page_title: Tatar language
section_title: Writing system
hierarchical_section_title: Tatar language / Writing system
caption_attribution_description: English: The first Tatar Latin alphabet (Janalif) compared with the early Tatar Arabic alphabet, from the magazine "Yanalif", 1928, No.8Русский: Таблица с первым татарским латинским алфавитом (Яналифом) в сравнении с ранним татарским арабским алфавитом. Страница из журнала «Яналиф», 1928, №8
context_page_description: The Tatar language is a Turkic language spoken by Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan, as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with the Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar which are closely related but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages.
context_section_description: During its history, Tatar has been written in Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic scripts.
  Before 1928, Tatar was mostly written with in Arabic script (Иске имля/İske imlâ, "Old orthography", to 1920; Яңа имла/Yaña imlâ, "New orthography", 1920–1928).
  During the 19th century Russian Christian missionary Nikolay Ilminsky devised the first Cyrillic alphabet for Tatar. This alphabet is still used by Christian Tatars (Kryashens).
  In the Soviet Union after 1928, Tatar was written with a Latin alphabet called Jaᶇalif.
  In 1939, in Tatarstan and all other parts of the Soviet Union, a Cyrillic script was adopted and is still used to write Tatar. It is also used in Kazakhstan.
  The Republic of Tatarstan passed a law in 1999 that came into force in 2001 establishing an official Tatar Latin alphabet. A Russian federal law overrode it in 2002, making Cyrillic the sole official script in Tatarstan since. In 2004, an attempt to introduce a Latin-based alphabet for Tatar was further abandoned when the Constitutional Court ruled that the federal law of 15 November 2002 mandating the use of Cyrillic for the state languages of the republics of the Russian Federation does not contradict the Russian constitution. In accordance with this Constitutional Court ruling, on 28 December 2004, the Tatar Supreme Court overturned the Tatarstani law that made the Latin alphabet official.
  In 2012 the Tatarstan government adopted a new Latin alphabet but with the limited usage (mostly for Romanization).
  Tatar Perso-Arabic alphabet (before 1928):
  Tatar Old Latin (Jaᶇalif) alphabet (1928 to 1940), including a digraph in the last position:
  Tatar Old Cyrillic alphabet (by Nikolay Ilminsky, 1861; the letters in parenthesis are not used in modern publications):
  Tatar Cyrillic alphabet (1939; the letter order adopted in 1997):
  1999 Tatar Latin alphabet, made official by a law adopted by Tatarstani authorities but annulled by the Tatar Supreme Court in 2004:
  2012 Tatar Latin alphabet
caption: Tatar Latin (Jaᶇalif) and Arabic scripts, 1927
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