Bashkir

Where it’s spoken

Bashkir (Башҡорт теле, Başqort tele) is the official language of the Republic of Bashkortostan in the Russian Federation, alongside Russian. About 1.2 million people speak it. Major Bashkir-speaking communities exist in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk oblasts, and Kazakhstan. Like other Turkic minority languages of Russia, Bashkir is under significant pressure from Russian.

What it sounds like

Bashkir, like Tatar, has vowel harmony and a complex vowel system with nine vowels. Its phonology distinguishes interdental fricatives ҙ and ҫ (analogous to English voiced and voiceless th sounds) — a notable feature shared with Turkmen but not with most other Turkic languages. Stress generally falls on the final syllable.

How it’s written

Bashkir has used Arabic script (until 1928), Latin (1928–1939), and Cyrillic (since 1939). The current Cyrillic alphabet has 42 letters, with several letters added to the standard Russian set to capture Bashkir-specific sounds (Ҙ, Ҫ, Ҡ, Ғ, Ң, Ө, Ү, Һ).

History

The Bashkirs were nomadic pastoralists of the southern Urals before incorporation into the Russian Empire. The Soviet period brought literacy alongside attempts at cultural assimilation. The 1992 Bashkir Republic constitution declared Bashkir co-official.