Karay Yazi Di̇li̇

Karaism emerged as a sect of Judaism in the 8th century A.D., over-time Karaim became the name of the community of followers. The vast majority of this community known as the Karaim consisted of remnants of the Caspian Turks. As time passed the community became entirely Turkified. Karaim Turks began to use the Hebrew alphabet, which was tied to their Jewish fate. For many years the Karaim used the Hebrew alphabet, however later they started using the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets originating from their use of Lithuanian and Polish. With these alphabets they used they brought up the Karaim written language, with mostly works of translation, a small amount literary work, and particular articles. The Karaim migrated for various reasons, as a result the population of the scattered Karaim continuously decreased and has currently almost reached a level of extinction. The scarcity and dispersion of the Karaim has negatively affected the spoken and written form of the Karaim language, furthermore the language policies of the boundaries which within the Karaim Turks live in is also directly influencing the language. In this study the alphabets the Karaim use, and the written language of Karaim Turkish which is being put forward with these alphabets is going to be discussed and looked at through a historical perspective