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Bashkir language Башҡорт теле Bašqort tele
Spoken in:	Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan
Total speakers:	more than 1,400,000
Language family:	Altaic  Turkic   Kypchak    Kypchak-Bolgar     Bashkir language
Official status
Official language of:	Bashkortostan
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	ba
ISO 639-2:	bak
ISO 639-3:	bak
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

The Bashkir language is a Turkic language.

Contents 1 Speakers 2 Alphabet and dialects 3 See also 4 External links (in Bashkir)

The 2002 population census showed over 1,379,000 native speakers of the Bashkir language living in the Russia.

Speakers of the Bashkir language mostly live in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, as well as in neighboring Tatarstan and Udmurtia. Substantial number of the speakers also live in Perm Krai and in Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Sverdlovsk, and Kurgan Oblasts. Large Bashkir minority groups also live in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

Even though Bashkirs originally were Ugric or Finnic tribes, they initially adopted the Bolgar language. After the Mongol invasion, the Kypchak language became more common due to the fact that it was the language spoken by the majority of the Golden Horde tribes.

The modern Bashkir language, like the similar Tatar language, takes its roots from the Kypchak group of languages. Today the language has many dialects, which are very similar to Tatar. In the past, Bashkirs used Tatar as a written language. In the 15th century it was replaced with the Chagatay language (however, according to some researchers, it was replaced with the Old Tatar variant of Chagatay), which was in use until 1923. Both Tatar and Chagatay were written in Arab letters.

In 1923, a writing system was specifically created for the Bashkir language. At the same time, a Bashkir literary language was created, moving away from the "bourgeois" Tatar influences. At first, it used a modified Arabic alphabet. In 1930 it was replaced with a Latin-based alphabet, which was in turn replaced with an adapted Cyrillic alphabet in winter of 1938.

Cyrillic alphabet used by Bashkir is the same as the Russian alphabet, with the addition of the following letters: Ә ә [æ], Ө ө [œ], Ү ү [y], Ғ ғ [ɣ], Ҡ ҡ [q], Ң ң [ŋ], Ҙ ҙ [ð], Ҫ ҫ [θ], Һ һ [h].

• Swadesh list of Bashkir words

• Swadesh list in Bashkir
• "Bashinform" news agency
• "Bashkortostan" newspaper
• Site on the 450th anniversary of Bashkortostan's joining Russia
• Ufa city administration's site
• "Ural batyr" epos
• Bashkir folk songs' texts

Altaic languages
Turkic languages • Mongolic languages • Tungusic languages • Buyeo languages* Notes: *A hypothetic language family that includes Korean and the Japonic languages.

v • d • e Turkic languages
Bolgar	Bolgar† | Chuvash | Hunnic† | Khazar†
Uyghur	Old Turkic† | Aini²| Chagatay† | Ili Turki | Lop | Uyghur | Uzbek
Kypchak	Baraba | Bashkir | Crimean Tatar¹ | Cuman† | Karachay-Balkar | Karaim | Karakalpak | Kazakh | Kipchak† | Krymchak | Kumyk | Nogay | Tatar | Urum¹|Altay | Kyrgyz
Oghuz	Afshar | Azerbaijani | Crimean Tatar¹ | Gagauz | Khorasani Turkish | Ottoman Turkish† | Pecheneg† | Qashqai | Salar | Turkish | Turkmen | Urum¹
Khalaj	Khalaj
Northeastern	Chulym | Dolgan | Fuyü Gïrgïs | Khakas | Northern Altay | Shor | Tofa | Tuvan | Western Yugur | Sakha / Yakut
Notes: ¹Listed in more than one group, ²Mixed language, †Extinct