Crimean Tatar language
The Krymchaks speak a modified form of the Crimean Tatar language, called the Krymchak language. It is the Jewish patois, or ethnolect of Crimean Tatar, which is a Kypchak Turkic language. Krymchak is not a distinct language, but only one constituent of Crimean Tatar. Before the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Krymchaks were at least bilingual: they spoke the Krymchak ethnolect and at the same time mostly used Hebrew for their religious life and for written communication. The Krymchaks adhered to their Turkic patois up to World War II, but later began to lose their linguistic identity. Now they are making efforts to revive their language. Many of the linguistic characteristics of the Krymchak language could be found in the Crimean Tatar language. In addition, it contains numerous Hebrew and Aramaic loan-words and was traditionally written in Hebrew characters (now it is written in Cyrillic script).