Language Information
Tatar is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatar people, who live in the Tatarstan region of Russia and nearby areas. Additional Tatar speakers can be found in neighboring countries like Ukraine, Uzbekistan, China, Finland, and more. There are about 5 million speakers total, falling mainly into two dialects: a central (Kazan) dialect used mainly in Tatarstan and western (Mishar) dialect used in Finland and other regions.
Tatar is one of the two official languages in the Republic of Tatarstan (within Russia), the other being Russian. Tatar is written using a modified Cyrillic script, with additional characters.
In recent decades, the number of Tatar speakers has declined notably and the language is no longer mandatory in many schools in Tatarstan, leading to Tatar's current classification as a vulnerable language.
Tatar is not currently offered at Indiana University, but has been occasionally offered in the past during the summer as part of the Language Workshop.