Kazakh language

Genetically, Kazakh belongs to the Turkic language family, which in turn is often counted among the Altaic languages, considered by some as a linguistic confederation, by others as a superordinate language family. Within the Turkic languages, it is counted among the Kyptchak group (the West Turkic languages), which also includes Tatar, Bashkir, and Karakalpak, among others. It is also closely related to the neighboring Kyrgyz to the southeast, which occupies a transitional position between the Kychak group, the Uyghur (East Turkic) group, and the Altai region's Altaic. (See also the section "Word equations of Turkic languages" in the article "Turkic languages").

In 1989, of the nearly 8.2 million Kazakhs in the then USSR, some 7.9 million reported Kazakh as their mother tongue and 40,606 as a second language; of the minorities, only 1.6% spoke the national language.

Kazakh is spoken by 6.6 million people in Kazakhstan today and is also the state language there. Russian is still considered the second administrative language of the country due to the large Russian-speaking minorities. In Uzbekistan 808,227 people speak Kazakh, in Russia 37,318, in Tajikistan 11,376.

Furthermore, 1.1 million Kazakhs live in the People's Republic of China (1991) and there 607,000 in Xinjiang alone. In Mongolia (1991) 100,000 people gave Kazakh as their mother tongue. In 1982, 3000 Kazakhs were resident in Iran and 2000 in Afghanistan. But in Turkey, too, just over 600 people gave Kazakh as their mother tongue in 1982.

Kazakh can be divided into three dialect groups, roughly corresponding to the three historical tribal associations of Kazakhs: Northeast Kazakh is spoken in the traditional Middle Horde area of central and northeastern Kazakhstan. It forms the main basis of the modern written Kazakh language. Western Kazakh, closely related to Nogaic, is spoken in the traditional Lesser Horde area of western Kazakhstan and adjacent Turkmenistan. The third dialect is South Kazakh, spoken in the traditional Great Horde area of southern Kazakhstan, the adjacent part of Uzbekistan, and Sinkiang.

Until the 1920s, Kazakh was usually referred to by Russians (and the rest of Europe) as Kyrgyz or also as Kazak Kirghiz or Kazak Tatar, and was not always distinguished from the closely related Kyrgyz language. The vocabulary of High Kazakh was enriched in the 1930s with numerous derivatives from Azerbaijani. This was partly due to the fact that many members of the Kazakh intellectual class received their higher education at the University of Baku, founded in 1919, or at the University of Gəncə. Kazakhstan did not receive its first national universities until the 1930s.