Kyrgyz language

Spoken in

• Altaic languages ​​( disputed) Turkic languages Kipchak languages Kyrgyz

Ky

Kir

Kir

The Kyrgyz language ( Kyrgyz Кыргыз тили / Kyrgyz tili ) is a Turkic language, which is generally attributed to the north-western sub-group of the Kipchak group and has numerous agreements with neighboring Turkic languages ​​.

Short form is Kirghiz ( Кыргызча / Kyrgyzča ) and this is the official language of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.

Name Variants

Previously Kirghiz has long been erroneously referred to as " Tatar " and attributed this. So the actual Kyrgyz has been widely referred to as " Kyrgyz - Tatar ". An old self-designation of the language until the 1930s also " Kara- Kirghiz " ( Schwarzkirgisisch ), which was used to distinguish the language of the neighboring Kazakhstan, which has also been called " Kyrgyz ".

An older Arabic name was also spelled Qırğız tili ( قىرغىز تىلى ). This language name is still used by those Kyrgyz who live today in Afghanistan and China and are still using the Arabic alphabet. In today's Turkey, the language is often referred to only as " Kyrgyz Turkish " ( Turkish Kirgiz Türkçesi ).

Main distribution area

Kyrgyz is several million people in Kyrgyzstan ( 2.3 million ), Kazakhstan ( 14,112 ), China ( 113,000 in Xinjiang ), Afghanistan ( 25,000 ), Tajikistan ( 63,832 ), Turkey ( 1137 ) and in Uzbekistan ( 174,907 ) spoken.

At the last census of the USSR (1989 ) declined from 2.5 million to 2.4 million Kyrgyz Kyrgyz as their mother tongue and 5,261 as a second language.

In the night of 22 to September 23, 1989 Kyrgyz was appointed the state language in Kyrgyzstan, while Russian remained working language of the republic.

Classification options

The Kyrgyz were often classified differently. So, for example, lists the " Fischer Lexicon languages ​​" (1987), the Kyrgyz as given below:

• Turkic languages western branch Bulgarian group
• The oghusische group
• Kipchak group

• Uighur group
• Kyrgyz- kyptschakische group Kyrgyz

The turkologist Menges said the Kirgische the Aralo - Caspian group of the Turkic languages ​​to:

• Turkic languages Aralo - Caspian group Kazakh
• Karakalpakisch
• Nogai
• Kipchak - Özbekisch
• Kyrgyz

In contrast, the results " Metzler Lexikon Sprache " (1993), the Kyrgyz outside each group. The current rating is listed in the article Turkic languages ​​.

Dialects and alphabets

The Kyrgyz dialect is strongly divided. Today, about 40 Kyrgyz dialects are divided into five main groups, which are strongly influenced by the neighboring Turkic languages ​​:

Independent written language is Kyrgyz only since the 1920s, when it was started by the native intelligence to hold their native language with a modified Arabic alphabet. Basis of the new Kyrgyz high-level language was the zentralkirgisische dialect, which was understood by all Kyrgyz. Previously, the Kyrgyz had written with a created in the 15th century idiom, that was then prevalent: the Chagatai. This idiom was transliterated with a Perso- Arabic alphabet.

As early as 1926, the Latinization performed at the Kyrgyz, as you introduce a new Turkish Latin alphabet. These began in the 1930s, to enrich the vocabulary of the new Hochkirgisischen with numerous discharges from the Azerbaijan. Many Kyrgyz, who later formed the intelligence of the country had to get their college education at the University of Baku. Since the first Kyrgyz universities emerged only in the 1930s, characterized got several generations of Kyrgyz intelligentsia educated at the universities of Baku. But also in the Iranian Ganja (West Azerbaijan) Kyrgyz have studied.

The Romanization of the country was in 1940 reversed. In the course of an imposed by Moscow compulsory Russian lessons in the non-Slavic peoples of the USSR at that time used the Latin alphabet was replaced by a modified Cyrillic alphabet. The Kyrgyz in the belongs to China Xinjiang became for a time the modern Kyrgyz Cyrillic from 1949 /50. But after the break with Moscow Beijing Kyrgyz China went back to an Arabic alphabet.

With the beginning of the collapse of the former Soviet Union the Kyrgyz Minister of Education took part in a first Turkgipfel in Ankara, Turkey in October 1990. At this summit, among other things, the re- Latinization of the Central Asian Turkic countries and Azerbaijan, it was decided. This should create within 15 years for their countries a work based on the modern Turkish alphabet Latin alphabet. In 1995, the Kyrgyz Ministry of Culture before a " Kazakh - Kyrgyz pattern alphabet " of the public. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan had created for cost reasons a Community Latin alphabet. The final introduction of western Latin alphabet is postponed by the Kyrgyz government until further notice, and is not an official launch date of its been called. Rather, the Kyrgyz remain as the neighboring Kazakhs as the only Turkic states so far in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is established by the two countries with the Russian minority.

From pantürkisch oriented parts of the Kyrgyz population reintroduction of the Arabic alphabet and abolished the Chagatai was unsuccessfully called for between 1988 and 1994. ( see also: Alash - Party of National Independence and Turkestan Islamic Party )

1: At the beginning of words and after a vowel Depending ever after consonant e 2: At the end of a word and before the following consonants I i, before a following vowel J j. 3: ss Between vowels, otherwise S see

ISO code

• ISO 639-1: ky
• ISO 639-2: kir