Like other Turkic languages, Kazakh is anagglutinative language and employsvowel 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 theAltai languages.
In October 2017, Kazakh presidentNursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the writing system would change from usingCyrillic toLatin script by 2025. The proposed Latin alphabet has been revised several times and as of January 2021 is close to the inventory of theTurkish 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 inXinjiang use a modified version of thePerso-Arabic script for writing.
Speakers of Kazakh are spread over a vast territory from theTian Shan to the western shore of theCaspian Sea. Kazakh is the official state language of Kazakhstan, with nearly 10 million speakers (based on information from theCIA World Factbook[6] on population and proportion of Kazakh speakers).[7]
TheKipchak branch of Turkic languages, which Kazakh is borne out of, was mainly solidified during the reign of theGolden Horde. The modern Kazakh language is said to have originated in approximately 1465 AD during the formation of theKazakh Khanate. Modern Kazakh is likely a descendant of bothChagatay Turkic as spoken by theTimurids andKipchak Turkic as spoken in the Golden Horde.
Kazakh uses a high volume of loanwords fromPersian andArabic due to the frequent historical interactions between Kazakhs andIranian ethnic groups to the south. Additionally, Persian was alingua franca in theKazakh Khanate, which allowed Kazakhs to mix Persian words into their own spoken and written vernacular. Meanwhile, Arabic was used by Kazakhs inmosques andmausoleums, 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 theArabic script to write their language until approximately 1929. In the early 1900s, Kazakh activistAkhmet 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 thetransition 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 KazakhstaniMinister of Science and Higher EducationSayasat Nurbek, within a category where the number of speakers is not increasing as rapidly as anticipated.[8]
Kazakh exhibitstongue-rootvowel 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', andülken 'big' are actually pronounced asjūldūz,bügün, andülkön, respectively.
The following chart depicts the consonant inventory of standard Kazakh;[b] 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.[c]
Voiceless stops/p,t,k,q/ are aspirated[pʰ,tʰ,kʰ,qʰ], and thevoice 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.
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 versusretracted tongue root.[11]
Phonetic values are paired with the corresponding character in Kazakh's Cyrillic and Latin alphabets.
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]
Kazakh exhibitstongue-rootvowel 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]
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.
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 frombır,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:
bärıneeşkımge
'to everyone, to no one'
Individual onomatopoeic words and interjections are stressed on the first syllable
Certain suffixes do not take stress, including:
thepredicate 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')
Nowadays, Kazakh is mostly written in the Cyrillic script, with an Arabic-based alphabet being used by minorities in China. Since 26 October 2017, via Presidential Decree 569, Kazakhstan will adopt the Latin script by 2025.[17][18]
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.
Kazakh is generally verb-final, though various permutations onSOV (subject–object–verb) word order can be used, for example, due totopicalization.[25]Inflectional andderivationalmorphology, both verbal and nominal, in Kazakh, exists almost exclusively in the form ofagglutinative suffixes. Kazakh is a nominative-accusative, head-final, left-branching, dependent-marking language.[26]
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]
Adjectives in Kazakh are not declined for anygrammatical category of the modified noun. Being ahead-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]
Thesuperlative form can be created by placing the morphemeeñ before the adjective.[12] The superlative form can also be expressed by reduplication.[27]
Kazakh may express different combinations oftense,aspect andmood through the use of various verbal morphology or through a system ofauxiliary 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 auxiliariesotyr'sit',tūr'stand',jür'go' andjat'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 asбару'go' andкелу'come' may not combine withotyr. Any verb, however, can combine withjat'lie' to get a progressive tense meaning.[26]
'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]
otyr –'sit', ungrammatical in this sentence;otyr can only be used for verbs that arestative 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 verbköru'see', indicates that the subject of the verb attempted or tried to do something (compare the Japaneseてみるtemiru construction).[26]
^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).
^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].
^abVajda, Edward (1994), "Kazakh phonology", in Kaplan, E.; Whisenhunt, D. (eds.),Essays presented in honor of Henry Schwarz, Washington: Western Washington, pp. 603–650
^Vajda, Edward (1994), "Kazakh phonology", in Kaplan, E.; Whisenhunt, D. (eds.),Essays presented in honor of Henry Schwarz, Washington: Western Washington, pp. 603–650
^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, vol. 41, Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 329–351
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.
McCollum, Adam G.; Chen, Si (2021). "Kazakh". Illustrations of the IPA.Journal of the International Phonetic Association.51 (2):276–298.doi:10.1017/S0025100319000185, with supplementary sound recordings.
