naturalized to "S s", probably by à Âukran Vuap-Mocanu in 1985, this means the words, which needed to be written with "à ¢ à £" are only written in authentic.
Arabic script for Turkic languages was used since the 10th century by Kara Khanids. Dobrujan Tatar did use a variant of Chagatai alphabet. It was the same version as Ottoman Turkish alphabet. The writer Taner Murat, along with some others, revived the Arabic script, he did use it in some translations and did also make transliterations to Arabic script. Taner Murat did write in a different way from the traditional version. He did marked the vowels all the time by Arabic diacritics, like Xiao'erjing and different writing signs were used. Some letters unique to Arabic, were in the works of Taner Murat mostly replaced by other letters. The journal "Nazar Look" (), which was founded by Taner Murat, did also have a logo with Arabic script.
1 â Only between hard vowels (a, î, o, u).
The vowels are created with the harakats () also with small-alif (), the long vowels are represented by ëû. The long vowels loose there function only when they are fallowed by ëû and are without sukun (), theseâ () are readed as âÂÂaâÂÂ. The exceptional long vowels (aa, ee, ii) can be made by adding maddah () on the long vowel (). The letter ëû or ëû [randomly] is used as a initial letter when the vowel is the first letter of the word. Also when a vowel is fallowed by a vowel or when ëû is fallowed by shaddah (), ëû is written.
Vowels as a first letter of the word
Vowels in middle and end of the word
Long vowels
There is a Cyrillic alphabet designed for Dobrujan Tatar by Taner Murat, including the letters àÃÂ, àÃÂ, â ã, è é, àÃÂ, î ï, àÃÂ. It was also used in translations with transliteration.
Dobrujan Tatar has a version of Old Turkic script, which is designed by Taner Murat. It was also used in translations with transliteration.