The History of Arabic-Tatar Language Contacts in the Sociolinguistic Aspect

In the process of its development, the Tatar language has been in contact with the Arabic language for many centuries and, to one degree or another, has been influenced by it. The result of all this was a fairly large number of borrowings, which, to a certain extent, have long been rooted in the vocabulary of the Tatar language and are not perceived even by the common man in the street as alien. At present, we can say with confidence that in lexical and semantic terms they have been studied thoroughly. At the same time, Arabic-Tatar language contacts, which largely contributed to the formation of the indicated genetic layer of the Tatar language, are still awaiting their scientific understanding in the sociolinguistic aspect. This determines the relevance of this work. Its goal is to study the cultural and historical factors that contributed to the penetration of the Arabic language into the Tatar linguistic area, the social environment of its existence and areas of application in Tatar society in a diachronic aspect. The material used was works on the history of the Tatar people, Tatar literature and the Tatar literary language. In the process of their analysis, methods of sociolinguistic reconstruction and sociolinguistic interpretation were applied. As a result of the study, it was revealed that the formation and development of Arabic-Tatar language contacts was largely facilitated by factors of a religious nature, namely the adoption and practice of Islam by the ancestors of the Tatars. Next, the boundaries of the social environment and spheres of application of the Arabic language in Tatar society were determined. Historically, the first was formed within the community of clergy, scientists and students of religious educational institutions, and the second were religion, education, science and fiction. According to the author, it was within their framework that centuries-old ArabTatar language contacts took place.