Crimean Tatar People - Subethnic Groups

Subethnic Groups

The Crimean Tatars are subdivided into three sub-ethnic groups:

• the Tats (not to be confused with Tat people, living in the Caucasus region) who used to inhabit the mountainous Crimea before 1944 (about 55%),
• the Yalıboyu who lived on the southern coast of the peninsula (about 30%),
• the Noğay (not to be confused with Nogai people, living now in Southern Russia) – former inhabitants of the Crimean steppe (about 15%).

Physically, the Tats and Yalıboyus resemble European peoples, while the Noğays tend to also resemble Central and Eastern Asian populations.

Historians suggest that the inhabitants of the mountainous parts of Crimea lying to the central and southern parts (the Tats), and those of the Southern coast of Crimea (the Yalıboyu) were the direct descendants of the Pontic Greeks, Armenians, Scythians, Ostrogoths (Crimean Goths) and Kipchaks along with the Cumans while the latest inhabitants of the northern steppe represent the descendants of the Nogai Horde of the Black Sea nominally subjects of the Crimean Khan. It is largely assumed that the Tatarization process that mostly took place in the 16th century brought a sense of cultural unity through the blending of the Greeks, Armenians, Italians and Ottoman Turks of the southern coast, Goths of the central mountains, and Kipchaks and Cumans of the steppe and forming of the Crimean Tatar ethnic group. However, the Cuman language is considered the direct ancestor of the current language of the Crimean Tatars with possible incorporations of the other languages like Crimean Gothic.

Another theory suggests Crimean Tatars trace theirs origins to the waves of ancient people Scythians, Greeks, Goths, Italians and Armenians. When the golden horde invaded Crimea in the 1230s. They then mixed with populations which had settled in Eastern Europe, including Crimea since the seventh century: Tatars, but also Mongols and other Turkic groups (Khazars, Pechenegs, Cumans, and Kipchacks), as well as the ancient.