Tatar ( TAH-tər; Tatar: татар теле, romanized: tatar tele or татарча, romanized: tatarça) is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars mainly located in modern Republic of Tatarstan, wider Volga-Ural region, as well as many other regions of Russia. Tatar belongs to the Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, the same branch as Bashkort, Kazakh, Nogai and Kyrgyz. The two main dialects of Tatar are the Central Dialect (urta / qazan; most common), and the Western Dialect (könbatış / mişər). The literary Tatar language is based on the Central Dialect and on a local variant of Türki. Tatar should not be confused with Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar, which are different languages, although also part of the Kipchak language group. Like other Turkic languages, Tatar was traditionally written in the Arabic script for most of its history. Since 1939, the alphabet has been Cyrillic, though a number of Latin-based versions have also been used over the years.