Karachay-Balkar | |
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Къарачай-Малкъар тил Таулу тил |
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Native to | Russia |
Region | Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay–Cherkessia, Afyonkarahisar Province |
Ethnicity | Karachays, Balkars |
Native speakers
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310,000 (2010 census) |
Turkic
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Dialects |
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Cyrillic, Latin |
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Official status | |
Official language in
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-2 |
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ISO 639-3 |
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Glottolog | kara1465 |
The Karachay-Balkar language (Къарачай-Малкъар тил, Qaraçay-Malqar til or Таулу тил, Tawlu til) is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachays and Balkars. It is divided into two dialects: Karachay-Baksan-Chegem, which pronounces two phonemes as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, and Balkar, which pronounces the corresponding phonemes as /ts/ and /z/. The modern Karachay-Balkar written language is based on the Karachay-Baksan-Chegem dialect. The language is closely related to Kumyk.
Modern Karachay-Balkar Cyrillic alphabet:
Karachay-Balkar Latin alphabet:
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Karachay-Balkar:
Loanwords from Ossetian, Kabardian, Arabic, and Persian are fairly numerous.