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====== Tatar in Russia ======

==== Language designations: ====
  * In the language itself: татар теле
  * [[general_information:glossary_of_terms#ISO 639-3|ISO 639-3]] language code: tat
  * [[http://glottolog.org/|Glottocode]]: [[http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/tata1255|tata1255]]

==== Language vitality: ====
^ [[https://en.wal.unesco.org/languages/tatar|UNESCO]] ^ [[https://www.ethnologue.com/language/tat/|Ethnologue]] ^ [[http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/|Endangered Languages]] ^ [[https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/tata1255|Glottolog]] ^
|  {{:endangerment:blue.png?nolink|potentially vulnerable}}  |  {{:endangerment:green.png?nolink|Institutional}}  |  n/a  |   {{:endangerment:green.png?|not endangered}}  |


==== Linguistic aspects: =====
  * Linguistic classification: //Turkic → Common Turkic → Kipchak → North Kipchak → Tatar//
  * Script: Cyrillic. \\
A dispute exists between the Russian federal government and the republic of Tatarstan: the republic wishes to revert to the Latin (Latinista) script, but the Russian government disagrees((Ó Riagáin, Dónall, ed., Voces Diversae: Lesser-Used Language Education in Europe, Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, 15 (Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2006))((Faller, H.M. (2011). Creating Soviet People: The Meanings of Alphabets. In //Nation, Language, Islam:Tatarstan's Sovereignty Movement//. Central European University Press.)). In 1999, Tatarstan adopted a Latin script, but this was outlawed by the Russian Duma in 2002, which stated all languages in Russia should be written in the Cyrillic script. In 2004, an appeal from Tatarstan was brought to the Russian Constitutional Court, which ruled against Tatarstan, stating the use of a different script was a "refusal" to the Russian constitution and a restriction to the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens ((Jaffe, A., Androutsopoulos, J., Sebba, M., and Johnson, S. (2012). Reclamation, Revalorization, and re-Tatarization via changing Tatar orthographies. In //Orthography as Social Action: Scripts, Spelling, Identity and Power// (pp 65-102). Walter de Gruyter.)) Nonetheless, some books are published with private funds in Latin script, though publishers may risk prosecution for this.((Faller, H.M. (2011). Creating Soviet People: The Meanings of Alphabets. In //Nation, Language, Islam:Tatarstan's Sovereignty Movement//. Central European University Press.)).

==== Language standardization: ====

===== Demographics =====

==== Language Area ====
Tatarstan is a republic of the Russian Federation.

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==== Speaker numbers ====
=== Russian Census of 2010, population in Tatarstan according to ethnicity: ===
^ ^Population ^
|Tatars | 2,012,571 |
|Total population | 3,786,488 |

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====== Education of the language ======
===== History of language education: =====
Historically, Tatars had a fairly strong education linked to religious institutions; in 1926, literacy rates among Tatars were about 48.2% in comparison to other Turkic groups living in the USSR – Azerbaijan SSR – 25.2%, Uzbek SSR – 10.6% ((Grenoble, Lenore A, Language Policy in the Soviet Union (Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003))). 

In 1926, USSR policy forced the Tatars to change from  Arabic script, in use since 920 AD, to Latin script. The late 1930s saw a gradual shift toward Russification of the nation (a process of forced or voluntary assimilation into the Russian culture), including another script change to Cyrillic. This Russification, and state control over publications in Tatar, led to a reduction of programs/schools with Tatar-medium of instruction from 96% in 1930–1931 to 7% in the 1980s. Tatar language gradually fell into the group of minority languages definitely endangered.((Gilmetdinova, Alsu, ‘Principals as Gatekeepers of Language Policy Implementation in Kazan, Russia’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2016, 1–18 <https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1231772>))

A major shift occurred after the fall of the USSR: Tatarstan adopted a law on the State Languages of the Tatarstan Republic in 1992, and ratified the official status of Tatar on a par with the Russian language in the new Tatarstan Constitution. These policy changes brought about the growth of Tatar-medium schools, and introduced a compulsory Tatar language class for all students of grades 1–11 in Tatarstan.((Gilmetdinova, Alsu, ‘Principals as Gatekeepers of Language Policy Implementation in Kazan, Russia’, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2016, 1–18 <https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1231772>)) 

Despite some positive changes, the ‘trend towards a decrease in Tatar language knowledge and use among ethnic Tatars’ remained ((Gorenburg, Dmitry P, Minority Ethnic Mobilization in the Russian Federation (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=529317> [accessed 17 March 2017]
)). Several recent measures have not helped, such as federal educational policies, especially starting from 2001 onwards((Shnirelman 2006 Shnirelman, V. 2006. Rossiyskaya shkola y natsionalnaya ideya. Interlos “Neprikosnovenniy zapas”, 6. Accessed September 12, 2013.
http://www.intelros.ru/index.php?newsid=293.)), and implementation of the Unified State Examination (USE) or ‘Yediniy Gosudarstvenniy Ekzamen’ administered only in the Russian language, elimination of the ‘national-regional’ component in the school curriculum for teaching history and languages of ethnic minorities in Russia((Zamyatin 2012 Zamyatin, K. 2012. “From Language Revival to Language Removal? The Teaching of Titular Languages in the National Republics of Post-Soviet Russia.” Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe 11 (2): 75–102.)).
==== Concerning the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages ====

The Russian Federation has signed (2001), but not ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, see: [[general_information:russian_legislation|Russia and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages]].

==== Federal legislation ====

Read more about [[general_information:russian_legislation|Russian federal legislation concerning minority languages]].
==== Legislation of the Republic of Tatarstan: ====
Tatarstan's Law No 1560-XII, "On the State Languages of the Republic of Tatarstan and Other Languages in the Republic of Tatarstan" (1992) ratifies the official status of Tatar on par with the Russian language in the new Tatarstan Constitution. 
It states that:
  * there should be a compulsory Tatar language class for all students of grades 1-11 in Tatarstan.
  * there should be an equal number of Russian and Tatar language classes.

The Federal Education law (2007) states that:
  * the Unified State Exam (USE), a series of tests that students must take, in order to be allowed into university, should be administered in Russian.

In 2007 Moscow and Tatarstan signed a power-sharing treaty, allowing Tatarstan to make decisions jointly with Moscow on the region's economic, cultural, and other policies. However, this treaty expired July 24, 2017. At the end of 2017, there were two announcements that Tatar education would be reduced, though both stated different measurements. The President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that the Tatar language classes would remain mandatory, but reduced from six to two hours weekly, but  the Prosecutor-General of Tatarstan, Ildus Nafikov, stated that Tatar would be taught for two hours a week on voluntary basis with written parental consent((Bowring, B. (2018). //Minority Language Rights in the Russian Federation: The End of a Long Tradition?// Palgrave. Retrieved from [[https://www.researchgate.net/publication /325625922_Minority_Language_Rights_in_the_Russian_Federation_The_End_of_a_Long_Tradition]].)).  The latter was to be true and Tatar is to be taught as a voluntary, two hour class. In July 2019, a school director in Kazan, Pavel Shmakov , has  has filed a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to challenge this restriction on Tatar language education (in 2018 Shmakov was fined for teaching Tatar as a mandatory subject at the school)
((Bashkir, T. (2019, July 15). //Kazan Principal Turns To European Court In Fight For Tatar Language//. Radio Free Europe: Radio Liberty. Retrieved from [[https://www.rferl.org/a/kazan-school-director-turns-to-echr-in-fight-for-tatar-language/30056853.html]].)).

===== Inspection of compliance with educational legislation: =====

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====== Education in practice ======
^% of children learning Tatar ^1994 ^2006 ^
|Children in tatarstan | 12% | 51% |
|In pre-school education | 10.6% | 65%|
|In secondary education | | 100% |

source((Ó Riagáin, Dónall, ed., Voces Diversae: Lesser-Used Language Education in Europe, Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics, 15 (Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 2006))






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====== Learning resources and educational institutions ======

  * [[https://www.omniglot.com/writing/tatar.htm|Omniglot]] with numbers, phrases and references to Tatar learning sources in Russian.