Kyrgyz language

Last updated
Kyrgyz
Кыргыз тили
قىرعىز تىلى
Kyrgyz.svg
Kyrgyz written in Cyrillic and Perso-Arabic scripts
Pronunciation [qɯɾʁɯzˈtʃɑ]
Native to Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, China
Region Central Asia
Ethnicity Kyrgyz
Native speakers
5.15 million (2009 census) [1]
Turkic
Dialects
Kyrgyz alphabets (Cyrillic script, Perso-Arabic script, Kyrgyz Braille)
Official status
Official language in
Flag of Kyrgyzstan (2023).svg  Kyrgyzstan

Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg  China

Language codes
ISO 639-1 ky
ISO 639-2 kir
ISO 639-3 kir
Glottolog kirg1245
Linguasphere 44-AAB-cd
Verbreitungsgebiet der kirgisischen Sprache.PNG
Places where Kyrgyz is spoken
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.
A speaker of the Kyrgyz language in traditional dress, recorded on the Chunkurchak pasture on the outskirts of Bishkek during an interview
Azim, a speaker of the Kyrgyz language, recorded in Taiwan

Kyrgyz [2] [lower-roman 1] is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. There is a very high level of mutual intelligibility between Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Altay. A dialect of Kyrgyz known as Pamiri Kyrgyz is spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Turkey, parts of northern Pakistan, and Russia.

Contents

Kyrgyz was originally written in Göktürk script, [3] gradually replaced by the Perso-Arabic alphabet (in use until 1928 in the USSR, still in use in China). Between 1928 and 1940 a Latin-script alphabet, the Uniform Turkic Alphabet, was used. In 1940, Soviet authorities replaced the Latin script with the Cyrillic alphabet for all Turkic languages on its territory. When Kyrgyzstan became independent following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, a plan to adopt the Latin alphabet became popular. Although the plan has not been implemented, it remains in occasional discussion. [4]

Classification

Kyrgyz is a Common Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch of the family. It is considered to be an East Kipchak language, forming a subfamily with the Southern Altai language within the greater Kipchak branch. Internally, Kyrgyz has three distinct varieties; Northern and Southern Kyrgyz. [5]

Language should not be confused with Old Kyrgyz (Yenisei Kyrgyz) language which classified as a member of the South Siberian branch of Turkic languages. The successor of the Yenisei Kyrgyz language today are the Khakas in Russian Federation and Fuyu Kyrgyz in Northeastern China. [6] [7] [8]

History

In 925, when the Liao dynasty defeated the Yenisei Kyrgyz and expelled them from the Mongolian steppes, some Ancient Kyrgyz elites settled in Altai and Xinjiang where they mixed with the local Kipchaks, resulting in a language shift.

After the Mongol conquest in 1207 and a series of revolts against the Yuan dynasty, Kyrgyz-speaking tribes started to migrate to Tian Shan, which was already populated by various Turco-Mongol tribes. As Chaghatai Ulus subjects, the Kyrgyz converted to Islam. Persian and Arabic vocabulary loaned to the Kyrgyz language, but to a much lesser extent than Kazakh, Uzbek and Uighur.

Phonology

Kyrgyz vowel phonemes [9]
Front Back
unroundedroundedunroundedrounded
Close i y ɯ u
Mid e ø o
Open ( a ) ɑ

/a/ appears only in borrowings from Persian or when followed by a front vowel later in the word (regressive assimilation), e.g. /ajdøʃ/ 'sloping' instead of */ɑjdøʃ/. [10] In most dialects, its status as a vowel distinct from /ɑ/ is questionable. [11]

Vowel Harmony (Peace Corps Method)
Left Shift (<)Right Shift (>)Shift Direction
аыStraight Across Left-Right Shift
оу("y" Left-shifts up-diagonally to "a")
е (э)иStraight Across Left-Right Shift
өүStraight Across Left-Right Shift

The United States Peace Corps trains its volunteers using a "Left-Right Shift" method when carrying out language training in Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyz consonant phonemes [12]
Labial Dental/
alveolar
Post-
alveolar
Dorsal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive voiceless p t k
voiced b d ɡ
Affricate voiceless t͡s [lower-alpha 1] t͡ʃ
voiced d͡ʒ
Fricative voiceless f [lower-alpha 1] s ʃ x [lower-alpha 1]
voiced v [lower-alpha 1] z
Approximant l j
Trill r
  1. 1 2 3 4 /f,v,t͡s,x/ occur only in foreign borrowings from Russian, Arabic and English. [12]

Writing system

The Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan use a Cyrillic alphabet, which uses all the Russian letters plus ң, ө and ү.

In the Xinjiang region of China, an Arabic alphabet is used.

Between 1928 and 1940 a Latin alphabet was used for many minority languages in the USSR, including Kyrgyz. There have been attempts after 1990 to introduce other Latin alphabets which are closer to the Turkish alphabet, e.g. the Common Turkic Alphabet. There are political shades to the Cyrillic-Latin debate. In April 2023, Russia suspended dairy exports to Kyrgyzstan after a proposal by the chairman of Kyrgyzstan's National Commission for the State Language and Language Policies, Kanybek Osmonaliev, to change the alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin to bring the country in line with other Turkic nations. Osmonaliev was reprimanded by President Sadyr Japarov, who later clarified that Kyrgyzstan had no plans to replace the Cyrillic alphabet. [13]

Cyrillic scriptPerso-Arabic scriptLatin scriptIPA transcriptionEnglish translation
Бардык адамдар өз беделинде жана укуктарында эркин жана тең укуктуу болуп жаралат. Алардын аң-сезими менен абийири бар жана бири-бирине бир туугандык мамиле кылууга тийиш.باردىق ادامدار ۅز بەدەلينده جانا وُقوُقتارىندا ەرکین جانا تەڭ ۇقۇقتۇۇ بولۇپ جارالات. الاردىن اڭ-سەزیمی مەنەن ابئییری بار جانا بئرى-بئرینه بئر توُوُعاندىق مامئلە قىلوُوُعا تئییش.Bardık adamdar öz bedelinde jana ukuktarında erkin jana teñ ukuktuu bolup jaralat. Alardın añ-sezimi menen abiyiri bar jana biri-birine bir tuugandık mamile kıluuga tiyiş.[bɑr.ˈdɯq ɑ.dɑm.ˈdɑr øz be.de.lɪn.ˈde d͡ʑɑ.nɑ ʊ.ˌqʊχ.tɑ.rɯn.ˈdɑ er.ˈkɪn d͡ʑɑ.ˈnɑ teŋ ʊ.qʊχ.ˈtuː bɔ.ˈɫʊp d͡ʑɑ.rɑ.ˈɫɑt ‖ ɑ.ɫɑr.ˈdɯn ɑŋ se.zɪ.ˈmɪ me.ˈnen ɑ.bɪ.ʝɪ.ˈrɪ bɑr d͡ʑɑ.ˈnɑ bɪ.ˈrɪ bɪ.rɪ.ˈne bɪr tuː.ʁɑn.ˈdɯq mɑ.mɪ.ˈle qɯ.ɫuː.ˈʁɑ tɪ.ˈʝɪɕ ‖]All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Morphology and syntax

Case

Nouns in Kyrgyz take a number of case endings that change based on vowel harmony and the sort of consonant they follow (see the section on phonology).

CaseUnderlying formPossible forms"boat""air""bucket""hand""head""salt""eye"
Nominativeкемеабачелекколбаштузкөз
Genitive-NIn-нын, -нин, -дын, -дин, -тын, -тин, -нун, -нүн, -дун, -дүн, -тун, -түнкеменинабанынчелектинколдунбаштынтуздункөздүн
Dative-GA-га, -ка, -ге, -ке, -го, -ко, -гө, -көкемегеабагачелеккеколгобашкатузгакөзгө
Accusative-NI-ны, -ни, -ды, -ди, -ты, -ти, -ну, -нү, -ду, -дү, -ту, -түкемениабанычелектиколдубаштытуздукөздү
Locative-DA-да, -де, -та, -те, -до, -дө, -то, -төкемедеабадачелектеколдобаштатуздакөздө
Ablative-DAn-дан, -ден, -тан, -тен, -дон, -дөн, -тон, -төнкемеденабаданчелектенколдонбаштантузданкөздөн

Normally the decision between the velar (~ɣ], [k]) and uvular (~ʁ] and ~q]) pronunciation of г and к is based on the backness of the following vowel—i.e. back vowels imply a uvular rendering and front vowels imply a velar rendering—and the vowel in suffixes is decided based on the preceding vowel in the word. However, with the dative suffix in Kyrgyz, the vowel is decided normally, but the decision between velars and uvulars can be decided based on a contacting consonant, for example банк /bank/ 'bank' + GA yields банкка /bankka/, not /bankqa/ as predicted by the following vowel.

Pronouns

Kyrgyz has eight personal pronouns:

Personal pronouns
singularplural
1st personМен (Men)Биз (Biz)
2nd personinformalСен (Sen)Силер (Siler)
formalСиз (Siz)Сиздер (Sizder)
3rd personАл (Al)Алар (Alar)

The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart. Singular pronouns (with the exception of сиз, which used to be plural) exhibit irregularities, while plural pronouns don't. Irregular forms are highlighted in bold.

Declension of pronouns
SingularPlural
1st2nd3rd1st2nd3rd
informalformalinformalformal
Nomменсенсизалбизсилерсиздералар
Accменисенисиздианыбиздисилердисиздердиаларды
Genменинсенинсиздинанынбиздинсилердинсиздердиналардын
Datмагасагасизгеагабизгесилергесиздергеаларга
Locмендесендесиздеандабиздесилердесиздердеаларда
Ablменденсенденсизденанданбизденсилерденсиздерденалардан

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

Morphemes indicating person
pronounscopulaspresent tensepossessive endingspast/conditionalimperative
1st sgмен-mIn-mIn-(I)m-(I)m-AyIN
2nd sginformalсен-sIŋ-sIŋ-(I)ŋ-(I)ŋ—, -GIn
formalсиз-sIz-sIz-(I)ŋIz-(I)ŋIz-GIlA
3rd sgал-t-(s)I(n)-sIn
1st plбиз-BIz-BIz-(I)bIz-(I)K-AyIK
2nd plinformalсилер-sIŋAr-sIŋAr-(I)ŋAr-(I)ŋAr
formalсиздер-sIzdAr-sIzdAr-(I)ŋIzdAr-(I)nIzdAr
3rd plалар-(I)şAt-(s)I(n)-sIn, -IşsIn

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated by analyzing the root verb: 1) determine whether the end letter is a vowel or consonant 2) add appropriate suffix while following vowel-harmony/shift rules.

Simple present tense conjugations (Peace Corps)
Per. PronounVowelConsonant
1st sgМен
2nd plinformalСен-йс<ң-йс<ң
formalСиз-йс<з-йс<з
3rd sgАл-йт-йт
1st plБиз-йб>з-<б>з
2nd plinformalСилер
formalСиздер
3rd plАлар

Subordinate clauses

To form complement clauses, Kyrgyz nominalises verb phrases. For example, "I don't know what I saw" would be:

Мен

Men

I

эмнени

emneni

what-ACC.DEF

көргөнүмдү

körgönümdü

see-ing-1SG-ACC.DEF

билбейм

bilbeym

know-NEG-1SG

Мен эмнени көргөнүмдү билбейм

Men emneni körgönümdü bilbeym

I what-ACC.DEF see-ing-1SG-ACC.DEF know-NEG-1SG

roughly "I don't know my having seen what," where the verb phrase "I saw what" is treated as a nominal object of the verb "to know."

The sentence above is also an excellent example of Kyrgyz vowel harmony; notice that all the vowel sounds are front vowels.

Several nominalisation strategies are used depending on the temporal properties of the relativised verb phrase: -GAn(dIK) for general past tense, -AAr for future/potential unrealised events, and -A turgan(dɯq) for non-perfective events are the most common. The copula has an irregular relativised form экен(дик) which may be used equivalently to forms of the verb бол- be (болгон(дук), болор). Relativised verb forms may, and often do, take nominal possessive endings as well as case endings.

See also

Notes

    • English: /ˈkɪərɡɪz,kərˈɡz/
    • Cyrillic: Кыргыз тили / Кыргызча
    • Latin: Kyrgyz tili / Kyrgyzcha
    • Arabic: قىرعىز تئلى / قىرعىزچا
    • pronounced [qɯrˈʁɯztɪˈlɪ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkic languages</span> Language family of Eurasia

The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kazakh language</span> Turkic language mostly spoken in Kazakhstan

Kazakh or Qazaq is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan and a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, north-western China, and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of western Mongolia. The language is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union, Germany, and Turkey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uzbek language</span> Turkic language of the Karluk sub-branch

Uzbek, formerly known as Turki, is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language also known as "Turki", as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.

Chechen is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by approximately 1.8 million people, mostly in the Chechen Republic and by members of the Chechen diaspora throughout Russia and the rest of Europe, Jordan, Austria, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Central Asia and Georgia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tatar language</span> Turkic language spoken by Tatars

Tatar is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan, as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar, which are closely related but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turkmen language</span> Turkic language of the Oghuz sub-branch

Turkmen, sometimes referred to as Turkmen Turkic or Turkmen Turkish, is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers in Turkmenistan, and a further 719,000 speakers in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in northwestern Afghanistan, where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and by diaspora communities, primarily in Turkey and Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ğ</span> Latin letter G with breve

Ğ is a Latin letter found in the Turkish and Azerbaijani alphabets as well as the Latin alphabets of Zazaki, Laz, Crimean Tatar, Tatar, and Kazakh. It traditionally represented the voiced velar fricative or the voiced uvular fricative. However, in Turkish, the phoneme has in most cases been reduced to a silent letter, serving as a vowel-lengthener.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uyghur language</span> Turkic language of the Karluk sub-branch

Uyghur or Uighur is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8–13 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Apart from Xinjiang, significant communities of Uyghur speakers are also located in Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; it is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio. Other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang also use Uyghur as a common language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bashkir language</span> Turkic language of the Kipchak sub-branch

Bashkir or Bashkort is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by 1.09 million native speakers in Russia, as well as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia and other neighboring post-Soviet states, and among the Bashkir diaspora. It has three dialect groups: Southern, Eastern and Northwestern.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kalmyk Oirat</span> Oirat dialects spoken in Kalmykia, Russia

Kalmyk Oirat, commonly known as the Kalmyk language, is a variety of the Oirat language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. In Russia, it is the standard form of the Oirat language, which belongs to the Mongolic language family. The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from the Oirats from Eurasia, who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China. According to UNESCO, the language is "Definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimean Tatar language</span> Turkic language spoken in Crimea

Crimean Tatar, also called Crimean, is a moribund Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the two languages are related, but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages, while maintaining a significant degree of mutual intelligibility. Crimean Tatar has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz dialects and is also mutually intelligible with them, to varying degrees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kha (Cyrillic)</span> Letter in the Cyrillic script

Kha, Khe, Chi or Ha is a letter of the Cyrillic script. It looks the same as the Latin letter X, in both uppercase and lowercase, both roman and italic forms, and was derived from the Greek letter Chi, which also bears a resemblance to both the Latin X and Kha.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karakalpak language</span> Kipchak Turkic language of Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan

Karakalpak is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southwestern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Nogai and neighbouring Kazakh languages, being markedly influenced by both. Typologically, Karakalpak belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, thus being closely related to and highly mutually intelligible with Kazakh and Nogai.

The Kyrgyz language is written in the Kyrgyz alphabet, a modification of Cyrillic. There is no commonly accepted system of romanization for Kyrgyz, i.e. a rendering of Kyrgyz in the Latin alphabet. For geographic names, the Kyrgyz government adopted the BGN/PCGN romanization system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyrgyz alphabets</span> Alphabets used to write the Kyrgyz language

The Kyrgyz alphabets are the alphabets used to write the Kyrgyz language. Kyrgyz uses the following alphabets:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cyrillic alphabets</span> Related alphabets based on Cyrillic scripts

Numerous Cyrillic alphabets are based on the Cyrillic script. The early Cyrillic alphabet was developed in the 9th century AD and replaced the earlier Glagolitic script developed by the Bulgarian theologians Cyril and Methodius. It is the basis of alphabets used in various languages, past and present, Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Russian. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the official alphabet for their national languages. About half of them are in Russia. Cyrillic is one of the most-used writing systems in the world. The creator is Saint Clement of Ohrid from the Preslav literary school in the First Bulgarian Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of Kyrgyzstan</span> Languages spoken in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is one of four former Soviet republics in Central Asia to have Russian as a de jure official language. The Kyrgyz language was adopted as the official language in 1991. After pressure from the Russian and other minorities in the country, the republic adopted Russian as an official language as well in 1997, to become an officially bilingual country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yakut language</span> Siberian Turkic language

Yakutyə-KOOT, also known as Yakutian, Sakha, Saqa or Saxa, is a Turkic language belonging to Siberian Turkic branch and spoken by around 450,000 native speakers, primarily the ethnic Yakuts and one of the official languages of Sakha (Yakutia), a federal republic in the Russian Federation.

Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken mostly in the west of China.

Turkmen grammar is the grammar of the Turkmen language, whose dialectal variants are spoken in Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and others. Turkmen grammar, as described in this article, is the grammar of standard Turkmen as spoken and written by Turkmen people in Turkmenistan.

References

  1. Kyrgyz at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. "Kyrgyz".
  3. Кызласов И. Л., Рунические письменности евразийских степей (Kyzlasov I.L. Runic scripts of Eurasian steppes), Восточная литература (Eastern Literature), Moscow, 1994, pp. 80 on, ISBN   978-5-02-017741-3, with further bibliography.
  4. Altynbayev, Kanat. "Kyrgyzstan considers switch to Latin alphabet from Cyrillic". Caravanserai. Retrieved 2022-07-29.
  5. "Glottolog 4.3 - Kirghiz". glottolog.org. Retrieved 2021-05-03.
  6. Tchoroev (Chorotegin) 2003, p. 110.
  7. Pozzi & Janhunen & Weiers 2006, p. 113.
  8. Giovanni Stary; Alessandra Pozzi; Juha Antero Janhunen; Michael Weiers (2006). Tumen Jalafun Jecen Aku: Manchu Studies in Honour of Giovanni Stary. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 112–. ISBN   978-3-447-05378-5.
  9. Kara (2003 :10)
  10. Washington (2007 :11)
  11. Washington (2006b :2)
  12. 1 2 Kara (2003 :11)
  13. Russia Suspends Dairy Products From Kyrgyzstan After Calls In Bishkek To Drop Cyrillic Script. Radio Free Europe, 21 April 2023. Retrieved 22 June 2023

Bibliography