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Karaim
Sign in to saveAlso known as Karaim language, Lashon Kedar
Turkic language spoken by the Crimean Karaites
Key facts
- Native to
- Crimea , Lithuania , Poland
- Ethnicity
- Crimean Karaites
- Native speakers
- 80 (2014)
- Language family
- Turkic Common Turkic Kipchak Kypchak–Cuman Karaim
- Writing system
- Cyrillic script , Latin script , Hebrew alphabet
- Recognised minority language in
- Poland , Ukraine , Russia
- Iso 639 3
- kdr
- Glottolog
- kara1464
- Elp
- Karaim
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
Show 2 more facts
- number of speakers, writers, or signers
- 80
Sources (7)
via Wikidata · CC0
~19 min read
Article
The Karaim language (Crimean dialect: къарай тили, qaray tili; Trakai dialect: karaj tili), also known by its Hebrew name Lashon Kedar (Hebrew: לשון קדר, lit. 'language of the nomads'), is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak group, with Hebrew influences, similarly to Yiddish or Judaeo-Spanish. It is presently spoken by only a few dozen Crimean Karaites (Qrimqaraylar) in Lithuania, Poland, Crimea, and Galicia in Ukraine. The three main dialects are those of Crimea, Trakai-Vilnius and Lutsk-Halych, all of which are critically endangered. The Lithuanian dialect of Karaim is spoken mainly in the town of Trakai by a small community living there since the 14th century.
There is a chance the language will survive in Trakai as a result of official support and because of its appeal to tourists coming to the Trakai Island Castle, where Crimean Karaites are presented as the castle's ancient defenders.