Karaim
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Fact corner
- Language: Karaim
- Alternate names: Karaite
- SIL-code: Ethnologue:kdr
- Language family: Altaic, Turkic, Western, Ponto-Caspian
- Number of speakers: 3
- Script: Cyrillic Script, Latin Script
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Introduction
The Karaim language is a Turkic language with Hebrew influences. The three main dialects are those of Crimea, Trakai-Vilnius and Lutsk-Halych.
The Karaim Verb
Karaim morphology is suffixing and highly agglutinating. The Karaim language lacks prefixes and uses postpositions.
Sample verb ał 'to take'
| Person | Long Form | Short Form |
|---|---|---|
| Sg.1 | ał-a-myn | ał-a-m |
| Sg.2 | ał-a-syn | ał-a-s |
| Sg.3 | ał-a-dyr | ał-a-d |
| Pl.1 | ał-a-byz | - |
| Pl.2 | ał-a-syz | - |
| Pl.3 | ał-dyr-łar | ał-d-łar ~ ał-dy-łar |
A notable feature of verb conjugation in Karaim is the possibility of abbreviated forms, as shown above.