Bashkir language
The
Bashkir language is a
Turkic language.
The
1989 population census showed over 1,047,000 native speakers of the Bashkir language living in the
USSR. Additional 26,737 claimed Bashkir to be their secondary language. Approximately 300,000
Bashkirs said that
Tatar was their native language.
Speakers of the Bashkir language mostly live in the
Russian republic of
Bashkortostan, as well as in neighboring
Tatarstan and
Udmurtia. Substantial number of the speakers also live in
Perm Krai and in
Chelyabinsk,
Orenburg,
Sverdlovsk, and
Kurgan Oblasts. Large Bashkir minority groups also live in
Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan.
Even though Bashkirs originally were of Ugric or Finnic tribes, they initially adopted the
Bolgar language. After the
Mongol invasion, the
Kypchak language became more common due to the fact that it was the language spoken by the majority of the
Golden Horde tribes.
Modern Bashkir language, like the similar Tatar language, takes its roots from the Kypchak group of languages. Today the language has many
dialects, which are very similar to Tatar. In the past, Bashkirs used Tatar as a written language. In the
15th century it was replaced with the
Chagatay language (however, according to some researchers, it was replaced with the
Old Tatar variant of Chagatay), which was in use until
1923. Both Tatar and Chagatay were written in Arab letters.
In 1923, a writing system was specifically created for the Bashkir language. Also
own literary language was created, using the most differ than
bourgeous Tatar language dialect. At first, it used a modified Arabic
alphabet. In
1930 it was replaced with a
Latin-based alphabet, which was in turn replaced with an adapted
Cyrillic alphabet in winter of
1938.
Cyrillic alphabet used by Bashkir is the same as the
Russian alphabet, with the addition of the following letters:
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
*
Swadesh list of Bashkir words*
Swadesh list in Bashkir*
"Bashinform" news agency*
"Bashkortostan" newspaper*
Site on the 450th anniversary of Bashkortostan's joining Russia*
Ufa city administration's site*
"Ural batyr" epos*
Bashkir folk songs' texts
