Kazakh (also
Qazaq and variants,
natively , , ; pronounced ) is a
Turkic
language closely related to
Kyrgyz and
Karakalpak.
Kazakh is an
agglutinative
language, and it employs
vowel
harmony.
Geographic distribution
The Kazakh
language has its speakers (mainly Kazakhs)
spread over a vast territory from the Tian Shan mountains
to the Ural mountains
. Kazakh is the official state language of
Kazakhstan
, in which nearly 10 million speakers are reported
to live (based on the CIA World Factbook's estimates for population
and percentage of Kazakh speakers). More than a million
speakers reside in China
's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region.The
2002 Russian
Census reported 560,000 Kazakh speakers in Russia.
Other sizable
populations of Kazakh speakers live in Mongolia
(fewer than
200,000). Large numbers exist elsewhere in Central Asia (mostly in Uzbekistan
) and the former Soviet Union
, and in Afghanistan
, Iran
, Turkey
and other
countries. There are also some Kazakh speakers in
Germany
who
immigrated from Turkey in the 1970s.
Writing system
Today, Kazakh is written in the
Cyrillic alphabet in Kazakhstan and
Mongolia, while the more than one million Kazakh-speakers in China
use an
Arabic-derived script similar
to that used to write
Uyghur.
The oldest known written records of languages closely related to
Kazakh were written in the
Orkhon
script. However, it is not believed that any of these varieties
were direct predecessors of Kazakh. Modern Kazakh has historically
been written using versions of the
Latin,
Cyrillic and
Arabic scripts.
In October 2006,
Nursultan
Nazarbayev, the
President of
Kazakhstan, brought up the topic of using the Latin alphabet
instead of the Cyrillic alphabet as the official script for Kazakh
in Kazakhstan. A Kazakh government study released in September 2007
said that Kazakhstan could feasibly switch to a Latin script over a
10 to 12 year period, for a cost of $300 million. On December 13,
2007, however, President Nazarbayev announced a decision not to
advance the transformation to a Latin alphabet: “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”.
Phonology
Kazakh exhibits
tongue-root
vowel harmony, with some words of
recent foreign origin (usually of
Russian or
Arabic 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 in bold—since these are phonemes, their listed
place and manner of articulation are very general, and will vary
from what is shown. The borrowed phonemes , , , and , only occur in
recent mostly Russian borrowings, and are shown in parentheses ( )
in the table below.
In the table, the elements left of a divide are
voiceless, while those to the right are voiced.
Kazakh consonant phonemes
Vowels
Kazakh has a system of nine phonemic vowels, three of which
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.
According to Vajda, the front/back quality of vowels is actually
one of neutral versus
retracted
tongue root.
Per convention,
rounded vowels are
presented to the right of their
unrounded counterparts. Phonetic values are
paired with the corresponding character in Kazakh's Cyrillic
alphabet.
Morphology and syntax
Kazakh is generally verb-final, though various permutations on SOV
word order can be used. Verbal and nominal
morphology in Kazakh exists almost
exclusively in the form of
agglutinative suffixes.
Case
Kazakh has 7 cases. Case endings are applied only to the last
element of a noun phrase—e.g., a noun, an adject, or a nominalised
verb phrase. The endings outlined in the chart below are applied to
a word ending in a front vowel, a word ending in a back vowel, a
word ending in each of those with a voiced consonant, and a word
ending with each of this and an unvoiced consonant. Note that the
suffixes for the instrumental case do not follow vowel harmony—the
vowel is a front vowel regardless of the other vowels in the
word.
Declension of nouns
| Case |
Morpheme |
Possible forms |
кеме "ship" |
ауа "air" |
шелек "bucket" |
сәбіз "carrot" |
бас "head" |
тұз "salt" |
| Nom |
— |
— |
кеме |
ауа |
шелек |
сәбіз |
бас |
тұз |
| Acc |
-NI |
-ні, -ны, -ді, -ды, -ті, -ты, -н |
кемені |
ауаны |
шелекті |
сәбізді |
басты |
тұзды |
| Gen |
-NIŋ |
-нің, -ның, -дің, -дың, -тің, -тың |
кеменің |
ауаның |
шелектің |
сәбіздің |
бастың |
тұздың |
| Dat |
-GA |
-ге, -ға, -ке, -қа, -не, -на |
кемеге |
ауаға |
шелекке |
сәбізге |
басқа |
тұзға |
| Loc |
-DA |
-де, -да, -те, -та |
кемеде |
ауада |
шелекте |
сәбізде |
баста |
тұзда |
| Abl |
-DAn |
-ден, -дан, -тен, -тан, -нен, -нан |
кемеден |
ауадан |
шелектен |
сәбізден |
бастан |
тұздан |
| Inst |
-Men |
-мен(ен) -бен(ен) -пен(ен) |
кемемен |
ауамен |
шелекпен |
сәбізбен |
баспен |
тұзбен |
Pronouns
Kazakh has eight personal pronouns:
Personal pronouns
| Singular |
Plural |
| Kazakh (transliteration) |
English |
Kazakh (transliteration) |
English |
| Мен (Men) |
I |
Біз (Biz) |
We |
| Сен (Sen) |
You (singular informal) |
Сендер (Sender) |
You (plural informal) |
| Сіз (Siz) |
You (singular formal) |
Сіздер (Sizder) |
You (plural formal) |
| Ол (Ol) |
He/She/It |
Олар (Olar) |
They |
The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart.
Singular pronouns (with the exception of сіз, which used to be
plural) exhibit irregularities, while plural pronouns don't.
Irregular forms are highlighted in bold.
Declension of pronouns
| Nom |
мен |
сен |
сіз |
ол |
біз |
сендер |
сіздер |
олар |
| Acc |
мені |
сені |
сізді |
оны |
бізді |
сендерді |
сіздерді |
оларді |
| Gen |
менің |
сенің |
сіздің |
оның |
біздің |
сендердің |
сіздердің |
олардың |
| Dat |
маған |
саған |
сізге |
оған |
бізге |
сендерге |
сіздерге |
оларға |
| Loc |
менде |
сенде |
сізде |
онда |
бізде |
сендерде |
сіздерде |
оларда |
| Abl |
менен |
сенен |
сізден |
онан |
бізден |
сендерден |
сіздерден |
олардан |
| Inst |
менімен |
сенімен |
сізбен |
онымен |
бізбен |
сендермен |
сіздермен |
олармен |
In addition to the pronouns, there are several more sets of
morphemes dealing with person.
Morphemes indicating person
|
pronouns |
copulas |
possessive endings |
past/conditional |
| 1st sg |
мен |
-MIn |
-(I)m |
-(I)m |
| 2nd sg |
сен |
-sIŋ |
-(I)ŋ |
-(I)ŋ |
| 2nd formal sg |
сіз |
-sIz |
-(I)ŋIz |
-(I)ŋIz |
| 3rd sg |
ол |
— |
-(s)I(n) |
— |
| 1st pl |
біз |
-MIz |
-(I)mIz |
-(I)K |
| 2nd pl |
сендер |
-sIŋdAr |
-(I)ŋ |
-(I)ŋ |
| 2nd formal pl |
сіздер |
-sIzdAr |
-(I)ŋIz |
-(I)nIz |
| 3rd pl |
олар |
— |
-(s)I(n) |
— |
Tense/Aspect/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. For example, the (imperfect) present
tense in Kazakh bears different aspectual information depending on
whether basic present-tense morphology is used, or one of
(commonly) four verbs is used:
Aspect in the Present Tense in Kazakh
| Kazakh |
aspect |
English translation |
| Жеймін |
non-progressive |
"I eat." |
| Жеп жатырмын |
progressive |
"I am eating [right now]." |
| Жеп отырмын |
progressive/durative |
"I am [sitting and] eating." / "I have been eating." |
| Жеп тұрмын |
progressive/punctual |
"I am [in the middle of] eating [this very minute]." |
| Жеп жүрмін |
habitual/frequentative |
"I eat [e.g., lunch at home every day]." |
Evidentiality
Kazakh exhibits an
evidentiality
system which does not neatly align with morphological
paradigms.
- тазалап тастапты - he cleaned it and I saw the result
- тазалап тастаған - he cleaned it, I saw the result and verified
it with him
- тазалап тастаған екен - he cleaned it and told me, but I
probably didn't see the results
- тазалап тастады - he cleaned it and I saw him clean it
- тазалап тастағанға ұқсайды - he cleaned it, or so I infer from
a result I saw which suggests this
- тазалап тастаған шығар - he cleaned it, or so I infer from a
result I saw which suggests this
See also
References
- The most common English spelling, Kazakh, is from the
Russian name, .
- Kazakhstan switching to Latin alphabet
- Kazakh President Revives Idea of Switching to Latin
Script
- Kazakhstan: Moving Forward With Plan to Replace
Cyrillic With Latin Alphabet
- Kazakhstan should be in no hurry in Kazakh alphabet
transformation to Latin: Nazarbayev, Kazinform, December 13,
2007
- Some variations occur in the different regions where Kazakh is
spoken, including outside Kazakhstan; e.g. ж / ج (where the
so-called “Uyghur” (Perso-Arabic)
script is used) is read [ʒ] in standard Kazakh, but [d͡ʒ] in some
places.
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.
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