This is an accepted version of this page Karachay–Balkar (Къарачай-Малкъар тил, Qaraçay-Malqar til), often referred to as the "mountaineer language"[3] (Таулу тил, Tawlu til) by its speakers, is a Turkic language spoken by the Karachays and Balkars in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay–Cherkessia, European Russia, as well as by an immigrant population in Afyonkarahisar Province, Turkey.

[8] Later, as part of a new state campaign of Latinisation Karachay and Balkar educators developed a new alphabet based on Latin letters, being officially adopted in 1924.

Modern Karachay–Balkar Cyrillic alphabet: In a new project approved in May 1961, the alphabet was modified to reduce the use of digraphs and non-orthodox usage of Russian letters, featuring the unique letters Ғ ғ, Җ җ, Қ қ, Ң ң, Ө ө, Ў ў, Ү ү.

[11] The alphabet of the publication was very similar to modern Turkish and it contained the following letters: Prior to 1925, for centuries, the Perso-Arabic script was the basis of the literary language among Karachay-Balkar.

[clarification needed] From the early 20th century, there was attempts to bring the writing closer to the spoken dialects and languages among the Karachay and Balkar.

In the second attempt, the use of vowels became more consistent and fully-encompassing, the initial alef letter was dropped (similar to Kazakh Arabic alphabet in the same era.