Karakalpak is a

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languag ...

spoken by

Karakalpaks The Karakalpaks or Qaraqalpaqs (; kaa, Qaraqalpaqlar, Қарақалпақлар, قاراقلپقلر), are a Turkic ethnic group native to Karakalpakstan in Northwestern Uzbekistan. During the 18th century, they settled in the lower reach ...

Karakalpakstan Karakalpakstan, / officially the Republic of Karakalpakstan, / is an autonomous republic of Uzbekistan. It occupies the whole northwestern part of Uzbekistan. The capital is Nukus (' / ). The Republic of Karakalpakstan has an area of , and ...

. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southeastern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Uzbek and neighboring

Kazakh language The Kazakh or simply Qazaq (Latin: or , Cyrillic: or , Arabic Script: or , , ) is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official langua ...

s, being markedly influenced by both. Typologically, Karakalpak belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, thus being closely related to and highly mutually intelligible with Kazakh.

Classification

Karakalpak is a member of the Kipchak branch of

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia ( Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turki ...

, which includes Kazakh, Bashkir,

Tatar The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

, Kumyk,

Karachay The Karachays ( krc, Къарачайлыла, Qaraçaylıla or таулула, , 'Mountaineers') are an indigenous Caucasian Turkic ethnic group in the North Caucasus. They speak Karachay-Balkar, a Turkic language. They are mostly situat ...

, Nogai and

Kyrgyz Kyrgyz, Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to: * Someone or something related to Kyrgyzstan *Kyrgyz people *Kyrgyz national games *Kyrgyz language *Kyrgyz culture *Kyrgyz cuisine *Yenisei Kirghiz *The Fuyü Gïrgïs language in Northeastern China ...

. Due to its proximity to Uzbek, much of Karakalpak's vocabulary and grammar has been influenced by Uzbek. Like the vast majority of Turkic languages, Karakalpak has

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

, is

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative l ...

and has no

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...

. Word order is usually subject–object–verb.

Geographic distribution

Karakalpak is spoken mainly in the

Autonomous Republic of

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

. Approximately 2,000 people in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...

and smaller diaspora in parts of

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

and other parts of the world speak Karakalpak.

Official status

Karakalpak has official status in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic.

Dialects

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...

'' identifies two dialects of Karakalpak: Northeastern and Southwestern. Menges mentions a third possible dialect spoken in the

Fergana Valley The Fergana Valley (; ; ) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the ...

. The Southwestern dialect has /tʃ/ for the Northeastern /ʃ/.

Phonology

Karakalpak has 25 native consonant phonemes and regularly uses four non-native phonemes in loan words. Non-native sounds are shown in parentheses.

Consonants

Vowels

Vowel harmony

Vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

functions in Karakalpak much as it does in other Turkic languages. Words borrowed from Russian or other languages may not observe rules of vowel harmony, but the following rules usually apply:

Vocabulary

Personal pronouns

Numbers

# ''bir'' 1 # ''eki'' 2 # ''úsh'' 3 # ''tórt'' 4 # ''bes'' 5 # ''altı'' 6 # ''jeti'' 7 # ''segiz'' 8 # ''toǵız'' 9 # ''on'' 10 * ''júz'' 100 * ''mıń'' 1000

Writing system

Karakalpak was written in the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

and

Persian script The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran (Iranian Persian, Western Persian) and Afghanistan (Dari, Dari Persi ...

until 1928, in the

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern ...

(with additional characters) from 1928 to 1940, after which

Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...

was introduced. Following Uzbekistan's independence in 1991, the decision was made to drop Cyrillic and revert to the Latin alphabet. Whilst the use of Latin script is now widespread in

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...

, its introduction into Karakalpakstan remains gradual. The Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are shown below with their equivalent representations in the IPA. Cyrillic letters with no representation in the Latin alphabet are marked with asterisks. The last changes to the new Karakalpak alphabet were made in 2016: instead of letters with apostrophes, letters with acutes were introduced. Therefore, the new Karakalpak alphabet will act in the same way the new Kazakh and Uzbek alphabets represent – that is, with acutes. Before 2009, C was written as TS; I and Í were written as dotted and

dotless I I, or ı, called dotless I, is a letter used in the Latin-script alphabets of Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, Kazakh, Tatar, Kyrgyz, and Turkish. It commonly represents the close back unrounded vowel , except in Kazakh where it represen ...

.Karakalpak Cyrillic – (Old / New) Latin transliterator
/ref>

Poets

* Ájiniyaz

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Karakalpak Language Agglutinative languages Languages of Kazakhstan Languages of Russia Languages of Uzbekistan Turkic languages of Afghanistan Turkic languages Kipchak languages