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Who Are the Tatars?


Who Are the Tatars?

A Tatar dance troupe performs in Turkey.

yasqirim on Flickr.com

Tatar: A member of a Turkic ethnic group, about 5 million strong. Tatars are distributed across Central Asia, but centered in the Tatar Autonomous Region of eastern European Russia and parts of Siberia.

The term is also used to describe their Turkic language. The word "tatar" comes from the Persian taytayr, meaning "Turkic."

Pronunciation: "TAH-tahr"
Alternate Spellings: Tartar

"Some Tatar groups today live as far west as Moldova, Belarus, and Poland."


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