Kumyk language

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Kumyk Кумык
Spoken in:	Russia
Region:	Dagestan
Total speakers:	282,000
Language family:	Altaic Turkic Kypchak Kypchak-Cuman Kumyk
Writing system:	Cyrillic alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`kum`
ISO/FDIS 639-3:	`kum`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Kumyk (also Qumuq, Kumuk, Kumuklar, and Kumyki) (Кумык) is a Turkic language, spoken by about 200 thousand speakers (the Kumyks) in the Dagestan republic of Russian Federation.

Yırçı Qazaq (born 1839) is usually considered to be a founder of Kumyk literature. Kumyk was written using Arabic script until 1928, Latin script was used in 1928-1938, and Cyrillic since then.

The first regular newspapers and magazines appeared in 1917-18. Currently, the newspaper Ёлдаш (Yoldash, Companion), the sucessor of the Soviet-era Ленин ёлу (Lenin yolu', Lenin's Path) prints around 5,000 copies 3 times a week.

It has been strongly influenced by Azeri and Dargwa, as well as by Russian during last century.

v • d • e Turkic languages
West Turkic
Bolgar	Bolgar* \| Chuvash \| Hunnic* \| Khazar*
Chagatay	Aini²\| Chagatay* \| Ili Turki \| Lop \| Uyghur \| Uzbek
Kypchak	Baraba \| Bashkir \| Crimean Tatar¹ \| Cuman* \| Karachay-Balkar \| Karaim \| Karakalpak \| Kazakh \| Kipchak* \| Krymchak \| Kumyk \| Nogay \| Tatar \| Urum¹
Oghuz	Afshar \| Azerbaijani \| Crimean Tatar¹ \| Gagauz \| Khorasani Turkish \| Ottoman Turkish* \| Pecheneg* \| Qashqai \| Salar \| Turkish \| Turkmen \| Urum¹
East Turkic
Khalaj	Khalaj
Kyrgyz-Kypchak	Altay \| Kyrgyz
Uyghur	Chulym \| Dolgan \| Fuyü Gïrgïs \| Khakas \| Northern Altay \| Shor \| Tofa \| Tuvan \| Western Yugur \| Sakha / Yakut
Old Turkic*
Notes: ¹ Listed in more than one group, ² Mixed language, * Extinct