Kyrgyz language
Kyrgyz, also spelled as Kirghiz, Kirgiz and Qirghiz, is a Turkic language spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyz Republic and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of Tajikistan. Kyrgyz belongs to the Kipchak branch of Turkic language family. There is very high degree of mutual intelligibility between Kazakh and Kyrgyz.
Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia.
Kyrgyz was originally written in the Turkic runes, gradually replaced by a Perso-Arabic alphabet. Between 1928 and 1940 a Latin-script alphabet, the Uniform Turkic Alphabet, was used. In 1940, Soviet authorities replaced Latin script with Cyrillic alphabet for all Turkic countries. When Kyrgyzstan became independent following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, there was a popular idea among Kyrgyz to switch to the Latin script. Although the plan has not yet been implemented, it remains in occasional discussion.
History
It is highly likely that Ancient Kyrgyz spoke the tongue closer to modern Khakas, which belongs to the Siberian sub branch of Common Turkic. In 925 when Khitans defeated the Ancient Kyrgyz and expelled them from Mongolian steppes, some Ancient Kyrgyz elites settled in Altai and East Turkestan where they mixed with local Kipchaks resulting in a language shift.After Mongol conquest in 1207 and series of revolts against Yuan oppressive policy, Kyrgyz-speaking tribes started to migrate to Tien Shan, which was already populated by various Turco-Mongol tribes. As Chaghatai Ulus subjects, Kyrgyz converted to Islam. Persian and Arabic vocabulary enriched the Kyrgyz, but to a much lesser extent than Kazakh, Uzbek and Uighur. Many Mongolian loanwords are found in the Kyrgyz lexicon.
Kyrgyz shares similarities with various sub branches of Common Turkic - Kipchak, Karluk and Siberian sub branch
Comparison with 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 loan words from Persian and Arabic, Kyrgyz lexicon includes much wider range of Mongolian loanwords. List of words in Kyrgyz from Mongolian absent in Kazakh vocabulary:
Жаргал - жыргал, бэлэг - белек, хайгуул - кайгуул, болзол - болжол, мохоо - макоо, нарийн - нарын, унаа - унаа, шалтаг - шылтоо.
Phonology
appears only in borrowings from Persian or when followed by a front vowel later in the word, e.g. 'sloping' instead of. Note that in most dialects, its status as a vowel distinct from is questionable.| Left Shift | Right Shift | Shift Direction |
| а | ы | Straight Across Left-Right Shift |
| о | у | |
| е | й | Straight Across Left-Right Shift |
| ө | ү | Straight Across Left-Right Shift |
The United States Peace Corps trains its volunteers using a "Left-Right Shift" method when carrying out language training in the Kyrgyz Republic.
- occur only in foreign borrowings.
Writing system
In Xinjiang of China, an Arabic alphabet is used.
Although the Latin script is not in official use, some Kyrgyz texts are written in the Turkish variant of the Latin alphabet which was designed by Pamukkale University, and uses Turkish spelling norms e.g. for diphthongization and with the addition of J corresponding to Russian Ж. Native Kyrgyz sound values are almost identical to Turkish, the exceptions being the velar nasal /ŋ/ and the voiceless uvular stop /q/ which do not exist in Turkish. In these cases they are written as "ñ" and "q" respectively.
| Cyrillic | Latin | IPA | English |
| 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. | Bardıq adamdar öz bedelinde jana uquqtarında erkin jana teñ uquqtuu bolup jaralat. Alardın añ-sezimi menen abiyiri bar jana biri-birine bir tuuğandıq mamile qıluuğa tiyiş. | bɑrdɯq ɑdɑmdɑr øz bedelinde d͡ʒɑnɑ uquqtɑrɯndɑ erkin d͡ʒɑnɑ teŋ uquqtuː boɫup d͡ʒɑrɑɫɑt ‖ ɑɫɑrdɯn ɑɴsezimi menen ɑbijiri bɑr d͡ʒɑnɑ biribirine bir tuːʁɑndɯq mɑmile qɯɫuːʁɑ tijiʃ | 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.Normally the decision between the velar and uvular pronunciation of and 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, not as predicted by the following vowel.
Pronouns
Kyrgyz has eight personal pronouns: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.
| pronouns | copulas | present tense | possessive endings | past/conditional | imperative | - |
| 1st sg | мен | -mIn | -mIn | -m | -m | -AyIN |
| 2nd sg | сен | -sIŋ | -sIŋ | -ŋ | -ŋ | —, -GIn |
| 2nd formal sg | сиз | -sIz | -sIz | -ŋIz | -ŋIz | -GIlA |
| 3rd sg | ал | — | -t | -I | — | -sIn |
| 1st pl | биз | -BIz | -BIz | -bIz | -K | -AyIK |
| 2nd pl | силер | -sIŋAr | -sIŋAr | -ŋAr | -ŋAr | |
| 2nd formal pl | сиздер | -sIzdAr | -sIzdAr | -ŋIzdAr | -nIzdAr | |
| 3rd pl | алар | — | -şAt | -I | — | -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.| Per. Pronoun | Vowel | Consonant | |
| 1st sg | Мен | -м | -м |
| 2nd sg | Сен | -йс<ң | -йс<ң |
| 2nd formal sg | Сиз | -йс<з | -йс<з |
| 3rd sg | Ал | -йт | -йт |
| 1st pl | Биз | -йб>з | -<б>з |
| 2nd pl | Силер | ||
| 2nd formal pl | Сизлер | ||
| 3rd pl | Алар |
Demonstrative pronouns
Subordinate clauses
To form complement clauses, Kyrgyz nominalises verb phrases. For example, "I don't know what I saw" would be rendered as "Мен эмнени көргөнүмдү билбейм" : I what-ACC.DEF see-ing-1st.SG-ACC.DEF know-NEG-1st.SG, or 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 for general past tense, -AAr for future/potential unrealised events, and -A turgan for non-perfective events are the most common. The copula has an irregular relativised form экен which may be used equivalently to forms of the verb бол- be. Relativised verb forms may, and often do, take nominal possessive endings as well as case endings.