Karakalpak language

Encyclopedia : K : KA : KAR : Karakalpak language

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Karakalpak is a Turkic language mainly spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan), as well as by Kazakhs, Bashkirs and Nogay. Ethnic Karakalpaks who live in the wiloyatlar of Uzbekistan tend to speak local Uzbek dialects.

Classification

Karakalpak is a member of the Kipchak Turkic family of languages, which includes Tatar, Kumyk, and Kazakh in addition to Karakalpak. The Kipchak family is a subgroup of the Turkic languages, which most linguists believe to be member of an Altaic language family. Within the Kipchak Turkic family, Karakalpak is most closely related to Kazakh and Nogai. Due to its proximity to the Uzbek language, much of the vocabulary and grammar has an Uzbek influence.

Like Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish, Karakalpak has vowel harmony, is agglutinative and has no grammatical gender. Word order is usually Subject Object Verb.

Geographic Distribution

Karakalpak is spoken mainly in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic of Uzbekistan. Approximately 2,000 people in Afghanistan speak Karakalpak and smaller diaspora in other parts of the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and other parts of the world speak Karakalpak as well.

Official Status

Karakalpak has official status in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic.

Dialects

The Ethnologue identifies two dialects of Karakalpak: Northeastern and Southeastern. Menges mentions a third possible dialect spoken in the Fergana Valley.

Sounds

Consonants

Karakalpak has 21 native consonant phonemes and regularly uses 4 non-native phonemes in loan words. Non-native sounds are shown in parentheses.

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Plosive	p	b	t	d			k	g	q
Affricate			(ʦ)		(ʧ)
Fricative	(f)	(v)	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	x	ɣ			h
Nasal	m		n				ŋ
Flap/Tap			r
Lateral			l
Approximant	w				j

Vowels

Vowel Harmony

Vowel harmony 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:

Vowel	May be followed by:
a	a, ɯ
æ	e, i
e	e, i
i	e, i
o	a, o, u, ɯ
œ	e, i, œ, y
u	a, o, u
y	e, œ, y
ɯ	a, ɯ

Vocabulary

Personal Pronouns

men I, sen you (singular), ol he, she, it, that, biz we, siz you (plural), olar they

Numbers

bir 1, eki 2, u'sh 3, to'rt 4, bes 5, altı 6, jeti 7, segiz 8, tog'ıs 9, on 10, ju'z 100, mın' 1000

Writing system

Karakalpak was written in the Arabic alphabet and in Persian until 1928, in the Latin alphabet (with additional characters) from 1928 to 1940, after which the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced. Following Uzbek independence in 1991 the decision was made to drop Cyrillic and to revert to the Latin alphabet. Whilst the use of Latin script is now widespread in Tashkent, 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.

Cyrillic	Latin	IPA		Cyrillic	Latin	IPA		Cyrillic	Latin	IPA
Аа	Aa			Ққ	Qq			Фф	Ff
Әә	A'a'			Лл	Ll			Хх	Xx
Бб	Bb			Мм	Mm			Ҳҳ	Hh
Вв	Vv			Нн	Nn			Цц*	ts
Гг	Gg			Ңң	N'n'			Чч*	sh
Ғғ	G'g'			Оо	Oo			Шш	SHsh
Дд	Dd			Өө	O'o'			Щщ*	sh
Ее	Ee			Пп	Pp			Ъъ*
Ёё*	yo			Рр	Rr			Ыы	Iı
Жж	Jj			Сс	Ss			Ьь*
Зз	Zz			Тт	Tt			Ээ	Ee
Ии	İi			Уу	Uu			Юю*	yu
Йй	Yy			Үү	U'u'			Яя	ya
Кк	Kk			Ўў	Ww

References

• [www.karakalpak.com]

External links

• [Ethnologue report for Karakalpak]

 

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