The Krymchak language (кърымчах тыльы) is a Turkic language spoken in Crimea by the Krymchak people. It is often considered to be a Crimean Tatar dialect. The language is sometimes referred to as Judeo-Crimean Tatar.
Like most Jewish languages, it contains a large number of Hebrew loanwords. Before the Soviet era it was written using Hebrew characters. In the Soviet Union in the 1930s this language was written with the Uniform Turkic Alphabet (a variant of the Latin script), like Crimean Tatar and Karaim). Now it is written in Cyrillic script.
The community was decimated during the Holocaust. When in May 1944 almost all Crimean Tatars were deported to Soviet Uzbekistan, many speakers of Krymchak were among them, and some remained in Uzbekistan. Nowadays the language is almost extinct. According to the Ukrainian census of 2001, less than 785 Krymchak people remain in Crimea, and just about a hundred people still can speak the language.
| Krymchak language | Turkish language | English Language |
| Kılıç | Kılıç | Sword |
| Arıslan | Arslan | Lion |
| Yaka | Yaka | Collar |
| Yulduz | Yıldız | Star |
| Yaş | Yaş | Age |
| Yol | Yol | Road |
| Kalkan | Kalkan | Shield |
| Yanhı | Yeni | New |
| Yel | Yel | Wind |
| Tülkü | Tilki | Fox |
| Sıçan | Sıçan | Mouse |
| İmırtha | Yumurta | Egg |
| Taş | Taş | Stone |
| Altın | Altın | Gold |
| Tengiz | Deniz | Sea |
| Kumuş | Gümüş | Silver |
| Ögüz | Öküz | Ox |
| Koy | Koyun | Sheep |
| Suv | Su | Water |
| At | At | Horse |
| Agaç | Ağaç | Tree |
| Yeşil | Yeşil | Green |
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“We might hypothetically possess ourselves of every technological resource on the North American continent, but as long as our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be “revolutionary” but not transformative.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)