Dobrujan Tatar alphabet

The Dobrujan Tatar alphabet (Dobrujan Tatar: Tatar elipbesĭ) is the writing system of Dobrujan Tatar. Before 1956 only Perso-Arabic script was used and after 1956, Latin alphabet was adopted.

Alphabet
In 1 June 1956, Latin alphabet for Dobrujan Tatar was accepted and it was used in University of Bucharest, the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures. The alphabet is to found in a grammatic book of Dobrujan Tatar by University of Bucharest. This alphabet was redesigned after communist period. It was designed by some writers and Prof. Doctors, including the general secretary of UDTTMR.

Literary Tatar
Tatar spoken in Romania has two distinct facets existing, interweaving and forming together the literary Tatar language "edebiy Tatarşa". One of these aspects is the authentic Tatar called "calpı Tatarşa" or "calpaq Tatarşa" and the other is the academic Tatar language called "muwallĭmatşa".


 * Academic Tatar language, means writing and pronouncing Arabic and Persian neologisms - occurring mostly in science, religion, literature, arts or politics - in their original form.


 * Authentic Tatar language, means writing and pronouncing words, including those of Arabic and Persian origin, by strictly adapting them to the own phonetic system.

Naturalization
Naturalization is shifting the spelling of academic speech sounds to authentic sounds following the patterns below, where a greater-than sign indicates that one sound changes to another. f > p v > w v > b ç > ş ç > j h > (skip over) h > y h > w ţ > s x > q

Letters
There is a total of 10 letters used to represent determinant sounds of which 9 mark authentic determinant sounds: a, e, ı, ĭ, i, o, ö, u, ü while the letter á is used for an academic vowel. The writing system registers authentic consonants with 19 letters: b, c, ç, d, g, ğ, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, p, q, r, s, ş, t, z and has five signs standing for the academic consonants: f, h, ţ, v, x. There are also two authentic semivowels: y, w. An old authentic Turkic consonant, the sound /ç/ represented by the letter ⟨Ç⟩ is rarely heard because authentic speakers of Tatar spoken in Dobruja spell it /ş/ as letter ⟨Ş⟩. As the written language most often follows the spoken language shifting ⟨Ç⟩ to ⟨Ş⟩, the result is that in Tatar spoken in Romania letter ⟨Ç⟩ and sound /ç/ are often treated as academic.

The letters "Á" and "Ţ"
The letters Á á and Ţ ţ were also found in the first version of the Dobrujan Tatar alphabet (1957-1977), however nowadays they are not recognised, but they are important part of Dobrujan Tatar literature and grammar.

The letter "X"
The "X x" is a unknown letter and just "H h" is used instead, but the letter plays a important role. The letter was proposed by Behiç Bortemir. The Arabic letters ھ and ح are presented by "H h" and the letter "خ" by "X x". For example the Persian word شاه (shāh) is written as "şah", or the Arabic word خط (khāt) is written as "xat".

Old version
This version was used in Tatar language section of University of Bucharest the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, between 1957-1977. Some writers, like Taner Murat, did also use this orthography.


 * Some writers, including Taner Murat, did outclude the letter Ţ ţ.

Arabic script
Arabic script for Turkic languages is used since the 10th century by Kara Khanids. Dobrujan Tatar uses a variant of Chagatai alphabet. Nowadays, the writer Taner Murat, along with some others, revived the Arabic script, he did use it in some translations and did also make transliterations to Arabic script. He did marked the vowels all the time by Arabic diacritics, like Xiao'erjing. The journal "Nazar Look", which was founded by Taner Murat, did also have a logo with Arabic script.

Additional letters
The letters in this list appear in Arabic or Persian loan words, but they can be replaced by other letters.

Vowels
Vowels as a first letter of the word Vowels in middle and end of the word Long vowels

Tanwin

 * Sometimes is Tanwin mute, when it replaces Sukun, mostly end of the sentence, headline, or single word.

Cyrillic script
There is a Cyrillic alphabet designed for Dobrujan Tatar by Taner Murat, including the letters Ә ә, Җ җ, Ң ң, Ө ө, Ү ү, Ў ў, І і. There are one or two books in Cyrillic script, it appears also in some translated books with transliteration.

Old Turkic script
Dobrujan Tatar has a version of Old Turkic script, the Old Turkic script was used in one book, but it appears also in some translated books with transliteration.