Kazakh language

Short description: Kipchak Turkic language

Kazakh

қазақша, қазақ тілі
qazaqşa, qazaq tılı
قازاقشا, قازاق ٴتىلى
قزاقچه, قزاق تلى

Kazakh in Cyrillic, Latin, and Perso-Arabic scripts

Pronunciation| kk

Native to| Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan
Region| Central Asia
(Turkestan)
Ethnicity| Kazakhs

Native speakers

| 16 million (2021 census)e27

Language family

Turkic

* Common Turkic
* Kipchak
* Kipchak–Nogai
* Kazakh

Writing system

| Kazakh alphabets (Cyrillic script, Latin script, Perso-Arabic script, Kazakh Braille)
Official status

Official language in

| Kazakhstan
Russia

* Altai Republic[1]

China

* Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
* Barköl Kazakh Autonomous County
* Mori Kazakh Autonomous County
* Aksay Kazakh Autonomous County

Organisations:

* Organization of Turkic States
Collective Security Treaty Organization

Regulated by| Ministry of Culture and Sports
Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Language codes
ISO 639-1| `kk`
ISO 639-1| `kaz`
ISO 639-3| `kaz`
Glottolog| `kaza1248`[2]
Linguasphere| `44-AAB-cc`
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

File:WIKITONGUES- Yernur speaking Kazakh.webm File:WIKITONGUES- Mereinur speaking Kazakh.webm

Kazakh[lower-alpha 1] is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by the Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan, and has official status in the Altai Republic of Russia. It is also a minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China, and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of western Mongolia. The language is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union (some 472,000 in Russia according to the 2010 Russian census), Germany, and Turkey.

Like other Turkic languages, Kazakh is an agglutinative language and employs vowel harmony. Kazakh builds words by adding suffixes one after another to the word stem, with each suffix expressing only one unique meaning and following a fixed sequence. Ethnologue recognizes three mutually intelligible dialect groups: Northeastern Kazakh—the most widely spoken variety, which also serves as the basis for the official language—Southern Kazakh, and Western Kazakh. The language shares a degree of mutual intelligibility with the closely related Karakalpak language while its Western dialects maintain limited mutual intelligibility with the Altai languages.

In October 2017, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the writing system would change from using Cyrillic to Latin script by 2025. The proposed Latin alphabet has been revised several times and as of January 2021 is close to the inventory of the Turkish alphabet, though lacking the letters C and Ç and having four additional letters: Ä, Ñ, Q and Ū (though other letters such as Y have different values in the two languages). It is scheduled to be phased in from 2023 to 2031.[5] Over one million Kazakh speakers in Xinjiang use a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script for writing.

## Contents

* 1 Geographic distribution
* 2 History
* 3 Phonology and orthography
* 3.1 Consonants
* 3.2 Vowels
* 3.3 Vowel harmony
* 3.4 Syllable structure
* 3.5 Stress
* 3.6 Orthography
* 4 Grammar
* 4.1 Nouns
* 4.2 Pronouns
* 4.3 Adjectives
* 4.4 Degrees of comparison
* 4.4.1 Comparative
* 4.4.2 Superlative
* 4.5 Verbs
* 5 Annotated text with gloss
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 References
* 9 Further reading
* 10 External links

## Geographic distribution

Speakers of Kazakh are spread over a vast territory from the Tian Shan to the western shore of the Caspian Sea. Kazakh is the official state language of Kazakhstan, with nearly 10 million speakers (based on information from the CIA World Factbook[6] on population and proportion of Kazakh speakers).[7]

In China, nearly two million ethnic Kazakhs and Kazakh speakers reside in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang.

## History

The Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, which Kazakh is borne out of, was mainly solidified during the reign of the Golden Horde. The modern Kazakh language is said to have originated in approximately 1465 AD during the formation of the Kazakh Khanate. Modern Kazakh is likely a descendant of both Chagatay Turkic as spoken by the Timurids and Kipchak Turkic as spoken in the Golden Horde.

Kazakh uses a high volume of loanwords from Persian and Arabic due to the frequent historical interactions between Kazakhs and Iranian ethnic groups to the south. Additionally, Persian was a lingua franca in the Kazakh Khanate, which allowed Kazakhs to mix Persian words into their own spoken and written vernacular. Meanwhile, Arabic was used by Kazakhs in mosques and mausoleums, serving as a language exclusively for religious contexts, similar to how Latin served as a liturgical language in the Western European cultural sphere.

The Kazakhs used the Arabic script to write their language until approximately 1929. In the early 1900s, Kazakh activist Akhmet Baitursynuly reformed the Kazakh-Arabic alphabet, but his work was largely overshadowed by the Soviet presence in Central Asia. At that point, the new Soviet regime forced the Kazakhs to use a Latin script, and then a Cyrillic script in the 1940s. Today, Kazakhs use the Cyrillic and Latin scripts to write their language, although a presidential decree from 2017 ordered the transition from Cyrillic to Latin by 2031.

Although not an endangered language, in 2024, Kazakh has been described as being placed in a somewhat vulnerable position by the Kazakhstani Minister of Science and Higher Education Sayasat Nurbek, within a category where the number of speakers is not increasing as rapidly as anticipated.[8]

## Phonology and orthography

Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony, with some words of recent foreign origin (e.g., Russian, Persian, Arabic) as exceptions. There is also a system of rounding harmony which resembles that of Kyrgyz, but which does not apply as strongly and is not reflected in the orthography. This system only applies to the open vowels /e/, /ɪ/, /ʏ/ and not /ɑ/, and happens in the next syllables.[9] Thus, (in the Latin script) jūldyz 'star', bügın 'today', and ülken 'big' are actually pronounced as jūldūz, bügün, and ülkön, respectively.

### Consonants

The following chart depicts the consonant inventory of standard Kazakh;[lower-alpha 2] many of the sounds, however, are allophones of other sounds or appear only in recent loanwords. The 18 consonant phonemes listed by Vajda are without parentheses—since these are phonemes, their listed place and manner of articulation are very general, and will vary from what is shown. (/t͡s/ rarely appears in normal speech.) Kazakh has 19 native consonant phonemes; these are the stops /p, b, t, d, k, ɡ, q/, fricatives /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, ʁ/, nasals /m, n, ŋ/, liquids /r, l/, and two glides /w, j/.[10] The sounds /f, v, χ, h, t͡s, t͡ɕ/ are found only in loanwords. /ʒ/ is heard as an alveolo-palatal affricate [d͡ʒ] in the Kazakh dialects of Uzbekistan and China. The sounds [q] and [ʁ] may be analyzed as allophones of /k/ and /ɡ/ in words with back vowels, but exceptions occur in loanwords.[lower-alpha 3]

Kazakh consonant phonemes[11] | Labials  | Alveolar  | (Alveolo-)
palatal  | Velar  | Uvular

|
|
|
|
|

Nasal  | m ⟨м/m⟩ | n ⟨н/n⟩ |  | ŋ ⟨ң/ñ⟩
Stop  | voiceless | p ⟨п/p⟩ | t ⟨т/t⟩ |  | k ⟨к/k⟩ | q ⟨қ/q⟩
voiced | b ⟨б/b⟩ | d ⟨д/d⟩ |  | ɡ ⟨г/g⟩ |
Fricative  | voiceless |  | s ⟨с/s⟩ | ɕ ⟨ш/ş⟩ |  | (χ) ⟨х/h⟩
voiced |  | z ⟨з/z⟩ | ʑ ⟨ж/j⟩ |  | (ʁ) ⟨ғ/ğ⟩
Approximant  |  | l ⟨л/l⟩ | j ⟨й/i⟩ | w ⟨у/u⟩ |
Trill/Tap  |  | r ⟨р/r⟩ |  |  |

* Voiced obstruents syllable-finally become devoiced,[9] as normally indicated in the orthography.
* /ŋ/ can never occur in word initial position.
* /j, z, r, l, ʁ/ occur word-initially only in loanwords.
* /l/ is velarized [ɫ] in words with back vowels.
* Voiceless stops /p, t, k, q/ are aspirated [pʰ, tʰ, kʰ, qʰ], and the voice onset time is highest in word-initial position. If followed by another obstruent, they may be unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚, q̚].
* /r/ is often heard as a tap [ɾ] in rural speech, as well as in dialects spoken in China.

### Vowels

Kazakh has a system of 12 phonemic vowels, 3 of which are diphthongs. The rounding contrast and /æ/ generally only occur as phonemes in the first syllable of a word, but do occur later allophonically; see the section on harmony below for more information. Moreover, the /æ/ sound has been included artificially due to the influence of Arabic, Persian and, later, Tatar languages during the Islamic period.[12] It can be found in some native words, however.

According to Vajda, the front/back quality of vowels is actually one of neutral versus retracted tongue root.[11]

Phonetic values are paired with the corresponding character in Kazakh's Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.

Kazakh vowel phonemes  | Front
(Advanced tongue root)  | Central
(Relaxed tongue root)  | Back
(Retracted tongue root)

|
|
|

Close  | ɪ ⟨і/ı⟩ | ʉ ⟨ү/ü⟩ | ʊ ⟨ұ/ū⟩
Diphthong  | je ⟨е/e⟩ | əj ⟨и/i⟩ | ʊw ⟨у/u⟩
Mid  | e ⟨э/e⟩ | ə ⟨ы/y⟩ | o ⟨о/o⟩
Open  | æ ⟨ә/ä⟩ | ɵ ⟨ө/ö⟩ | ɑ ⟨а/a⟩
Kazakh vowels by their pronunciation  | Front and central  | Back

|
|

unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded
Close  | ɪ ⟨і/ı⟩ | ʉ ⟨ү/ü⟩ | ə ⟨ы/y⟩ | ʊ ⟨ұ/ū⟩
Open  | je̘ ⟨е/e⟩ / æ ⟨ә/ä⟩ | ɵ ⟨ө/ö⟩ | ɑ ⟨а/a⟩ | o ⟨о/o⟩

* There is significant debate over the Kazakh vowel phoneme chart, but all analysis agrees on an eight-vowel system with [æ] being artificially added due to influence from Arabic and Persian.
* The vowel /e/ is often pronounced [je̞] at the beginning of the word, with exceptional root e-. Urban Kazakh speakers have a greater tendency to palatalize all /e/, caused by Russian influence.[13]

### Vowel harmony

Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony (also called soft-hard harmony), and arguably weakened rounding harmony which is implied in the first syllable of the word. All vowels after the first rounded syllable are the subject to this harmony with the exception of /ɑ/, and in the following syllables, e.g., өмір [wɵˈmʉr], қосы [qʰoˈsʊ]. Notably, urban Kazakh speakers tend to violate rounding harmony, as well as pronouncing Russian borrowings against the rules.[13]

### Syllable structure

Kazakh's syllable structure is (C)V(C)(C). Syllables containing consonant clusters CC typically are combination of sonorant (/r, l, n, j/) and a stop (mainly /t/). Other types of syllables are also permitted due to recent loanwords, mainly from Russian.

### Stress

Most words in Kazakh are stressed in the last syllable, except:[14][15][16]

* When counting objects, numbers are stressed in the first syllable, but stressed in the last syllable in collective numbers suffixed by -eu (bıreu, altau from bır, alty):

bır, ekı, üş, tört, bes, alty, jetı, ...
'one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ...'

* Definite and negative pronouns are stressed in the first syllable:

bärıne eşkımge
'to everyone, to no one'

* Individual onomatopoeic words and interjections are stressed on the first syllable
* Certain suffixes do not take stress, including:
* the predicate suffixes -mın/-myn, -sıñ/-syñ, -mız/-myz (e.g., baqyttymyz [bɑχə̆tˈtʰəməz] 'we are happy', balasyñ [bɑˈɫɑsəŋ] 'you're a child')
* the suffixes -dei/-dai, -tei/-tai (e.g., börıdei [bɵˈrʉdʲej] 'like a wolf')
* the optative suffix -iın/-iyn (e.g., jazaiyn [ʒɑˈzɑjən] 'let's write')
* the negative suffixes -me/-ma, -be/-ba, -pe/-pa (e.g., jylama [ʒəˈɫɑmɑ] 'don't cry', qoryqpa [qʰoˈrʊqpʰɑ] 'fear not')
* particles and postpositions -şı/-şy (e.g., qaraşy! [qʰɑˈrɑʃə] 'look!'), ğoi, etc.

### Orthography

Main article: Social:Kazakh alphabets

Nowadays, Kazakh is mostly written in the Cyrillic script, with an Arabic-based alphabet being used by Kazakh speakers in China. On 26 October 2017, via Presidential Decree 569, Kazakhstan announced it would adopt the Latin script by 2025.[17][18] However, this transition has been delayed.

Since the Cyrillic alphabet was originally designed for Slavic languages, it had to be modified to better fit the sounds of Turkic languages like Kazakh. Several new letters were added and some existing ones modified: ә, ғ, қ, ң, ө, ұ, ү, һ, і.

The Cyrillic letter у after a consonant represents a combination of sounds /ɘ/, /ʉ/, ы /ə/, /ʊ/ with glide /w/,[19] e.g., кіру [kʰɘˈrɘw], су [sʊw], көру [kʰɵˈrʉw], атысу [ɑtʰə̆ˈsəw]. The Cyrillic letter ю undergoes the same process but with /j/ at the beginning.

The letter и represents a combination of sounds /ɘ/ (in front-vowel contexts) or /ə/ (in back vowel contexts) with glide /j/,[19] e.g., тиіс [tʰɘˈjɘ̆s], оқиды [woqʰəjˈdə]. In Russian loanwords, particularly in educated speech, it is often realized as /ʲi/ (when stressed) or /ʲɪ/ (when unstressed), e.g., изоморфизм [ɪzəmɐrˈfʲizm].

The letter я represents either /jɑ/ or /jæ/ depending on vowel harmony.

The letter щ represents /ʃː/, e.g. ащы [ɑʃˈʃə].

Meanwhile, the letters в, ё, ф, х, һ, ц, ч, ъ, ь, э are only used in loanwords—mostly those of Russian origin, but sometimes of Persian and Arabic origin. They are often substituted in spoken Kazakh.

The table below compares the various scripts.

IPA[20][21] | Cyrillic  | Latin  | Arabic  | Braille

|
|
|
|

2021[22] | 2018[23][24] | 2017 | Letter | Name
kk | А а  | A a | ا | Alif | ⠁
kk | Ә ә | Ä ä | Á á | A' a' | ٵ | Hamza + Alif | ⠜
kk | Б б | B b | ب | Ba | ⠃
kk | В в | V v | ۆ | Waw with háček | ⠺
kk | Г г | G g | گ | Gaf | ⠛
kk | Ғ ғ | Ğ ğ | Ǵ ǵ | G' g' | غ | Ghain | ⠻
kk | Д д | D d | د | Dal | ⠙
kk | Е е  | E e | ە | Ha | ⠑
kk | Ё ё | İo io | Io ıo | N/A | (يو) | Ya + Waw | ⠡
kk | Ж ж | J j | ج | Jeem | ⠚
kk | З з | Z z | ز | Za | ⠵
kk | И и | İ i | I ı | I' i' |  ي | Ya | ⠊
kk | Й й | ⠽
kk | К к | K k | ك | Kaf | ⠅
kk | Қ қ | Q q | ق | Qaf | ⠹
kk | Л л | L l | ل | Lam | ⠇
kk | М м | M m | م | Meem | ⠍
kk | Н н | N n | ن | Noon | ⠝
kk | Ң ң | Ñ ñ | Ń ń | N' n' | ڭ | Kaf with three dots | ⠩
kk | О о  | O o | و | Waw | ⠕
kk | Ө ө | Ö ö | Ó ó | O' o' | ٶ | Hamza + Waw | ⠣
kk | П п | P p | پ | Pa | ⠏
kk | Р р | R r | ر | Ra | ⠗
kk | С с | S s | س | Seen | ⠎
kk | Т т | T t | ت | Ta | ⠞
kk | У у | U u | Ý ý | Y' y' | ۋ | Waw with 3 dots | ⠥
kk | Ұ ұ | Ū ū | U u | ۇ | Waw with damma | ⠌
kk | Ү ү | Ü ü | Ú ú | U' u' | ٷ | Hamza + Waw with damma | ⠬
kk | Ф ф | F f | ف | Fa | ⠋
kk | Һ һ | H h | ھ | Ha | ⠓
kk | Х х | خ | Kha | ⠓
kk | Ц ц | Ts ts | S s | N/A | (تس) | Ta + Seen | ⠉
kk | Ч ч | Tş tş | Ch ch | C' c' | چ | Cheem | ⠟
kk | Ш ш | Ş ş | Sh sh | S' s' | ش | Sheen | ⠱
kk | Щ щ | Ştş ştş | Shch shch | N/A | (شش) | Sheen + Sheen | ⠭
N/A  | Ъ ъ | N/A | ⠷
kk | Ы ы | Y y | ى | Alif maqṣūrah | ⠮
kk | І і | I ı | I i | ئ | Hamza + Ya | ⠊
N/A  | Ь ь | N/A | ⠾
kk | Э э | E e | N/A | (ە) | Ha | ⠪
kk | Ю ю | İu iu | Iý ıý | ( يۋ ) | Ya + Waw with damma | ⠳
kk | Я я | İa ia | Ia ıa | (يا) | Ya + Alif | ⠫

## Grammar

Kazakh is generally verb-final, though various permutations on SOV (subject–object–verb) word order can be used, for example, due to topicalization.[25] Inflectional and derivational morphology, both verbal and nominal, in Kazakh, exists almost exclusively in the form of agglutinative suffixes. Kazakh is a nominative-accusative, head-final, left-branching, dependent-marking language.[26]

### Nouns

Kazakh has no noun class or gender system. Nouns are declined for number (singular or plural) and one of seven cases:

* Nominative
* Accusative
* Genitive
* Dative
* Locative
* Ablative
* Instrumental[12]

The suffix for case is placed after the suffix for number.

Declension of nouns for case[26] Case  | Morpheme  | Possible forms  | keme 'ship' | aua 'air' | şelek 'bucket' | säbız 'carrot' | bas 'head' | tūz 'salt' | qan 'blood' | kün 'day'

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

Nom  | — | — | keme | aua | şelek | säbız | bas | tūz | qan | kün
Acc  | -ny | -nı, -ny, -dı, -dy, -tı, -ty | kemenı | auany | şelektı | säbızdı | basty | tūzdy | qandy | kündı
Gen  | -nyñ | -nıñ, -nyñ, -dıñ, -dyñ, -tıñ, -tyñ | kemenıñ | auanyñ | şelektıñ | säbızdıñ | bastyñ | tūzdyñ | qannyñ | künnıñ
Dat  | -ga | -ge, -ğa, -ke, -qa | kemege | auağa | şelekke | säbızge | basqa | tūzğa | qanğa | künge
Loc  | -da | -de, -da, -te, -ta | kemede | auada | şelekte | säbızde | basta | tūzda | qanda | künde
Abl  | -dan | -den, -dan, -ten, -tan, -nen, -nan | kemeden | auadan | şelekten | säbızden | bastan | tūzdan | qannan | künnen
Inst  | -men | -men(en), -ben(en), -pen(en) | kememen | auamen | şelekpen | säbızben | baspen | tūzben | qanmen | künmen
Declension of nouns for number[12] | Morpheme  | Possible

Forms

| bala

'child'

| kirpi

'hedgehog'

| qazaq

'Kazakh'

| mektep

'school'

| adam

'person'

| gül

'flower'

| söz

'word'

|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|

singular  | –  | –  | bala | kirpi | qazaq | mektep | adam | gül | söz
plural  | -lar | -lar, -ler, -ter, -tar, -der, -dar | balalar | kirpiler | qazaqtar | mektepter | adamdar | gülder | sözder

### Pronouns

There are eight personal pronouns in Kazakh:

Personal pronouns[26] | Singular  | Plural

|
|

1st person  | men | bız
2nd person  | informal | sen | sender
formal | sız | sızder
3rd person  | ol | olar

The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart. Singular pronouns exhibit irregularities, while plural pronouns do not. Irregular forms are highlighted in bold.[26]

Number | Singular | Plural

|
|

Person | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 1st | 2nd | 3rd
Familiar | Polite | Familiar | Polite
Nominative  | men | sen | sız | ol | bız | sender | sızder | olar
Genitive  | menıñ | senıñ | sızdıñ | onyñ | bızdıñ | senderdıñ | sızderdıñ | olardyñ
Dative  | mağan | sağan | sızge | oğan | bızge | senderge | sızderge | olarğa
Accusative  | menı | senı | sızdı | ony | bızdı | senderdı | sızderdı | olardy
Locative  | mende | sende | sızde | onda | bızde | senderde | sızderde | olarda
Ablative  | menen | senen | sızden | odan | bızden | senderden | sızderden | olardan
Instrumental  | menımen | senımen | sızben | onymen | bızben | sendermen | sızdermen | olarmen

In addition to the pronouns, there are several more sets of morphemes dealing with person.[26]

Morphemes indicating person[26] | Pronouns | Copulas | Possessive endings | Past/Conditional

|
|
|
|

1st sg  | men | -mın/-myn | -(ı)m/-(y)m | -(ı)m/-(y)m
2nd sg  | sen | -sıñ/-syñ | -(ı)ñ/-(y)ñ | -(ı)ñ
2nd sg formal  | sız | -sız/-syz | -(ı)ñız/-(y)ñyz | -(ı)ñız/-(y)ñyz
3rd sg  | ol | – | -(s)ı/-(s)y | –
1st pl  | bız | -mız/-myz | -(ı)mız/-(y)myz | -(ı)k/-(y)q
2nd pl  | sender | -sıñder/-syñdar | -laryñ/-lerıñ | -(ı)ñder/-(y)ñdar
2nd pl formal  | sızder | -sızder/-syzdar | -(ı)ñız/-(y)ñyz | -(ı)ñızder/-(y)ñyzdar
3rd pl  | olar | – | -lary/-lerı | –

### Adjectives

Adjectives in Kazakh are not declined for any grammatical category of the modified noun. Being a head-final language, adjectives are always placed before the noun that they modify. Kazakh has two varieties of adjectives:

* Qualitative – used to describe properties of the noun, such as color
* Relational – adjectives formed from words from other parts of speech[12]

### Degrees of comparison

#### Comparative

The comparative form can be created by appending the suffix -(y)raq/-(ı)rek or -tau/-teu/-dau/-dau to an adjective.

#### Superlative

The superlative form can be created by placing the morpheme eñ before the adjective.[12] The superlative form can also be expressed by reduplication.[27]

### Verbs

Kazakh may express different combinations of tense, aspect and mood through the use of various verbal morphology or through a system of auxiliary verbs, many of which might better be considered light verbs. The present tense is a prime example of this; progressive tense in Kazakh is formed with one of four possible auxiliaries. These auxiliaries otyr 'sit', tūr 'stand', jür 'go' and jat 'lie', encode various shades of meaning of how the action is carried out and also interact with the lexical semantics of the root verb: telic and non-telic actions, semelfactives, durative and non-durative, punctual, etc. There are selectional restrictions on auxiliaries: motion verbs, such as бару 'go' and келу 'come' may not combine with otyr. Any verb, however, can combine with jat 'lie' to get a progressive tense meaning.[26]

Progressive aspect in the present tense[26] Kazakh | Aspect | English translation

|
|

Men jüzemın | non-progressive | 'I (will) swim [every day].'
Men jüzıp jatyrmyn | progressive | 'I am swimming [right now].'
Men jüzıp otyrmyn | progressive/durative | 'I am [sitting and] swimming. / I have been swimming.'
Men jüzıp tūrmyn | progressive/punctual | 'I am [in the middle of] swimming [this very minute].'
Men jüzıp jürmın | habitual | 'I swim [frequently/regularly]'

While it is possible to think that different categories of aspect govern the choice of auxiliary, it is not so straightforward in Kazakh. Auxiliaries are internally sensitive to the lexical semantics of predicates, for example, verbs describing motion:[26]

Selectional restrictions on Kazakh auxiliaries[26] Sentence  | Auxiliary Used

|

Script error: No such module "Interlinear". | ∅ (present/future tense used)
Script error: No such module "Interlinear". | jat－ 'to lie', general marker for progressive aspect.
Script error: No such module "Interlinear". | jür – 'go', dynamic/habitual/iterative
Script error: No such module "Interlinear". | tūr – 'stand', progressive marker to show the swimming is punctual
Script error: No such module "Interlinear".

Not a possible sentence in Kazakh

| otyr – 'sit', ungrammatical in this sentence; otyr can only be used for verbs that are stative in nature

In addition to the complexities of the progressive tense, there are many auxiliary-converb pairs that encode a range of aspectual, modal, volitional, evidential and action- modificational meanings. For example, the pattern verb + köru, with the auxiliary verb köru 'see', indicates that the subject of the verb attempted or tried to do something (compare the Japanese てみる temiru construction).[26]

## Annotated text with gloss

From the first stanza and refrain of "Menıñ Qazaqstanym" ("My Kazakhstan"), the national anthem of Kazakhstan:

Менің Қазақстаным | Men-ıñ Qazaqstan-ym

|

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## See also

* BGN/PCGN romanization of Kazakh
* Turkic languages
* Kazakh literature
* Languages of Kazakhstan
* Kazakh Sign Language
* Help:IPA for Kazakh

## Notes

1. ↑

* Cyrillic script: қазақша or қазақ тілі
* Latin script: qazaqşa or qazaq tılı
* Arabic script: قازاقشا or قازاق ٴتىلى
* kk or kk[3][4]

2. ↑ Some variations occur in different regions where Kazakh is spoken, including outside Kazakhstan; e.g., j/ж/ج is read [ʒ] in the Kazakhstani standard, but may be pronounced [d͡ʒ] in China (Xinjiang), Iran (Golestan), and in southern Kazakhstan (Turkistan).
3. ↑ This is indicated in the orthographies of Kazakh, as each pair is represented with different graphemes: q/ق/қ, ğ/ع/ғ for [q, ʁ]; k/ك/к, g/گ/г for [k, g].

## References

1. ↑ "Статья 4. Правовое положение языков". https://base.garant.ru/32100423/1b93c134b90c6071b4dc3f495464b753/.
2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Kazakh". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/kaza1248.
3. ↑ "Произношение букв – kazaktili.kz" (in ru). kazaktili.kz. https://kaz-tili.kz/su_fonetika.htm.
4. ↑ "Kazakh (Қазақ тілі / Qazaq tili / قازاق ٴتىلى) – Omniglot" (in en). https://omniglot.com/writing/kazakh.htm.
5. ↑ "Kazakhstan to change from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet" (in en-GB). 27 October 2017. https://emerging-europe.com/news/kazakhstans-alphabet-switch-reflects-wider-societal-changes/.
6. ↑ "Central Asia: Kazakhstan". The 2017 World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. 26 October 2017. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/kazakhstan/.
7. ↑ "TITUS Didactica: Language Map: Turkic languages: Map frame". https://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/turk/turklm.htm.
8. ↑ Najafzada, Leyla (25 October 2024). "Introducing Kazakh to Oxford: An Interview with Minister Sayasat Nurbek" (in en-GB). Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. https://www.ames.ox.ac.uk/article/interview-kazakh-minister-higher-education-and-science.
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Произношение букв | kaz-tili.kz". https://kaz-tili.kz/su_fonetika.htm.
10. ↑ Öner, Özçelik. Kazakh phonology (PDF) (Thesis). Cambridge University.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Vajda, Edward (1994), "Kazakh phonology", Essays presented in honor of Henry Schwarz, Washington: Western Washington, pp. 603–650
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Wagner, John Doyle; Dotton, Zura. A Grammar of Kazakh. https://slaviccenters.duke.edu/sites/slaviccenters.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/kazakh-grammar.pdf.
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Muhamedowa, Raihan (2016-09-24) (in English). Kazakh: A Comprehensive Grammar (1st ed.). London New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-82863-6.
14. ↑ "Ударение". https://kaz-tili.kz/gl05.htm.
15. ↑ Kaidarov (1997). Kazakh language. // Languages of the World: Turkic languages. pp. 242–254. ISBN 5-85759-061-2.
16. ↑ Kenesbaev & Karasheva (1966). Kazakh language. // Languages of the Peoples of the USSR: Turkic languages. pp. 320–339.
17. ↑ "Error: no `|title=` specified when using {{Cite web}}" (in RU). President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 26 October 2017. http://www.akorda.kz/ru/legal_acts/decrees/o-perevode-alfavita-kazahskogo-yazyka-s-kirillicy-na-latinskuyu-grafiku.Error:+no+`|title=`+specified when+using+{{[[Template:Cite+web|Cite+web]]}}&rft.atitle=&rft.date=26+October+2017&rft.pub=President+of+the+Republic+of+Kazakhstan&rft_id=http://www.akorda.kz/ru/legal_acts/decrees/o-perevode-alfavita-kazahskogo-yazyka-s-kirillicy-na-latinskuyu-grafiku&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikibooks.org:Social:Kazakh_language">
18. ↑ Illmer, Andreas; Daniyarov, Elbek; Rakhimov, Azim (31 October 2017). "Kazakhstan to Qazaqstan: Why would a country switch its alphabet?". BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41800186.
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Произношение букв | kaz-tili.kz". https://kaz-tili.kz/su_fonetika.htm.
20. ↑ Vajda, Edward (1994), "Kazakh phonology", Essays presented in honor of Henry Schwarz, Washington: Western Washington, pp. 603–650
21. ↑ McCollum, Adam (2015), "Labial Harmonic Shift in Kazakh: Mapping the Pathways and Motivations for Decay", Proceedings of the Forty-First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 41, Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 329–351
22. ↑ Tengrinews.kz. 22 April 2021. https://tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_news/novyiy-kazahskiy-alfavit-latinitse-predstavlen-proekt-ukaza-435370/.
23. ↑ "Qazaq álipbıi". https://www.qazlatyn.kz/alphabet.
24. ↑ "Mátindik konverter". https://www.qazlatyn.kz/converter/text.
25. ↑ "Центр" (in ru). https://www.beltranslations.com/Languages/Kaz-EN.html.
26. ↑ 26.00 26.01 26.02 26.03 26.04 26.05 26.06 26.07 26.08 26.09 26.10 Mukhamedova, Raikhangul (2015). Kazakh: A Comprehensive Grammar. Routledge. ISBN 9781317573081.
27. ↑ Dotton, Zura; Doyle Wagner, John. "A Grammar of Kazakh". Duke University: 53. https://slaviccenters.duke.edu/sites/slaviccenters.duke.edu/files/file-attachments/kazakh-grammar.pdf.

## Further reading

* Kara, Dävid Somfai (2002), Kazak, Lincom Europa, ISBN 9783895864704
* Mark Kirchner: "Kazakh and Karakalpak". In: The Turkic languages. Ed. by Lars Johanson and É. Á. Csató. London [u.a.] : Routledge, 1998. (Routledge language family descriptions). S.318–332.
* Template:Cite JIPA

## External links

|  қазақша edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

|

| Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Kazakh.

|

* Kazakh Cyrillic–Latin (new) converter
* Kazakh Cyrillic–Latin (old)–Arabic converter
* Kazakh language, alphabet and pronunciation
* Aliya S. Kuzhabekova, "Past, Present and Future of Language Policy in Kazakhstan" (M.A. thesis, University of North Dakota, 2003)
* Kazakh language recordings , British Library
* Kazakh – Apertium
* Kazakh<>Turkish Dictionary
* Kazakhstan in the CIA World Factbook
* US Peace Corps Kazakh Language Courses transcribed to HTML

Links to related articles

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|

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|

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Oghur|

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