Kazakh language


Kazakh or Kazak, is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. Kazakh is the official language of Kazakhstan and a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of Mongolia. Kazakh is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs through the former Soviet Union, Germany, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan.
Like other Turkic languages, Kazakh is an agglutinative language and it employs vowel harmony.
In October 2017, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the government would transition from using Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet by 2025. President Nazarbayev signed on 19 February 2018 an amendment to the decree of 26 October 2017 No. 569 "On translating the Kazakh alphabet from Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin script." The amended alphabet uses and for the Kazakh sounds and, respectively and eliminates the use of apostrophes.

Geographic distribution

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

Writing system

The oldest known written records of languages closely related to Kazakh were written in the Old Turkic alphabet, though it is not believed that any of these varieties were direct predecessors of Kazakh. Modern Kazakh, going back approximately one thousand years, was written in the Arabic script until 1929, when Soviet authorities introduced a Latin-based alphabet, and then a Cyrillic alphabet in 1940.
Nazarbayev first brought up the topic of using the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet as the official script for Kazakh in Kazakhstan in October 2006. A Kazakh government study released in September 2007 said that a switch to a Latin script over a 10- to 12-year period was feasible, at a cost of $300 million. The transition was halted temporarily on 13 December 2007, with President Nazarbayev declaring: "For 70 years the Kazakhstanis read and wrote in Cyrillic. More than 100 nationalities live in our state. Thus we need stability and peace. We should be in no hurry in the issue of alphabet transformation." However, on 30 January 2015, the Minister of Culture and Sports Arystanbek Mukhamediuly announced that a transition plan was underway, with specialists working on the orthography to accommodate the phonological aspects of the language. In presenting this strategic plan in April 2017, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev described the twentieth century as a period in which the "Kazakh language and culture have been devastated".
Nazarbayev ordered Kazakh authorities to create a Latin Kazakh alphabet by the end of 2017, so written Kazakh could return to a Latin script starting in 2018. , Kazakh is written in Cyrillic in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, Kazakh is written in Latin in Kazakhstan, while more than one million Kazakh speakers in China use an Arabic-derived alphabet similar to the one that is used to write Uyghur.
On 26 October 2017, Nazarbayev issued Presidential Decree 569 for the change to a finalized Latin variant of the Kazakh alphabet and ordered that the government's transition to this alphabet be completed by 2025, a decision taken to emphasise Kazakh culture after the era of Soviet rule and to facilitate the use of digital devices. But the initial decision to use a novel orthography employing apostrophes, which make the use of many popular tools for searching and writing text difficult, has generated controversy.
The alphabet was revised the following year by Presidential Decree 637 of 19 February 2018 and the use of apostrophes was discontinued and replaced with the use of diacritics and digraphs. However, many citizens state that the officially introduced alphabet needs much improvements. Moreover, Kazakh became the second Turkic language to use the "ch" and "sh" digraphs after the Uzbek government adapted them in their version of the Latin alphabet.
In October 2019, President Tokayev expressed his concerns about all three versions of Latin alphabet and asked linguists to propose a more thoughtful version without haste. A new version of the alphabet, elaborated by the Baitursynov Institute of Linguistics and specialists from the official working group on script transition, was proposed in November 2019, using breves, umlauts and cedillas instead of accents and digraphs and introducing spelling changes to stick more accurately to Kazakh phonology.

Phonology

Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony, with some words of recent foreign origin 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.

Consonants

The following chart depicts the consonant inventory of standard Kazakh; many of the sounds, however, are allophones of other sounds or appear only in recent loan-words. 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. The phonemes, and only occur in recent borrowings, mostly from Russian.
In the table, the elements left of a divide are voiceless, while those to the right are voiced.

Vowels

Kazakh has a system of 12 phonemic vowels, 3 of which are diphthongs. The rounding contrast and 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 sound has been included artificially due to the influence of Arabic, Persian and, later, Tatar languages during the Islamic period. The letter "e" is often palatalised due to Russian influence.
According to Vajda, the front/back quality of vowels is actually one of neutral versus retracted tongue root.
Phonetic values are paired with the corresponding character in Kazakh's Cyrillic and current Latin alphabets.
Front
Central
Back
Close
Diphthong
Mid
Open

Morphology and syntax

Kazakh is generally verb-final, though various permutations on SOV word order can be used, for example, due to topicalization. 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.
CaseMorphemePossible formskeme "ship"aýa "air"shelek "bucket"sábiz "carrot"bas "head"tuz "salt"
Nom——kemeaýasheleksábizbastuz
Acc-ny-ni, -ny, -di, -dy, -ti, -tykemeniaýanyshelektisábizdibastytuzdy
Gen-nyń-niń, -nyń, -diń, -dyń, -tiń, -tyńkemenińaýanyńshelektińsábizdińbastyńtuzdyń
Dat-ga-ge, -ǵa, -ke, -qa, -ne, -nakemegeaýaǵashelekkesábizgebasqatuzǵa
Loc-da-de, -da, -te, -takemedeaýadashelektesábizdebastatuzda
Abl-dan-den, -dan, -ten, -tan, -nen, -nankemedenaýadanshelektensábizdenbastantuzdan
Inst-men-men, -ben, -penkememenaýamenshelekpensábizbenbaspentuzben

Pronouns

There are eight personal pronouns in Kazakh:
The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart. Singular pronouns exhibit irregularities, while plural pronouns don't. Irregular forms are highlighted in bold.
In addition to the pronouns, there are several more sets of morphemes dealing with person.
pronounscopulaspossessive endingspast/conditional-
1st sgmen-mın-m-m
2nd sgsen-sıń-ń-ń
3rd sgol-/-dır-—
1st plbiz-bız-mız-k/-q
2nd sng formal & plsiz-sız-ńız-ńız/-ńyz
3rd plolar-/-dır——

Tense, aspect and mood

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", "tur", "júr" and "jat", 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 and келу may not combine with "otyr". Any verb, however, can combine with "jat" to get a progressive tense meaning.
KazakhAspectEnglish translation
Men jeıminnon-progressive"I eat ."
Men jeýdeminprogressive"I am eating ."
Men jep otyrmynprogressive/durative"I am eating." / "I have been eating."
Men jep turmynprogressive/punctual"I am eating ."
Men jep júrminhabitual"I eat "

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:
KazakhGlossAuxiliary UsedEnglish translation
Sýda balyq júzediwater-LOC fish swim-PRES-3∅
"Fish swim in water"
Sýda balyq júzip jatyrwater-LOC fish swim-CNVB AUX.3jat－ to lie, general marker for
progressive aspect.		"The/A fish is swimming in the water"
Sýda balyq júzip júrwater-LOC fish swim-CNVB AUX.3júr – "go", dynamic/habitual/iterative"The fish is swimming in the water"
Sýda balyq júzip turwater-LOC fish swim-CNVB AUX.3tur – "stand", progressive marker to show
the swimming is punctual		"The fish is swimming in the water"
* Sýda balyq júzip otyrwater-LOC fish swim-CNVB AUX.3otyr – "sit", ungrammatical in
this sentence, otyr can only be used
for verbs that are stative in nature		*The fish has been swimming
Not a possible sentence of Kazakh

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 -yp kórý, with the auxiliary verb kórý, indicates that the subject of the verb attempted or tried to do something.

Annotated text with gloss

From the first stanza of "Meniń Qazaqstanym", the national anthem of Kazakhstan:
Менің ҚазақстанымMen-iń Qazaqstan-ymMy Kazakhstan
Алтын күн аспаныAltyn kún aspan-yThe golden sun in the sky
gold sun sky-3.POSS
Алтын дән даласыAltyn dán dala-syThe golden corn of the steppe
gold corn steppe-3.POSS
Ерліктің дастаныErlik-tiń dastan-yThe legend of courage
courage legend-GEN epic-3.POSS-NOM
Еліме қарашы!El-im-e qara-shyJust look at my country!
country-1SG.ACC look-IMP
Ежелден ер дегенEjel-den er de-genCalled heroes since time immemorial
antiquity-ABL hero say-PTCP.PST
Даңқымыз шықты ғойDańq-ymyz shyq-ty ǵoıOur glory, emerged!
glory-1PL.POSS.NOM emerge-PST.3 EMPH
Намысын бермегенNamys-yn ber-me-genWithout losing their honor
honor-3.POSS-ACC give-NEG-PTCP.PST
Қазағым мықты ғойQazaǵ-ym myqty ǵoıMighty are my Kazakh people!
Kazakh-1SG.POSS strong EMPH
Менің елім, менің елімMen-iń el-im, meniń el-imMy country, my country
1SG.GEN my country -1SG.NOM
Гүлің болып, егілемінGúl-iń bol-yp, eg-il-e-minAs your flower, I am rooted in you
flower-2SG.NOM be-CNVB, root-PASS-PRES-1SG
Жырың болып төгілемін, елімJyr-yń bol-yp, tóg-il-e-min, el-imAs your song, I will be sung abound
song-2SG.NOM be-CNVB, sing-PASS-PRES-1SG, country-1SG.POSS.NOM
Туған жерім менің – ҚазақстанымTý-ǵan jer-im meniń – Qazaqstan-ymMy native land – My Kazakhstan
birth-PTCP-PST place-1SG.POSS.NOM 1SG.GEN – Kazakhstan-1SG.POSS.NOM

Comparison with Kyrgyz

Kazakh and Kyrgyz may be better seen a mutually intelligible dialects or varieties of a single tongue which are regarded as separate languages for sociopolitical reasons. They differ mainly phonetically while the lexicon and grammar are much the same, although both have standardized written forms that may differ in some ways. Until the 20th century, both languages used a common written form of Chaghatai Turki.
While both languages share common loanwords from Farsi and Arabic, Kyrgyz lexicon includes much wider range of Mongolian loanwords.