Karachay–Balkar (Къарачай-Малкъар тил, Qaraçay-Malqar tıl), or Mountain Turkic^[3][4] (Таулу тил, Taw-lụk^[5] tıl), 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. It is divided into two dialects: Karachay-Baksan-Chegem, which pronounces two phonemes as /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ and Malkar, which pronounces the corresponding phonemes as /ts/ and /z/. The modern Karachay–Balkar written language is based on the Karachay–Baksan–Chegem dialect. The language is closely related to Kumyk.^[6]

Historically, the Arabic alphabet had been used by first writers until 1924. Handwritten manuscripts of the Balkar poet Kazim Mechiev and other examples of literature have been preserved to this day. First printed books in Karachay–Balkar were published in the beginning of the 20th century.

After the October Revolution as part of a state campaign of Latinisation Karachay and Balkar educators developed a new alphabet based on Latin letters. In the 1930s, the official Soviet policy was revised and the process of Cyrillization of Soviet languages was started. In 1937–38 the new alphabet based on Cyrillic letters was officially adopted.

Parentheses indicate allophones, brackets indicate phonemes from loanwords.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Karachay–Balkar:

Loanwords from Russian, Ossetian, Kabardian, Arabic, and Persian are fairly numerous.^[6]

Russian filmmaker Andrei Proshkin used Karachay–Balkar for The Horde, believing that it might be the closest language to the original Kipchak language which was spoken during the Golden Horde.^[8]

• Chodiyor Doniyorov and Saodat Doniyorova. Parlons Karatchay-Balkar. Paris: Harmattan, 2005. ISBN 2-7475-9577-3.
• Steve Seegmiller (1996) Karachay (LINCOM)