Outline of the sociolinguistic situation

The reasons for the extinction of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatar ethnic language

The exact date of the Tatar language extinction is unknown, but it is believed that it happened in the half of the 16th c. The oldest source about losing the ethnic language by the Tatars - the Treaty about the Polish Tatars, probably created by the anonymous Lithuanian Tatar - comes from 1558. The Tatar settlers in Poland under the rule of the king Wladyslaw II Jagiello, were Polonised and christianised, which resulted very fast not only in losing the language but also the Tatar culture. The policy of the duke Vytautas in Lithuania was quite different:
The Tatars were allowed to preserve culture and tradition, and the favourable conditions of settlement (see: The history of the Tatar settlement on the Polish territory), initiated a mass migration of the Tatars on the Grand Duchy of Lithuania territories. The next Tatar settlers came to Lithuania, every single time separating themselves from the conglomerate which inhabited the Golden Horde (Łapicz 1986: 36-37Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
), united by the person of ruler, not by the ethnollinguistic community. Relatively unified Tatar community emerged only in the 16th and 17th century. It has to be remembered, however, that the Tatars were dispersed on quite large territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and were never a majority of inhabitants on any territory. Paradoxically, losing the language to some extent contributed to strengthening of the community: The Tatars were aware of their cultural distinction, and the strongest element unifying the community was Islam. Tatar was never a sacral language - Arabic was reserved for this sphere, later also Turkic. Among the Tatars, building the community spirit was always a part of non-Tatar language context (Drozd – Dziekan – Majda 2000: 17Drozd – Dziekan – Majda 2000 / komentarz/comment/r /
Drozd, Andrzej & Marek M. Dziekan & Tadeusz Majda 2000. Piśmiennictwo i Muhiry Tatarów polsko-litewskich. Warszawa: Res Publica Multiethnica.
).
The language assimilation of the Tatars happened in different social strata, in various domains, in various times and it was a process of transforming into using only one language. The Tatar nobility spoke Polish daily, and ordinary Tatars very fast turned to Belarusian, the dominant official language on the territory where they lived in the 16th century (Łapicz 1986: 19Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). However, for example Koran was translated in the 16th century- into the Rus language - at that period a dominating language in culture. Most of the other texts were translated into Belarusian (Drozd – Dziekan – Majda 2000: 18Drozd – Dziekan – Majda 2000 / komentarz/comment/r /
Drozd, Andrzej & Marek M. Dziekan & Tadeusz Majda 2000. Piśmiennictwo i Muhiry Tatarów polsko-litewskich. Warszawa: Res Publica Multiethnica.
).
There are many reasons for the decline of Tatar. Among them the above-mentioned natural process of Tatar people assimilation on a daily life level is mentioned: The Tatars grew very fast in the communities within which their coexisted as part of a city or a village community. It is a factor which even strengthened and directly accelerated the process caused by a completely different factor; during the same period of time, the Karaim community was even smaller and they were more dispersed, but their language survived (Łapicz 1986: 50Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). Practically the only unquestionable reason, by the researchers, for the Tatar language extinction is the desire of the Tatar nobility to enter higher classes, who spoke the Polish of North borderlands, and since the 19th century also Russian, which for political reasons started to replace Polish as a state language (Drozd – Dziekan – Majda 2000: 21Drozd – Dziekan – Majda 2000 / komentarz/comment/r /
Drozd, Andrzej & Marek M. Dziekan & Tadeusz Majda 2000. Piśmiennictwo i Muhiry Tatarów polsko-litewskich. Warszawa: Res Publica Multiethnica.
).
Other reasons for the extinction of Tatars, which are mentioned in the research literature, need to be approached critically. Fast decline of Tatar is explained by e.g. the Tatars serving in the army and consequently, the frequent long period during which they had no contact with their community or mixed marriages Tatar-Lithuanian. Mentioning those factors as reasons for the Tatar language extinction leads to a certain paradox: the same reasons, which should have caused the extinction of Tatar, are treated in the research literature concerning the Karaims, as the factors which helped the Crimean language survive (Łapicz 1986: 48-49Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
).
The Tatars, like the Karaims, were a Kipchak tribe, who came to defend the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and similar to them, they served in the regiment formed by the members of the same community (Łapicz 1986: 49Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). Mixed marriages also could not be the reason for the language assimilation of Tatars.
It would implicate that the Tatar settlers were predominantly male, who, in a new reality, started to marry Lithuanian women (Łapicz 1986: 42Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). It is not confirmed by historical facts as it is commonly known that the Tatars came to the Polish land with their whole families and, in many places in literature, we can find references about their wives, children and even all Tatar families which were brought to a new homeland (Kryczyński 1938: 14Kryczyński 1938 / komentarz/comment/r /
Kryczyński, Stanisław 1938. Tatarzy litewscy. Próba monografii historyczno-etnograficznej. Warszawa: Wydanie Rady Centralnej Związku Kulturalno-Oświatowego Tatarów Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej.
).
We have to remember, that the practices of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars, especially poorer, required mixed marriages between the members of Muslim community. They observed many rules more restrictively than indicated by Islam. The Koran allows for marriages with non-Muslim women, but in the presentation of the Islamic faith, which can be found in the Tatar kitabs, we can see that practically, this rule did not include the Tatars (c.f. Łapicz 1986: 45Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). Even today among the Tatar community in Poland there is a common belief that “purity of Tatar blood’ should be aimed at, although it is not explicit, whether endogamy among the Polish Tatars is important more in the ethnic or religious aspect (c.f. Warmińska 1999: 152-156Warmińska 1999 / komentarz/comment/r /
Warmińska, Katarzyna 1999. Tatarzy polscy. Tożsamość religijna i etniczna. Kraków: Universitas.
).  
For obvious reasons, thereis no sociolinguistic research from hundreds of years ago. The influence of mixed marriage on survival or the extinction of the language remains unclear. It has to be assumed that even if mixed marriage occurred, this phenomenon concerned both the Tatars and the Karaims, whose language is still alive.
The reasons for losing ethnic language in the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars in the context of simultaneously transmitted language from generation to generation among the Karaims, need to be sought in the differences between these two groups, which have their roots in the past (Łapicz 1986: 51Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). The Karaims originated from Khazars - Turkish peoples of Karaim denomination. The Karaims had a common ethnogenesy and common language, which in contrast to the Tatar language, served an identifying function. Just like the Tatar language was never used in Muslim liturgy, the Karaim, almost at the same level as Hebrew, was connected with religious life. Both communities were multilingual, which also resulted from the fact that they lived in the borderlands, which form the natural environment for the phenomena related to language contacts (Łapicz 1986: 58Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
). Nevertheless for the Karaims the languages: Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian did not become the chosen home languages. Karaim was reserved for certain domains: home use or for religious sphere, and other languages were used by the Karaims in contacts with others. In the case of Tatar, there was never a clear division of this kind. Supposedly the Tatars partially dropped Tatar, warriors-landowners because of the desire to be equal with the Poles, and lower strata caring for their children to know the state language (Łapicz 1986: 56Łapicz 1986 / komentarz/comment/r /
Łapicz, Czesław 1986. Kitab Tatarów litewsko-polskich (Paleografia. Grafia. Język). Toruń: UMK.
).
The lack of a unifying role of the ethnic language at the beginning of the Tatar settlement on the Polish and Lithuanian territory, social stratification and lack of the Tatar language connection with the important aspect of culture and tradition are still the main reasons for the extinction of this language in only few generations of the Polish-Lithuanian Tatars.

Current status of Tatar

Actions which aim at increasing the people interest in the Tatar language, undertaken by Tatar community are held in the context of the Tatar language TAT - the same, which is used at present in all domains by several millions users and which is to ensure connection between the Tatars from around the world. By the Tatar language, in this section, we understand Tatar TAT, which is a continuation of the ancestoral language, understood conventionally to a certain extent. In case of TAT Tatar language in Poland we see the situation in which people drive at symbolically reviving something, which is already gone (the ancestors language) with help of something which is (the Tatar language TAT although the second is not the continuum of TAT the first). For the Tatar community it is a nuance far less important than for a linguist.

The use of language

Since June 2012 in the Primary School nr 28 in Białystok, a Tatar language course has been run, co-funded by the funds of the Ministry of Administration and Digitalisation. There are two 45-minute lessons on Sundays.
Some students commute from Sokółka. It is a group of around 15 people. That is why currently there are efforts made in order to fund a second course in Sokółka.
According to the data from September 2012, 23 people aged 12-65 participate in the course. There are predominantly young people of Tatar descent. The participation in the lesson in generally voluntarily and active participation is not required. One person outside the Polish Tatar community attends the course. In some Tatar houses in Poland, more and more often families use Tatar phrases in everyday situations. They are still single phrases, e.g. greetings and goodbye. It has to be remembered that the increase of interest in the Tatar language among the Polish Tatars is only a matter of the last few years and the above-mentioned Tatar language course is first of this type in Poland. Learning materials were translated from Russian.
On the website www.tataria.eu, there is also a short Tatar primer for children (see: Fragments from a Tatar primer). On the internet, there are commonly available films and recording in the Tatar language TAT however not TAT; there are also recordings of the Tatar language usage prepared by the Polish Tatars.

Community’s attitude toward Tatar

The Tatar community is aware of the lack of the ethic language, and some of its members see in it the reason for losing the Tatar ethnic identity (Warmińska 1999: 178-179Warmińska 1999 / komentarz/comment/r /
Warmińska, Katarzyna 1999. Tatarzy polscy. Tożsamość religijna i etniczna. Kraków: Universitas.
). The following fragment can be found on the website www.tataria.eu:

Living for many centuries among the Slavic people strongly influenced the loss of Arabic, Turkic, Persian elements and replacing them with vocabulary and Slavic structures, which led to the ultimate regress of the mother tongue.
(www.tataria.eu)

This fragment may suggest the reader that the contact with the Slavic language had a destructive influence on the Tatar language and contributed to its decline. The Polish Tatar regret losing the language, but on the other hand for the majority of them the language is the implicit indicator of nationality, and in the context of strong connections to Poland and emphasizing their being Polish, they do not emphasize differences between their own group and the rest of society. According to Michal Adamowicz the Tatar language “is needed as a tool of unifying society and not isolating it’ [01.10.2012].
The Tatars see the Tatar language mostly as a factor which unifies the Tatars dispersed all over the world.
The language has an opportunity to be one of the Tatar indicators, but in on a global scale.
It is perceived as an opportunity for the Tatar youth to emphasize cultural values, by which the Tatar culture may enrich the European culture. Tatar is ‘now needed, in the times when the moral weight of religious values disappears in Europe” [Michal Adamowicz 01.10.2012].
It is difficult to define the attitude towards the Tatar language among the Polish Tatars using the parameters suggested by Lewis (2006Lewis 2006 / komentarz/comment/r /
Lewis, Paul M. 2006. "Evaluating Endangerment: Proposed Metadata and Implementation", w: Kendall A King et al. (eds.) Sustaining Linguistic Diversity: Endangered and Minority Languages and Language Varieties. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, s. 35-49.
). People who learn Tatar during the language course have undoubtedly positive attitude towards it, although the learning motivation drives from the curiosity about the sound of it” [Jan Adamowicz 02.10.2012].
The members of the Tatar community, who do not participate in the course “are aware of its existence and wait to see what will come out of it”  [Jan Adamowicz 02.10.2012].

Revitalization perspectives

In the light of the current definition of language revitalization, understood mostly as the efforts promoting and aiming at ceasing the process of language dying (Grenoble – Whaley 2006: 2Grenoble – Whaley 2006 / komentarz/comment/r /
Grenoble, Lenore A. & Lindsay J. Whaley 2006. Saving languages: An introduction to Language Revitalization. New York: Cambridge University Press.
), in case of the Tatar language we should rather speak of the actions which aim at language revival from the already dead language.
The question which arises instantly is: what is the Tatar language that would be revived. For the reason that only fragmentary information about Tatar is available, it would be very difficult to revive it. Another issue to be considered while discussing the potential process is its purposefulness - whether the language which died out in the 16th century could be effectively brought back to function in the present reality. If the Tatar language was to be revived, based on the action of the community up to now, e.g. when creating learning materials, it would be a language based on Tatar TAT. The Polish Tatars are aware that defining the language of their ancestors is rather “a catch-phrase’, and for the members of TAT community, who actively work for the promotion of the Tatar language - using this type of phrase seems to be one of the methods to arise interest in Tatar.
The Tatar language was never reserved to a certain domain of the Tatar life, and the community members do not see a purpose in bringing the language to the domains, in which it never existed.
In the Tatar language course which has been organised since 2012, the community sees predominantly a chance to start cooperation with other Tatars - it as a symbolic joining the Tatar world. As Jan Abramowicz emphasizes, if there were a few people with a good knowledge of Tatar among the Polish Tatars, it would be possible to translate books into Polish, publish a paper in Tatar and the band Bunczuk would understand what it sings [02.10.2012].
Hence, there is not the desire among the Polish Tatars to create the Tatar language for future generations, which would be their first language. Although there is not enough data, that would allow to determine whether the Polish Tatars want to make Tatar their home language or a language of contacts inside the community, these domains would be the few possible in which the language could be revived.
The Polish Tatars also feel the need for the presence of Tatar in media - e.g. paper in Tatar. According to the author’s knowledge, at present there is no study which would bring answers to the question what the motivation is: the aspects of creating community or the desire to increase the prestige of the community or the prestige of the language.