Karakalpak language

Karakalpak
Qaraqalpaq tili, Қарақалпақ тили, قاراقالپاق تىلى
Native to	Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan
Region	Karakalpakstan
Native speakers	583,410 (2010)[1]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Kipchak Kipchak–Nogai[2] Karakalpak
Official status
Official language in	Uzbekistan  Karakalpakstan
Language codes
ISO 639-2	kaa
ISO 639-3	kaa
Glottolog	kara1467[2]
Map showing locations of Karakalpak (red) within Uzbekistan

Karakalpak is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southeastern Karakalpak. It developed alongside neighboring Kazakh and Uzbek languages, being markedly influenced by both. Typologically, Karakalpak belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, thus being closely related to and partially mutually intelligible to Kazakh.^[3]

Classification

Karakalpak is a member of the Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, which includes Tatar, Kumyk, Nogai, and Kazakh. Due to its proximity to Uzbek, much of Karakalpak's vocabulary and grammar has been influenced by Uzbek. Like 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 and smaller diaspora in parts of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and other parts of the world speak Karakalpak.

Phonology

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

Karakalpak vowels, from Menges (1947:?)

Vocabulary

Writing system

Bashkir Arabic script

March 2006. A photo laboratory in Nukus – with the signboard written in Karakalpak language using Latin alphabet

Karakalpak was written in the Arabic and Persian script until 1928, in the Latin script (with additional characters) from 1928 to 1940, after which Cyrillic 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, 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.^[4]

Before 2009, C was written as TS; I and I' were written as dotted and dotless I.^[5]

Users

• A'jiniyaz

References

Bibliography