An online plaform for Crimean Tatar, a seriously endangered language Thread poster: Caryl Swift
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Caryl Swift 
Poland
Local time: 08:38
Polish to English
+ ...
I just came across the following on Twitter and thought I'd post it here in case it reaches anyone who could help:
"Ukraine is creating a National corpus of the #CrimeanTatar language – an online platform that will serve as an open database of educational, scientific and other materials in the CT. UNESCO categorizes Crimean Tatar as ... See more I just came across the following on Twitter and thought I'd post it here in case it reaches anyone who could help:
"Ukraine is creating a National corpus of the #CrimeanTatar language – an online platform that will serve as an open database of educational, scientific and other materials in the CT. UNESCO categorizes Crimean Tatar as "severely endangered". 1/2
(https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1583895750844755968)
"On Feb. 23 – just a day before Russia's full-scale invasion – Ukraine's parliament adopted a Strategy for the development of Crimean Tatar language for 10 years, 2022-2032. The National corpus is a part of this strategy." 2/2
(https://twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1583895752048508930)
I don't know if this is the best forum to post it on. If it isn't, dear moderator(s), I apologise for the mistake... and please could you move it as appropriate?
Updated at 17.57 to amend the title
[Edited at 2022-10-23 15:57 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Post removed: This post was hidden by a moderator or staff member because it was not in line with site rule | Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 09:38
English to Russian
| Why not in 1991? | Oct 23, 2022 |
Wilsonn Perez Reyes wrote:
A long-term ban on the study of the Crimean Tatar language following the deportation of the Crimean Tatars by the Soviet government...
Caryl Swift wrote:
On Feb. 23, 2022 Ukraine's parliament adopted a Strategy for the development of Crimean Tatar language
If the Crimean Tatar language was so badly damaged by the Soviet government that ceased to exist in 1991, then why didn't the Ukrainian parliament adopt the strategy in 1991 when Ukraine became free from Soviet chains? Hardly Proz is the best forum to post such manipulative messages.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 08:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| There is nothing sinister | Oct 24, 2022 |
Stepan Konev wrote:
If the Crimean Tatar language was so badly damaged by the Soviet government that ceased to exist in 1991, then why didn't the Ukrainian parliament adopt the strategy in 1991...
There is nothing sinister about any government not doing much about minority language rights. It happens all over the world. Protecting or studying endangered languages simply isn't a priority for most governments, until it either becomes politically correct to do so or until those who campaigned for it finally get their pleas heard by the right ears. It is also not surprising that advances in technology now make the study of such languages much cheaper than it might have been in 1991.
According to the 2001 census, more than 10% of Crimeans spoke Crimean Tatar as a native language, so that's not what I could call "endangered", but I don't know what definition Unesco uses. I also don't know what happened to Crimean Tatar in the years following 2001, though I get the impression that promoting minority languages was either not high on the agenda of the Ukraine government of the time, or it wasn't very successful.
The priority of the Ukraine government following 1991 was ukrainification, which was a success in the west of the country, but which had less promising results in the east, which might be a reason for the policy of derussification in the east during the 2010s.
Also, there is a difference between an academic study of a dying language and its political power.
[Edited at 2022-10-24 08:20 GMT]
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Stepan Konev
Russian Federation
Local time: 09:38
English to Russian
| Technologies | Oct 24, 2022 |
Samuel Murray wrote:
advances in technology now make the study of such languages much cheaper than it might have been in 1991 Ah, they waited for 30+ years in hope that technologies become cheaper one day? This is exactly what sounds dubious to me. Why not wait 30 more years for technologies to make it even cheaper than now?
Samuel Murray wrote:
... until it either becomes politically correct to do so or until those who campaigned for it finally get their pleas heard by the right ears. Bingo. That is why.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 08:38
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
| Or social, or political | Oct 24, 2022 |
Stepan Konev wrote: Samuel Murray wrote:
Protecting or studying endangered languages simply isn't a priority for most governments, until it either becomes politically correct to do so or until those who campaigned for it finally get their pleas heard by the right ears. Bingo. That is why.
Or, there could be political reasons. This is why it's important to view reports such as these within its current and historical context.
The online portal is a project of the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, which "manages" the annexed territories. Maybe the ministry thought it a good idea to spare some attention to Crimean Tatar since Crimean Tatar was itself declared an official language of the pseudo-Republic of Crimea after its annexation.
The portal may also have something to do with the attempt to get Crimean Tatar to use a Latin script instead of Cyrillic. Russia requires residents of occupied territories to use Cyrillic script for all languages, but academics of Crimean Tatar have been lobbying for their language to switch to Latin (similar to that of some other Tatar languages) for two decades now.
| | | | mk_lab
Ukraine
Local time: 09:38
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
| Metin Demirel
Türkiye
Local time: 09:38
Member (2018)
Italian to Turkish
+ ...
It is weird that the article offers even trivial stuff like cheburek while omitting to mention Mustafa Cemil, who committed his life for the Crimean Tatar cause.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Dzhemilev
All the politics aside, I can't say I am sympathetic to the endangered languages. Languages die when they cease to preserve their practical use. It is the individuals from the said culture, who are supposed to protect it, not UNESCO or a government.
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mk_lab
Ukraine
Local time: 09:38
Member (2004)
English to Russian
+ ...
| So, what's about the language? | Oct 27, 2022 |
Metin Demirel wrote:
All the politics aside, I can't say I am sympathetic to the endangered languages. Languages die when they cease to preserve their practical use
Crimean Tatar language and culture is now restored its practical use and importance. It wouldn't be destroyed again by imperial politics and ambitions of some states.
https://ukraine.ua/stories/modern-culture-of-the-crimean-tatars/
And Mustafa Dzhemilev (for well-known reasons forced to leave his homeland once again) is very important leader and moderator of this trend.
[Edited at 2022-10-27 09:22 GMT]
| | | | Metin Demirel
Türkiye
Local time: 09:38
Member (2018)
Italian to Turkish
+ ...
| What about it? | Oct 27, 2022 |
mk_lab wrote: Metin Demirel wrote:
All the politics aside, I can't say I am sympathetic to the endangered languages. Languages die when they cease to preserve their practical use Crimean Tatar language and culture is now restored its practical use and importance. It wouldn't be destroyed again by imperial politics and ambitions of some states. https://ukraine.ua/stories/modern-culture-of-the-crimean-tatars/ And Mustafa Dzhemilev (for well-known reasons forced to leave his homeland once again) is very important leader and moderator of this trend. [Edited at 2022-10-27 09:22 GMT]
I did not understand the question. But I'd like to answer based on what I thought you meant.
I hope that all the languages could continue to exist. But I know from first-hand experience how they're losing speakers. My grandmother did not speak a word of Turkish in spite of the fact that almost the entire village she lived in was bilingual including my father (Kurdish & Turkish). My father grew up bilingual but moved to Istanbul as a child where he had less exposure to his native Kurdish. Never being exposed to Kurdish, I grew up in Istanbul as a monolingual child just like my monolingual mother. Chances were scarce to have any interaction in Kurdish with people during my rare visits to my father's village as almost everyone else there also spoke Turkish together with their native Kurdish. So the Kurdish language did not have practical use neither for them, nor for me. It is something they are maintaining as a habit but not to a satisfying degree. Years later, I attempted to learn Kurdish. But I came to realize that they were speaking a distant dialect (I am not sure if it can be classified as a dialect) that's far from the standard Kurdish (Kurmanji), in which I had no real interest. I presume most of the speakers of what my grandmother spoke fail to communicate in the seemingly same language. So this language lost speakers in just two generations.
Turkey hosts a sizable Crimean Tatar community, but they failed to preserve their language here too due to the extreme similarity between the Crimean Tatar and Turkish languages (the former can easily be classified as a dialect). I don't know the exact situation in Ukraine, but my wife is a speaker of both Ukrainian and Russian like you and what I understand is many Ukrainians fail to distinguish which language to employ in their everyday interactions. If Russian did not have any practical use for them, they wouldn't struggle to establish their language as the standard.
There are millions of Turks in Germany since 1960's. Now the third and fourth generations do not speak Turkish well. Some of them don't speak Turkish at all. There are millions of people of German, Italian and Irish origins in the US, and a huge percentage of them do not speak those languages at all. Ancient Greek (I don't know which period) eliminated all the Anatolian languages. Latin and German eliminated the Celtic languages in Europe. Thousands of languages died throughout history and speakers of them did not choose to give up on them overnight. Insisting to preserve them is like fighting the course of time. They should be recorded and be made accessible to researchers and speakers. But I do not see real value in making them un-endangered. Of course, the Crimean Tatar is not an endangered language. I only tried to provide insight to how some languages become endangered.
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