First info about Kuman Tyli

This is a brief info about my new project for LLL.

Kuman (Kuman Tyli, Kumandzha) is a Turkic language (Qypchaq group)
spoken in several villages in Ukraine (Lugansk region) and Russian
Federation (Rostov region). Ca. 2,000 speakers (2004, estimation) - of
those families from remnants Polovtsy/Qypchaq tribes who adopted Eastern
Orthodox Christianity in 11-13 cc. East Slavic influence on Underwent
strong all levels: phonology, morphology, syntax and vocabulary. Arabic
and Persian most other Turkic borrowings common to languages, are very
few. All speakers bilingual, many young people having Russian
exclusively at homes in as L1. Used almost everyday conversations.
Occasional written documents (mostly private letters) in early 20 c.
Orthography Cyrillic script since non-regularized.
In our publication we use spelling rules developed by a local teacher
Basysh (Vasily) Karsakov in 2002 that become more and more popular among
Kumans. In September 2004 two village schools in Melovoye district
(Lugansk region, Ukraine) plan to start evening language courses for
children and adults, using Karsakov's spelling.We hope that due to the
growth of interest to this language it has stopped being under the
danger of extinction.

-- Yitzik