Karaim written in Cyrillic and Latin (Crimean dialect), Latin (Trakai dialect), along with Hebrew and Latin (Traditional)
Native to
Crimea, Lithuania, Poland
Ethnicity
Crimean Karaites (2014)[1]
Native speakers
80 (2014)[2]
Language family
Turkic
Common Turkic
Kipchak
Kypchak–Cuman
Karaim
Writing system
Cyrillic script, Latin script, Hebrew alphabet
Official status
Recognised minority language in
Poland Ukraine[3][4] Russia[citation needed]
Language codes
ISO 639-3
kdr
Glottolog
kara1464
ELP
Karaim
The Karaim language (Crimean dialect: къарай тили, qaray tili, לשון קדר; Trakai dialect: karaj tili), also known by its Hebrew name Lashon Kedar (Hebrew: לשון קדר, “language of the nomads")[5] is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak group, with Hebrew influences, similarly to Yiddish or Judaeo-Spanish.[6] It is spoken by only a few dozen Crimean Karaites (Qrimqaraylar) in Lithuania, Poland, Crimea, and Galicia in Ukraine.[7] The three main dialects are those of Crimea, Trakai-Vilnius and Lutsk-Halych,[8] all of which are critically endangered. The Lithuanian dialect of Karaim is spoken mainly in the town of Trakai (also known as Troki) by a small community living there since the 14th century.
There is a chance the language will survive in Trakai as a result of official support and because of its appeal to tourists coming to the Trakai Island Castle, where Crimean Karaites are presented as the castle's ancient defenders.[9]
^Karaim language at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^Karaim at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^"Law of Ukraine "On Principles of State Language Policy")". Document 5029-17, Article 7: Regional or minority languages Ukraine, Paragraph 2. Verkhovna Rada. 1 February 2014. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
^"To which languages does the Charter apply?". European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Council of Europe. p. 3. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
^Schegoleva 2011.
^Wexler, Paul (1983). "Is Karaite a Jewish language?". Mediterranean Language Review. 1: 27–54. JSTOR 10.13173/medilangrevi.1.1983.0027.
^Brook, Kevin Alan (Summer 2014). "The Genetics of Crimean Karaites". Karadeniz Araştırmaları. 11 (42): 69–84. doi:10.12787/KARAM859.
The Karaimlanguage (Crimean dialect: къарай тили, qaray tili, לשון קדר; Trakai dialect: karaj tili), also known by its Hebrew name Lashon Kedar (Hebrew:...
theory of Karaim origins, noting the following: the Karaimlanguage belongs to the Kipchak language subgroup of Turkic, and the Khazar language arguably...
Eastern Europe Karaimlanguage, Turkic language of Crimean Karaites. Its Crimean dialect is an ethnolect of the Crimean Tatar language. Karate (disambiguation)...
Wilamowice, Silesian Voivodeship, but, unlike the similarly endangered Karaimlanguage, it was practically unknown during the preparation of the aforementioned...
(Judeo-Crimean Tatar) (Qrımçah tılyı) (a different language from Karaim, not confuse with Karaim) Urum (closely related to Crimean Tatar and spoken by...
Kibinai, kybyn, or kibin (plural in Karaimlanguage: kybynlar / Qıbınlar (Common Turkic Latin); singular in Lithuanian: kibinas) are traditional pastries...
Karachai-Balkar, Crimean Tatar, Karaim, and the language of Mamluk Kipchaks in the linguistic family of the Cuman-Kipchak language. Samoylovich also considered...
and some of Karaimlanguages, or even was the origin of some of them) Karaim (almost extinct, most likely a group of separate Turkic languages with Kypchak...
𐤏𐤁𐤓𐤉𐤕) is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the...
1921. In 1929, Tadeusz Jan Kowalski used the turned g and turned k in Karaimlanguage texts to represent an alveolar plosive pronounced as a velar plosive...
small community remains in Trakai, which has preserved the Turkic Karaimlanguage and distinctive customs, such as its traditional dish called "kibinai"...
Delta Rho, an American college fraternity The ISO 639-3 code for the Karaimlanguage Kinase insert domain receptor, a human protein Short distance radio...
of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Belarusian, Czech, Hebrew, Yiddish, Karaim, Kashubian, Lithuanian, Lemkian, German, Armenian...
There exist several alphabets used by Turkic languages, i.e. alphabets used to write Turkic languages: The New Turkic Alphabet (Yañalif) in use in the...
Crimean Karaites Jewish diaspora Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino Karaimlanguage Khazars Krymchak language Krymchaks (Crimea) List of synagogues in Turkey Mountain...
script), like Crimean Tatar and Karaim. Now it is written in the Cyrillic script. Over the 20th century the language has disappeared and been replaced...
or that have status as a national language, regional language, or minority language. Official language A language designated as having a unique legal...
and Gagauz is spoken in Gagauzia.[citation needed] Kipchak languages in Europe include Karaim, Crimean Tatar and Krymchak, which is spoken mainly in Crimea;...
languages that are considered "indigenous" because the speakers of them lack a kin-state, such as the Crimean Tatar language and the Karaimlanguage,...
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern...
Kipchak languages (also known as the Kypchak, Qypchaq, Qypshaq or the Northwestern Turkic languages) are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken...
historically also Yidish-Taytsh, lit. 'Judeo-German') is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century: 2 ...
The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian, a Slavic language, which is spoken regularly by 88% of Ukraine's population at home in their personal life...
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe...
Global Information
Poland
Ukraine[3][4]
Russia[citation needed]