Nogai (; Ногай тили, Nogay tili, Ногайша, Nogayşa) also known as Noğay, Noghay, Nogay, or Nogai Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken in Southeastern European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and in Turkey. It is the ancestral language of the Nogais. As a member of the Kipchak branch, it is closely related to Kazakh, Karakalpak and Crimean Tatar (northern dialect). In 2014 the first Nogai novel (Akşa Nenem) was published, written in the Latin alphabet. Classification Nogai is generally classified into the Kipchak–Nogai branch of Kipchak Turkic. The latter also includes Siberian Tatar in Russia, Kazakh in Kazakhstan and Karakalpak in Uzbekistan. Three distinct dialects are recognized: Karanogay or Qara-Nogai (literally "Black Nogai"; "Northern Nogai"), spoken in Dagestan and Chechnya. Central Nogai or Nogai Proper, in Stavropol. Aqnogai (White or Western Nogai), by the Kuban River, its tributaries in Karachay–Cherkessia and in the Mineralnye Vody District. Qara-Nogai and Nogai Proper are very close linguistically, whereas Aqnogai is more different. However, all three are mutually intelligible. Nogais in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey has Ottoman Turkish influences. The outlying Yurt and Alabugat dialects, or Nogai Tatars, is divergent due to Tatar influence. Karagash, Yurt and Utar are three more varieties sometimes classified as Nogai dialects but the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences recognizes them as separate languages. History The Nogais, descended from the peoples of the Golden Horde, take their name and that of their language from the grandson of Genghis Khan, Nogai Khan, who ruled the nomadic people west of the Danube toward the end of the 13th century. They then settled along the Black Sea coast of present-day Ukraine. Originally, the Nogai alphabet was based on the Arabic script. In 1928, a Latin alphabet was introduced. It was devised by the Nogai academic (Djanibek), following principles adopted for all Turkic languages. In 1938, a transition to the Cyrillic alphabet began. The orthography based on the Latin alphabet was alleged to be an impediment to learning Russian. The expulsion of the Nogais from Ukraine in the nineteenth century separated Nogai speakers into several geographically isolated groups. Some went to Turkey and Romania, while others stayed within the Russian Empire, settling in northern Dagestan and neighbouring areas of Chechnya and Stavropol Kray. The Nogai language has disappeared very rapidly in Turkey. Today it is mostly spoken by the older generation, however there are still younger speakers, as