# Why Is Tatar Considered a Turkic Language?



## LilianaB

I have a question, why is Tatar considered a Turkic language. As far as I know Tatars came from Mongolia and are descendants of the Ghingiz Khan. Mongolian is a Mongolic language, whereas Tatar is a Turkic language. Does it have anything to do with the conversion to Islam?


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## sound shift

As I understand it, some of the Mongols mixed with Turkic-speaking peoples and adopted their speech.


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## LilianaB

Thank you. P.S. Etymology can be really fascinating if people take it as a kind of journey to discover the stories behind the words. It may also be used for less noble purposes.


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## sound shift

Yes it can, Liliana. My signature wasn't aimed at you, by the way. It was already there when I came to this thread.

"Tatars" can be a confusing word. At one time, it was applied to the Muslims of what we now call Azerbaijan, but I believe your thread is about the Volga Tatars of Russia. My comments apply to them.


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## LilianaB

Thank you. My question is about the Tatar language. Are there different Tatar languages that may even belong to different groups? I know there are dialects, probably among Tatars, but could some Tatars speak a totally different language which would still be considered a variety of Tatar? Ex. Some would speak a Turkic language, whereas others would speak a language that is Mongolic or Uralic?


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## sound shift

I'm not an expert in this, but I have only heard of the Volga Tatar language and the Crimean Tatar language. Both are Turkic.


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## LilianaB

Thank you, Sound Shift. I have to do some investigation.


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## Frank78

Lot of the territories the Mongolians conquered were inhabited by Turkic tribes but the Mongolians simply were too few to have an influence on their language. On the contrary, they merged in the Turkic people.

The Turk languages are much older (first mentioned in a Chinese source in the 6th or 7th century) than the Islam. The Golden Horde (the successor of Ghengis Khan's empire) was Islamised in the 14th century, about 150 years after Ghengis Khan. There were no Turkic people in (nowadays) Turkey who could have done the Islamisation.


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## berndf

LilianaB said:


> As far as I know Tatars came from Mongolia and are descendants of the Ghingiz Khan.


The core of Genghis Khan's army was always a mixture of Mongol and Turkic tribes. His army was never "ethnically pure".


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## LilianaB

Yes. Thank you, Berndf. He in fact united many nomadic tribes in Asia. The alphabet he adopted was also an alphabet used by a Turkic language - Uyghur.


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## francisgranada

Now, is the Tatar/Tartar/Mongolian linguistically, or let's say "genetically", related to the Turkic (Altaic) languages or not (independently on the religion, kingdoms etc.) ?


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## LilianaB

It is considered a Turkic language: we are not talking about genetics: this is related to the language only. Genghiz Khan was a Mongolian and worshiper of Tenger. ( a shamanistic religion still present in Siberia)


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## tFighterPilot

Genetically Turks are not Turkic (in the most part). Genetics and linguistics have very little connection to each other.


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## berndf

In linguistics, the adjective "genetic" is applied to languages and their ancestry, not to speakers. If you say two languages _x_ and _y_ are "genetically related" through a common ancestor _z_ then this does not imply that the speakers of _x_ and _y_ are biologically related to speakers of language _z_.


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## LilianaB

Yes, I know Berndf, thank you, but then I do not understand question 17 at all. In which other way can languages be related if not linguistically or genetically?


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## Ben Jamin

Because the language actually belongs to the Turkic family, as English belongs to the Germanic family. You can find a fine article about Tatar language in Wikipedia. The confusion of Tatars and Mongols in Central Europe dates from the time Tatars were allied with Mongols and participated in the Mongol raids against Lithuania, Ukraine and Poland.


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## ancalimon

LilianaB said:


> It is considered a Turkic language: we are not talking about genetics: this is related to the language only. Genghiz Khan was a Mongolian and worshiper of Tenger. ( a shamanistic religion still present in Siberia)



Tengri religion (it's not shamanistic, it's monotheistic in origin and a shaman is something like a communications engineer) is the religion of Turks. It became the religions of Mongolians when Mongolians came to what is today known as Mongolia (after Turks left those lands)


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## LilianaB

Tangerism involves shamanism, at least the variety that is present in Siberia. This is not the topic of this forum, however.


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## Edguoglitigin

LilianaB said:


> I have a question, why is Tatar considered a  Turkic language. As far as I know Tatars came from Mongolia and are  descendants of the Ghingiz Khan. Mongolian is a Mongolic language,  whereas Tatar is a Turkic language. Does it have anything to do with the  conversion to Islam?



According to what I have read in  Encyclopedia of Islam (I guess the author of the Tatar article was  Hazai), Tatars were divided into two groups called *Ak Tatars* (White Tatars) and *Kara Tatars* (Dark/Black Tatars) when they lived in present-day Mongolia or so (before Islamic era). *Ak Tatars*  were a group having spoken Turkic (together with Mongolic), whereas Kara Tatars did not speak  Turkic at all. So it can be concluded that Tatars were not of Turkic  origin at that time and they had already been in process of  assimilation. Tatar ethnonym is very disputable. Tatar in some documents  referred to Mongols and in others referred to Turkic-Kipchak tribes.  And in some texts Tatar encompassed the all Kipchaks (as Kazakhs,  Nogais, Kumyks, Kyrhyzs etc.) as an ethnonym.

Today, there is no any Tatar group that speak Mongolic. And their Turkic language does not have to do with Islamification.


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## LilianaB

Thank you. Very interesting.


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## Learner19

Because the nowaday Tatars are mostly descendants of the Kipchaks. That's why they speak a neo-Kipchak language, which is a Turkic one.


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