and Sevastopol. There was also a small community in Palestine. Their population began to decline in the twentieth century, beginning with the Russian civil war and ensuing famine. About 70% of the Krymchak community died during World War II. Between December 1941 and July 1942 Krymchaks, and many other Jews and other civilians, were killed throughout the Crimean peninsula by the German Einsatzgruppen. When German soldiers reached the towns in which Jewish communities resided, they murdered them en masse. After the war, the remaining Krymchak population dispersed from the Crimean peninsula. By 1942 about one hundred Krymchak families lived in the United States, most in New York City, and they quickly integrated into the Jewish community there. In 1979, its estimated that 1000 Krymchaks lived in the Ukraine, 600 in Russia, 200 in Georgia, and 200 in Uzbekistan. In 1974 only two Krymchak men were still living in Belogorsk, formerly Karasubazar, the community's historic center. Official status Krymchak is designated as an indigenous language in Ukraine. Dialects Though itself considered a dialect of Crimean Tatar, Krymchak differed geographically depending on the dialect of the surrounding Tatar population. Phonology Krymchak employs the five vowels a o u I e. Their phonology contains only short vowels. They do not distinguish between front and back labial vowels, such as o / ö and u / ü. Speakers intone words differently than speakers of Crimean Tatar. Krymchak pronunciation of Hebrew also differs from its traditional pronunciation, which was used by Crimean Karaites, another Judeo-Crimean community. Vocabulary Krymchak contains a significant amount of borrowed words from Hebrew. As much as 5% of vocabulary is Hebrew. One study of various Krymchak texts also shows borrowed vocabulary from Oghuz and Kypchak. Later texts show strong Russian influence, while earlier texts have many Arabic and Persian borrowings, where the use of Arabic or Persian lends a lofty style. Writing system Krymchak was written using the Hebrew alphabet. Over time new characters were created to represent sounds found in Crimean Tatar. Due to the discontinuation of literature written in Krymchak in 1936, it slowly made its way into the realm of non-written languages. Instead, the Krymchaks began utilizing the Russian Cyrillic alphabet (table 2). The Krymchak alphabet can be found on Omniglot. Examples Krymchak translation by B. Baginski-Gurdzhi of "The Cloud" by Pushkin References Agglutinative languages Kipchak languages Krymchaks Jewish languages Languages of Ukraine Endangered Turkic languages