SOME USEFUL PHRASES IN KAZAKH FIVE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD LEARN KAZAKHWHO SPEAKS UZBEK? Сәлем. Менің атым Джон. MORE ABOUT KAZAKH SPEAKERS /sal-YIM! myin-uhng ah-tuhm JOHN/ AND THEIR LANGUAGE Uzbeks are the most numerous Tur- [sæliɘm, miɘnɘŋ ɑtəm dʐɔn] kic people in Central Asia. They pre- Hi. My name is John. 1. Kazakh is spoken as a first or second language by roughly 8 million people throughout Central Asia, dominantly mostly live in Uzbekistan, a Сенің атың кім? (inf) most notably in Kazakhstan, but also in China’s landlocked country of Central Asia that /siz-duhng ah-tuhng-uhz KUHM/ Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Mongolia, [sɘzdɘŋ ɑtʰəɴəz kʰɘm] Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and shares borders with Kazakhstan to the Сіздің атыңыз кім? (f) Afghanistan. A significant population of Kazakh west and north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajiki- /syin-uhng ah-tuhng KUHM/ speakers can also be found in Russia and Turkey. stan to the east, and Afghanistan and [siɘnɘŋ ɑtʰəɴ kʰəm] 2. A member of the Turkic language family, Kazakh What is your name? shares many structural similarities to languages such Turkmenistan to the south. Many Uz- Қалың қалай? (inf) /Қалыңыз қалай? (f) as Turkish, Altay, Uzbek, Uyghur, and Turkmen, beks can also be found in Afghanistan, /qah-luhng qah-LAYE/ /qah-luhng-uhz qah-LAYE/ as well as being largely mutually intelligible with [qʰɑɫəɴ qʰɑɫɑj] / [qʰɑɫəɴəz qʰɑɫɑj] Kyrgyz. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, How are you doing? 3. Kazakhstan is the largest country in Central Asia Turkmenistan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Мен сені сүйемін. (at 1.05 mil sq miles, it is also the 9th largest in the Autonomous Region of China. /myin syin-uh soo-yee-IH-muhn/ world), with the largest economy, the second largest [miɘn siɘnɘ sʉjiɘmɘn] population, and the most trade with the United States. Business partnerships with Kazakhstan I love you. and the U.S. are growing, creating a demand for Сенің атың әдемі екен. (inf) Americans who can speak Kazakh. /syin-uhng ah-tuhng ae-DZYIM-uh yih-kyin/ 4. Kazakhs take great national pride in their Olympic [siɘnɘŋ ɑtʰəɴ æʣiɘmɘ iɘkʰiɘn] athletes. Kazakhstan sent 115 athletes to the Сіздің атыңыз әдемі екен. (f) London 2012 Olympics and brought home seven /siz-duhng ah-tuhng-uhz ae-DZYIM-uh yih-kyin/ gold medals, one silver, and one bronze! This [sɘzdɘŋ ɑtʰəɴəz æʣiɘmɘ iɘkʰiɘn] included Ilya Ilin defending his 2008 Bejing gold You have a beautiful horse. medal in weightlifting. Әжетхана қайда? 5. Kazakhstan is home to the Baikonur Cosmodome, /ae-zhyit-khah-nah qaye-DAH/ the world’s first and largest space launch facility. [æʑiɘtχɑnɑ qʰɑjdɑ] Where is the bathroom? ABOUT US Үлкен рахмет! The Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region /oohl-kyin rahkh-MYIT/ (CeLCAR) at Indiana University develops materials for learning and teaching a wide variety of Central Asian [ʉlkʰiɘn ɾɑχmiɘt] languages. Thank you very much. For more information, go to www.iub.edu/~celcar. Сау болыңыз. /sau BWOL-luhng-uhz/ 718 Eigenmann Hall, 1900 East 10th Street, [sɑw buʊləɴəz] Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47406 Good-bye. Phone: (812) 856-1230 Fax: (812) 856-1206 Center for Languages of the E-mail : [email protected] Special thanks goes to Begaim Adilkhanova and Jonathan Washington Web site: http://www.indiana.edu/~celcar for their contributions to this pamphlet. Central Asian Region (CeLCAR) WHO ARE THE KAZAKHS AND Arabic, Persian, Mongolian, and Russian. However, after (hordes): the Senior jüz, the Middle jüz, and the Junior the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kazakh lexicon jüz. Each jüz has a dozen or more different clans, and went through a major de-Russification process. As a although belonging to a certain jüz or clan does not play WHERE DO THEY LIVE? result, many Russian loanwords were replaced with new a major role in people’s social-economic lives todays, Kazakhs are a Turkic people, traditionally nomads, living Kazakh ones. many Kazakhs mostly in Kazakhstan, are still proud to also known as the identify themselves Republic of Kazakhstan, WHAT ALPHABET DO KAZAKHS USE? within their jüz the largest country in Similar to other Central Asian Turkic languages, Kazakh and most know the Central Asia. Kazakhstan names of their male occupies the vast has been written in a number of alphabets. Textual remains of early Turkic varieties from in and around ancestors seven grasslands between generations back. Russia, the Xinjiang Kazakhstan are attested in a variety of scripts, including Uyghur Autonomous the Old Turkic runic alphabet, the Old Uyghur vertical Traditionally, Region of China, and the three smaller Central Asian script, and others. Before Soviet rule, Kazakhs used the Kazakhs are pastoral nomads, raising horses, nations to the south: Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Perso-Arabic script to write their language. However, sheep, goats, two-humped camels, and cattle. And Uzbekistan. Kazakhs represent the majority of the under Soviet rule, Kazakh adopted the Cyrillic script most Kazakh cuisine is based on mutton or horse meat, population (65%) of Kazakhstan, and Kazakh is the from Russian which Kazakh people living Kazakhstan including the most popular dish called besbarmak, official language of Kazakhstan. But until recently, it was and other post-Soviet states continue to use today. often called “five fingers” because of the traditional rarely used in administration and government. Since the However the more than one million Kazakh speakers manner in which it is eaten. Some other favorite Kazakh collapse of the Soviet Union, the general attitude toward living in Xinjiang still use the Perso-Arabic script. foods include qymyz (fermented mare’s milk), shujyq Kazakh has been changing, and government bodies have (horse meat sausage), and quwyrdaq (a dish made from been switching to Kazakh. WHAT IS KAZAKH CULTURE LIKE? horse or sheep organs such as heart, liver, and kidneys and chopped vegetables). Significant populations of Kazakh speakers can also be Kazakhstan is the heart of nomadic Central Asia. For found in Xinjiang, Mongolia, Russia, and Uzbekistan. centuries, the cities of southern Kazakhstan participated Kazakhs are avid musicians. Traditionally, nearly every in the cultural renaissance of the Silk Road, while ceremony or large get-together would include someone nomadic conquerors repeatedly came out from the playing the dombra, WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS KAZAKH? Kazakh steppes to build great empires. Kazakh culture a two-stringed lute. Kazakh belongs to the Turkic group of languages, which has been deeply Kazakhs also arrange includes languages such as Uzbek, Turkish, Uyghur, and influenced by the song contests, called Tatar. Turkic languages have been spoken across vast Mongol world, and aytys, during territory from the Balkans to China for many centuries. many Kazakhs still festivities or holidays, Kazakh is the most widely spoken language of the honor Genghis Khan and the public Kipchak sub-branch of the Turkic languages. as a national hero. Like chooses the most other Turko-Mongolic creative bard among Kazakh is an agglutinative language in which suffixes the contestants. that indicate only one meaning are attached to the word peoples, the ancient stem one after another in a set order. Unlike some other nomads of Kazakhstan Over the last 10 years, since their first appearance in Turkic languages, Kazakh also has a vigorous system were animistic and the 2004 Winter Olympics, Kazakhstan has developed of vowel harmony in which the vowels of the suffixes worshipped the sky deity Tengri. However, in the wake quite a reputation in the sports of weightlifting, boxing, change to fit the vowels in the stem. But Kazakh does of the Mongol empire, most Kazakhs adopted Islam. cycling, and track and field. In the 2012 London not have the difficulties that inflecting languages have Today, almost all Kazakh are Sunni Muslims, though Olympics, out of 116 athletes sent, Kazakhstan brought with grammatical gender and multiple systems of traces of Tengrism are still found throughout Kazakh home four gold medals in weightlifting, a gold, a silver, declension and conjugation. culture. and two bronze in boxing, one gold in cycling, one gold in the women’s triple jump, and three bronze medals in The vocabulary of Kazakh has been influenced by Regional and clan influences remain strong among the Kazakhs, who were traditionally divided into three jüz wrestling.