İQTElif: Latin Alphabet Variant for Idil-Ural Tatar

There would probably be no need to name an alphabet or orthography, if there weren't multiple variants involved. In the presence of multiple Latin alphabet variants for Qazan Tatar, İQTElif represents the following alphabet^[1]:

This alphabet is based on the following general guidelines:

1. Latin alphabet should use conventional characters to the utmost extent possible;
2. It should correctly represent phonetic peculiarities of the language, possibly being subject to pragmatic considerations only;
3. Latin-based Tatar alphabet should maximally reflect the closeness to other major Turkic languages, which the language naturally has.

İQTElif envisions preservation of letters Ee in Western loan words, because they represent an entirely different vowel in comparison to İdíl-Ural Tatar vowel Íí (which since last century's 2 alphabet reforms, admittedly for mostly political reasons, was represented by letters Ee). For instance: modemneríbízníñ (English: of our modems).

The vowels represented in İQTElif as Ee and Íí are the most frequently used vowels in Tatar, and thus which letters are used to represent them is a matter of utmost importance.

This alphabet is consistent with Crimean Tatar Latin alphabet in terms of orthography (the only differences are the use of Vv instead of Ww, Hh instead of Xx, and İi instead of Íí in Crimean Tatar, given that letters Ww, Xx, and Íí are not used in the official Crimean Tatar alphabet). Thus, it reflects the natural closeness of languages, and their shared heritage.

İsmail Gaspıralı's famous phrase, as an example:

This is illustrative of similar orthographic consistency, though to a variable degree, with other major Turkic languages.

There are several letters in this alphabet that are different from those that were to be made official by Tatarstani authorities:

This reflects the premise of using conventional characters.

The following table attempts to represent the back-to-front phonetic continuum for Qazan Tatar vowels, being more strict in terms of letter choice. Although Qazan Tatar front vowel pair of vowel Aa is somewhat less open than Finnish Ä ä, it is nonetheless closer to Ä ä, than to E e, based on usage in most other languages.

As we can see, there is no vowel in Qazan Tatar corresponding to a vowel represented in Western languages by Ee. Such vowels are usually somewhat more narrow/closed, and more front in comparison to Ä ä shown above.

However, letter Ää shown in the table above is redesignated as Ee in İQTElif due to the following reasons:

• Letter Ää, just as in case of Azerbaijani and Turkish, would have led to overcrowded writing and difficulties in perception of the written material. The following example is quite representative of the frequent usage of this vowel in Tatar language: “mädäniyätíbízgä hälâkät kilä”. Azerbaijani language preferred to deal with this problem by adopting letter Əə instead of phonetically correct Ää. However, letter Əə is absolutely not conventional, namely it is not used in other Latin alphabets. Consequently, just as letters Ŋŋ and Ɵɵ, it is an impediment for language's use on the web (although less so today), and especially in handheld devices. In addition, it will prevent correct representation of Tatar words and names in international sources. There is no advantage that letter Əə would ensure. At the same time, there is another letter, Ee, that has the following advantages:
• Being phonetically strict, Qazan Tatar language, as well as Bashqurt, but as opposed to Uzbek, does not have a vowel that could be designated by letter Ee. So, it is logical to use letter Ee to designate vowel Ää since a Latin alphabet naturally has letter Ee, it is conventional on keyboards and easier to write. At the same time, the vowel closest to vowel Ää in the phonetic continuum is commonly represented by Ee. Also, there are several languages that use the same letter to designate these 2 vowels.
• Using letter Ee instead of Ää, as well as letter Íí, ensures naturally available consistency with all other major Turkic languages. Thus, pair of letters Ee and Íí might help to some extent widen the sphere of usage of the language from present 2 mln. speakers to about 150 mln.
• Slight misrepresentation of vowel Ää as Ee is much less misrepresentative than that of vowel Íí with letter Ee, which is taking place now in Cyrillic, and by inheritance is frequently encountered in Latin transliterations. The latter is worth of F (or, in base-5 Soviet system, 2) in a college course. On the phonetic cube, vowels represented by Ee in other languages are actually in a different area of the cube (on the wide/open-to-narrow/close edge of the continuum). These more open vowels represented by Ee pair up with Ää, and definitely not with Íí. On the other hand, vowel Ää has been represented with letter Ee in Turkish for over 75 years and there is no criticism in this respect. In fact, Turkish is the most thriving of Turkic languages.

Thus the final phonetic continuum cube reflected by İQTElif is as follows:

The Tatar Vowels Cube is based on Deny'nin Kübü^[3], i.e. Deny's Cube: a similar cube for Turkish language used by a famous European Turkologist, Jean Deny. Vowel represented by Ee is presented in Deny's Cube at the intersection of the front and wide (open) edges (and é is also shown on the front edge itself), but is shown in Tatar Vowels Cube somewhat lower based on the IPA. The vowel represented by é is found in Old and Middle Turkish (Turkic), and is still encountered in the first syllable of some words in some Anatolian dialects, although it is not a part of the Turkish alphabet.^[3] In Tatar this vowel is only used in Western loanwords.

Here the formal advantage of letter Ää has been discarded in favor of multiple practical advantages of letter Ee. Thus, letter Ee represents the vowel denoted in IPA as æ. In this cube, letter é is given as a reference to show the position of the vowel frequently encountered in Western loan words. Éé is not a part of İQTElif, although it would not violate any of İQTElif’s premises to incorporate it as part of the alphabet. The main reason why a letter like é is not a part of the alphabet is because it would be entirely specific to loan words. Thus, in a way it would be foreign to İdíl-Ural Tatar.

Letter Ee in Western terms used in Tatar is supposed to be preserved in Latin alphabet. Examples: İnternet, sistem, element etc. Pronunciation may be adjusted to Tatar vowel Ää, or, alternatively, stay the same.

The alternative of pronouncing Ee in loan words differently is acceptable, because this is already the case for Oo encountered in loan words, which is pronounced much wider (more open), than İdíl-Ural Tatar Oo. For instance, Oo in Western loan word “ozon” is pronounced very differently from Oo in İdíl-Ural Tatar word "on”.

While it might be tempting to assign a letter to the top left corner in this cube, there is currently no such vowel registered, be it in Tatar or another language.

This cube reflects the following continua:

It also reflects the closeness of İdíl-Ural Tatar's Oo to Uu and that of Öö to Üü.

The extent of consistency ensured can be seen in the following tables which show several simple phrases meaning “of our old literatures” and “of our states”/”of our motherlands”. The meaninglessness of the phrases does not impede the illustrative effect.

Every vowel pronounced is reflected in writing. E.g., cömhüriyet, cıyılış, tuwa. Letters â, î, û are optional. They can be used in Arabic or other loan words, but can be simplified into their base letters by omitting diacritic (similar to how this is practiced in Turkish at present). E.g., imlâ, imla (orthography), xoquqî, xoquqi (juridical).

All of the letters involved are supported in Turkish keyboard layouts, with the exception of Íí, and Ññ. In the absence of a special keyboard layout, as a work-around on Windows Alt+161 (where digits are entered using the Numpad in NumLock mode) can be used to type í, and Alt+164 can be used for ñ. In a fully configured keyboard layout, letter Íi is positioned as Jj, with Jj being available as AltGr+í (i.e., right-Alt+í), and letter ñ is positioned as AltGr+n. The reason for j and ñ being made available through AltGr is their rare usage in the language.

1. ^ Zaman Talebí. Şehri Qazan, 04/06/1994.
2. ^ Tatarstan Republic Law No. 2352 of 09/15/1999
3. ^ Tahsin Banguoğlu. Türkçenin Grameri. Türk Dil Kurumu. ISBN 975160268-8.

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