Nogai language

Nogai (also Nogay or Nogai Tatar) is a Turkic language spoken in southwestern Russia. Three distinct dialects are recognized: Qara-Nogai (Black or Northern Nogai), spoken in Dagestan; Nogai Proper, in Stavropol; and Aqnogai (White or Western Nogai), by the Kuban River, its tributaries in Karachay–Cherkessia, and in the Mineralnye Vody District. Qara-Nogai and Nogai Proper are very close linguistically, whereas Aqnogai is more different.

Nogai is generally classified into the Kipchak–Nogai branch of Kipchak Turkic. The latter also includes Crimean Tatar, Karakalpak in Uzbekistan, Kazakh in Kazakhstan, and Kirgiz in Kyrgyzstan.

History

The Nogai, descended from the peoples of the Golden Horde, take their name and that of their language from the grandson of Genghis Khan, Nogai Khan, who ruled the nomadic people west of the Danube toward the end of the 13th century. They then settled along the Black Sea coast of present-day Ukraine.

Originally, the Nogai alphabet was based on the Arabic script. In 1928, a Latin alphabet was introduced. It was devised by the Nogai academic A. Dzhanibekov (Canibek), following principles adopted for all Turkic languages.