Once all Turks were divided into tribes — large unions with a common origin and language, united in the political sense. In the Middle Ages, the main of such unions were Kipchaks, Oguzes, Karluk — but they dispersed around the world and disintegrated due to objective historical circumstances.
Former neighbors on the Great Steppe scattered in different directions, adopted different faiths and founded large multinational powers. Therefore, modern Turkic ethnic groups are usually classified not by their origin, but by the languages they speak. And it is not necessarily the case that the people categorized as Karluks/Oguzes/Kipchaks are the descendants of Karluks, Oguzes and Kipchaks respectively.
The Kazan Tatars are a classic example of such historical variability. Their original nucleus was the Bulgars, a tribe of separate origin that used its own dialect. But after becoming part of the Golden Horde. language, name and identity changed, and now the Kazan Tatars are a typical Kipchak ethnos.
And what can be said about their relatives, the Crimean Tatars?
Crimea, divided into steppe and mountain zones, has always been of interest to nomads as a region where the cultures of Eastern Europe met the civilizations of the Mediterranean. Trade here was very intensive, so as conquerors and peaceful colonists here came a variety of tribes, starting with the Cimmerians and Scythians. Sarmatians and Alans lived here in ancient times; Khazars and Pechenegs — in the early Middle Ages; Kipchaks, Mongols and Nogais — in the era of the Golden Horde.
At the same time, there was always a settled population in the mountains — closer to our time they were Byzantine Greeks and Goths. And on the coast there were outposts of Mediterranean colonists — Turks, Genoese, Jews and Armenians. This seaside region always had a semi-independent position and was subordinate to its metropolises.
The Crimean Khanate was founded in 1441 after the final collapse of the Golden Horde. Its elite consisted of influential local Tatar clans, but the main population were the descendants of the above mentioned nomadic groups, which by that time had been completely kipchakized. Because of plague epidemics and Tamerlane’s invasion, many Horde people who had previously lived in the Volga region moved here. These people later made up the bulk (about 50%) of the Crimean Tatars, and their dialect became the basis of the Crimean Tatar literary language. it belongs to the Western Kipchak group.
To the north of them, in the steppe regions adjacent to the Crimea, the Nogais settled. They were fugitives from the eastern bank of the Volga River, who were fleeing from years of drought and wars with the Kazakhs. They lived a free life and were largely independent of the Crimean khans. Their language is Eastern Kipchak, close to Kazakh, Bashkir and Kazan-Tatar.
Finally, the South Coast people, in Turkic Yalyboylu, were descendants of the Christian inhabitants of the coast. However, Crimea was conquered by the Ottoman Empire already in 1475, that is, a few decades after the foundation of an independent khanate here. The areas close to the sea were directly subordinated to the Ottomans and were the place where Turks lived compactly. The standard Turkish language, which belongs to the Oghuz group, was widespread here. For a long time it was more prestigious and provided a link to the whole empire and Muslim culture. Many literary monuments of the new times were written in it.
After the Russian conquest of the peninsula, the same situation remained here. Three Turkic peoples, which differed culturally, linguistically and genetically, actually lived here. The Northern Nogais, rather Mongoloid and more committed to nomadic culture; the inhabitants of the middle belt — the Tats — were engaged in agriculture with elements of cattle breeding and had a mixed racial composition; the South Coast people were gardeners and craftsmen and the most Caucasoid.
The latter made up about 10% of the total number of Crimean Tatars, but historically dominated the economy and culture. If someone had asked the question mentioned in the title of this article before 1917, it would have been more correct to say that the Tatars were the Oguz people, because it was the South Coastal people who were tacitly considered the main ones. But in Soviet times it was the dialect of the majority of Crimean inhabitants that was used as the basis of the literary language. It was the dialect of the population of the mountains and the middle belt.
Deportation, although it was a difficult ordeal for this people, had its positive side. In Central Asia it did not matter who your ancestors were, the main thing was that they came from Crimea. So three virtually separate peoples merged into one in a few decades. And their common language became the so-called middle dialect, Kipchak in its basis.