Le lingue turciche della Crimea fra migrazioni e estinzione

Turkic languages in Crimea between migration and extinction The contribution gives a typological overview over the Turkic languages spoken in Crimea, both in the past and the present, and focuses then on the sociolinguistic background and development of the several languages. Most of the Crimean Turkic languages belong to the West Qipchaq group, namely Crimean Tatar, Krymchak, Crimean Karaim, Urum, and Armeno-Qipchaq; to these languages the so-called Crimean Ottoman or Crimean Turkish, with mainly Oghuz characteristics, as well as Crimean Nogay, belonging to the Eastern group, can be added. Some of these languages are extinct (Armeno-Qipchaq, Crimean Ottoman), others are spoken by a very small number of speakers outside of Crimea due to migration (Karaim, Krymchak, Urum), and all of these languages are considered to be severely endangered. The main Turkic language of the peninsula, Crimean Tatar, shared the troubled history of language and writing policies with the other Turkic languages of the former Soviet Union, but experienced a traumatical rupture in 1944-45 due to the Stalinist deportations to Central Asia. Today the sociolinguistic situation of Crimean Tatar, characterized by widespread bilingualism (mainly with Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and Turkish), is precarious.