Kazakh is a member of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family. It is closely related to Kyrgyz. Like all Turkic languages, it is believed to have descended from Chagatai Turkic, an extinct Turkic language which once served as a lingua franca in Central Asia. The word Chagatai relates to the Chagatai Khanate, the western part of the Mongol empire, left to Genghis Khan's second son Chagatai Khan. Chagatai Turkic was written with the Arabic alphabet and was influenced by Arabic and Persian. In the 14th century, the Chagatai Khanate was conquered by Timur, a native of Samarkand. Timur's successors were later ousted from the Chagatai Khanate by the Uzbeks. The Kazakhs originated as dissident Uzbeks during the same period. Both groups became part of the Soviet Union in 1917. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan became independent countries. 40% of Kazakhstan's total population of about 17 million are ethnic Kazakhs, about an equal number are Russians, and the rest are other Slavs and Germans. Even though Kazakh is the official language of Kazakhstan, Russian continues to play a dominant role. Most students are taught in Russian, although attempts are being made to promote Kazakh language education. Most business and government affairs are also conducted in Russian. While the majority of ethnic Kazakhs speak Russian, few Russians have bothered to learn Kazakh. Recently, the government of Kazakhstan passed legislation which mandates the exclusive use of Kazakh in all sphere of public life by the year 2008. |
Kazakh dialects are usually divided into three geographical groups. They are mutually intelligible:
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Vowels
As all other Turkic languages, Kazakh is characterized by vowel harmony, a type of phonological process that involves constraints on which vowels may be found near each other. Vowels in Kazakh words must harmonize with one another in terms of front versus back, and rounded versus unrounded. For example, if the first vowel in a word is a front rounded vowel such as /ü/ or /ö/, then all other vowels in that word must also be /ü/ or /ö/ since these are the only two front rounded vowels in Kazakh . Consonants
Stress Click here to listen to basic dialogs in Kazakh. |
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Like all Turkic languages, Kazakh is agglutinative, i.e., grammatical relations are indicated by the addition of suffixes to stems. Suffixes are strung together one after another, resulting on occasion in long words. Nouns
Verbs
Word order |
According to some experts, Kazakh has been influenced by Russian more than any other Turkic language of the former Soviet Union. Other lexical influences also include Arabic and Persian. Below are some basic words and phrases in Kazakh (in Cyrillic script). Below are the numbers 1-10 in Kazakh Latin and Cyrillic scripts. |
Modified Cyrillic-based alphabet for Kazakh Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Kazakh in Cyrillic and Latin scripts. |
Click here to find out where Kazakh is taught in the United States. Online resources for the study of Kazakh |
How difficult is it to learn Kazakh? Kazakh is considered e a Category II language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English. . |