ABSTRACT
The modern West Kipchak languages are Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, Crimean Tatar, and Karaim in its Northwest Karaim, Southwest Karaim, and Crimean Karaim varieties. The Caucasian, Crimean, Polish/West Ukrainian, and Baltic linguistic environments have deeply influenced these languages in their typological properties without changing their genealogical relatedness. Kumyk and Karachay-Balkar in the northeastern Caucasian area, where Kumyk earlier served as a lingua franca. The Arabic script was used for writing Crimean Tatar until 1928. From 1929, a Latin alphabet was in use for almost ten years. This was replaced by a Cyrillic alphabet in 1938. In 1997, a Latin alphabet, which is now used parallel to the Cyrillic, was reintroduced. The Karaims have no unified literary language. The Hebrew alphabet was used for Bible translations and other religious texts. Later on, printed materials appeared in Cyrillic and Latin scripts based on Polish and Lithuanian orthographies.
