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:
“...I ... believe that words can help us move or keep us paralyzed, and that our choices of language and verbal tone have something—a great deal—to do with how we live our lives and whom we end up speaking with and hearing; and that we can deflect words, by trivialization, of course, but also by ritualized respect, or we can let them enter our souls and mix with the juices of our minds.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)