Learn Kazakh

Қазақша

Turkic → Kipchak

13 million speakers

Cyrillic (transitioning to Latin) script

Kazakhstan, China, Russia, Mongolia

Kazakh is the state language of Kazakhstan and a direct descendant of the Kipchak dialects of the Golden Horde. The Kazakh Khanate, founded in the 15th century, produced a rich steppe oral culture centred on the zhyrau — poet-philosophers who advised khans in epic verse. Kazakh has one of the most expressive nomadic lexicons in the world: hundreds of words describe horse colours, steppe weather, and yurt construction that have no single-word equivalents in other languages.

Language Facts

FamilyTurkic → Kipchak

Native speakers13 million

Writing systemCyrillic; new Latin script introduced 2021

CountriesKazakhstan, China, Russia, Mongolia

Learning Tips

→Kazakh has nine vowels and strong vowel harmony — front/back vowel classes are consistently maintained across all suffixes
→Kazakhstan is mid-transition from Cyrillic to a new 32-letter Latin alphabet; both scripts appear in daily life
→Very close to Kyrgyz — speakers of each language can usually understand the other with little effort
→Russian loanwords are pervasive in urban and technical speech, though they are being gradually replaced