Editing Tatars (section)

==Languages==
{{further|Kipchak languages|Tatar language|Crimean Tatar language}}
[[File:Map-Kypchak Language World.png|thumb|Contemporary distribution of [[Kipchak languages]]:{{legend|#FF0000|Kipchak–Volga-Ural}}{{legend|#00B927|Kipchak–Cuman}}{{legend|#FF8400|Kipchak–Nogay and Kyrgyz–Kipchak}}]]

Eleventh-century [[Kara-Khanid Khanate|Kara-khanid]] scholar [[Mahmud al-Kashgari]] noted that the historical Tatars were bilingual, speaking other Turkic languages besides their own.<ref>Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated by [[Robert Dankoff]] in collaboration with James Kelly. In ''Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature''. Part I. (1982). pp. 82–83</ref>

The modern [[Tatar language]], together with the [[Bashkir language]], forms the Kypchak-Volga-Ural group within the [[Kipchak languages]] (also known as Northwestern Turkic).

There are two Tatar dialects—Central and Western.<ref>[[Gabdulkhay Akhatov|Akhatov G.]] "Tatar dialectology". Kazan, 1984. (Tatar language)</ref> The [[Mishar Tatar dialect|Western dialect (Misher)]] is spoken mostly by [[Mishar Tatars|Mishärs]], the Central dialect is spoken by Kazan and [[Astrakhan Tatars]]. Both dialects have subdialects. Central Tatar furnishes the base of literary Tatar.

The [[Siberian Tatar language]] is independent of Volga–Ural Tatar. The dialects are quite remote from Standard Tatar and from each other, often preventing [[Mutual intelligibility|mutual comprehension]]. The claim that Siberian Tatar is part of the modern Tatar language is typically supported by linguists in Kazan and denounced by Siberian Tatars.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}

[[Crimean Tatar language|Crimean Tatar]]{{efn|also rarely called ''Crimean language'' or even more rarely ''Crimean Turkic''}} is the indigenous language of the [[Crimean Tatars|Crimean Tatar people]]. Because of its common name, Crimean ''Tatar'' is sometimes mistakenly seen in Russia as a dialect of [[Tatar language|Kazan Tatar]]. Although these languages are related (as both are Turkic), the Kypchak languages closest to Crimean Tatar are (as mentioned above) [[Kumyk language|Kumyk]] and [[Karachay-Balkar language|Karachay-Balkar]], not Kazan Tatar. Still, there exists an opinion ([[Edkhyam Tenishev|E. R. Tenishev]]), according to which the Kazan Tatar language is included in the same Kipchak-Cuman group as Crimean Tatar.<ref>Сравнительно-историческая грамматика тюркских языков. Региональные реконструкции/Отв. ред. Э.Р. Тенишев. – М. Наука. 2002. – 767 с. стр. 732, 736–737</ref>