Bashkir is a Turkic language (self-designation, in Latin orthography, Başqort tele ) with more than 1.5 million speakers in Russia. Most of them live in the Volga-Ural region, partly in the theoretically sovereign Republic of Bashkortostan (Başqortostan), where Bashkir is one of the official languages, the other being Russian. The closest linguistic cognate of Bashkir is (Kazan) Tatar, with which Bashkir has strong genetic and areal ties. Both languages are to a high degree mutually intelligible. Other near relatives of Bashkir are Kazakh, Karakalpak, Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, Crimean