Kazakh Pronunciation

One notable aspect of Kazakh pronunciation is the system of vowel harmony. All Kazakh vowels can be classified as either front vowels or back vowels. In the Kazakh language, if the stem of a word contains a front vowel, then any suffixes for that word must also use a front vowel. Likewise, if there is a back vowel in the stem of a word, back vowels are used in any suffixes for that word. The only exceptions to this pronunciation rule are a few loan words from other languages.

Most Kazakh words are stressed on the final syllable.

Kazakh Vocabulary

Kazakh vocabulary shares a number of words with the related languages in the Turkic language family. It also has a variety of loan words from other languages, most notably Russian. By some estimates, Kazakh has been more heavily influenced by Russian than any other Turkic language.

Kazakh Grammar

Kazakh is considered an agglutinative language because it indicates grammatical functions primarily by attaching suffixes to word stems. Kazakh nouns decline to show case, meaning that they change form to indicate their role in a sentence. The six noun cases in Kazakh are the nominative case, the genitive case, the dative case, the accusative case, the locative case, and the ablative case. Nouns also take suffixes to indicate when they are plural. Kazakh verbs take suffixes to indicate their tense, aspect, and mood.

The typical word order for a Kazakh sentence is Subject-Object-Verb, which is different from that of English. Kazakh also uses postpositions, which come after the words they apply to, in place of prepositions, which come before them.

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Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is the largest country of central Asia, stretching from Siberia to the deserts of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and from China to the Caspian Sea. The country covers two time zones and five climatic zones. Its size defines the character of the nation: everything is large in scale, from the wealth of its resources, to the scale of the travel across the country which presents a formidable problem of bringing the Kazakh goods to the main exports markets.

Kazakhstan has a rich and long history. The early nomad civilization was registered as early as in the first millennium BC. The rich vast steppe land had been a valuable prize for many invaders, including Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame (Tamerlane) who conquered and ruled the region. It was the Turkic-speaking tribes that developed trade routes including the Silk Road flowing east to west and the Sable Road connecting central Kazakhstan to the Altai and south-west Siberia. Islam was gradually introduced starting from the 11th century.

It was only in the late 15th century that the first Kazakh states were formed and a Kazakh people emerged divided into hordes ruled by khans. Russian expansion reached Kazakh lands in the beginning of the 18th century. By the 1850s the entire region was incorporated into the Tsarist Empire and Russian settlers began arriving in large numbers.

After dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1991, Kazakhstan entered a new era led by Nursultan Nazarbayev. He took over the leadership of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan in March 1989 and after winning the first popular elections in December 1991 became Kazakhstan’s first President.

Kazakhstan’s new constitution has been adopted in August 1995.

CAPITAL:

The first ever capital of Kazakhstan since 1920 was the city of Orenburg (now on the territory of the Russian Federation). In 1925, the capital of Kazakhstan was transferred to Kzyl-Orda. In April 1927 Alma-Ata (now Almaty) has become the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. After the transfer of capital to Astana, Almaty remains cultural, business and financial center of Kazakhstan. It is also one of the most beautiful cities in central Asia.

GOVERNANCE:

Independence and sovereignty was proclaimed in 1991. Kazakhstan is a constitutional republic with strong presidency. The head of state is the President Nursultan Nazarbayev, first elected in 1991, then re-elected in 1995, 1999 and 2005. The head of the Government is Prime Minister Karim Massimov. The bicameral Parliament comprises the upper house (Senate) and the lower house (Majilis). The higher judicial bodies are the Supreme Court and Constitutional Council.

LANGUAGES:

The official state language is Kazakh, a Turkic language closely related to Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and Turkish. Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication, widely spoken in urban areas, whereas people from rural regions tend to speak more Kazakh. English is used by international organizations and the foreign business community in Kazakhstan. Uygur, Korean and other ethnic minorities speak their national regional languages and dialects.

RELIGION:

Kazakhstan is officially a secular state, but Sunni Islam is the major religion. The Russian Orthodox Church is the dominant Christian denomination. There are also Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish communities. The Kazakhs do not express their religious feelings fervently. Kazakhstan is on the periphery of the Muslim world and a meeting point of Russian, Chinese and Central Asian civilizations. Islam plays a minor role in state policy and there are no significant Islamic political organizations in the country. Muslim 47%, Russian Orthodox 44%, Protestant 2%, Catholic 2-3 %, mostly Russians and Koreans Buddhists 0.3%, Korean, Buryet, Kalmyk Jews 0.1%, etc.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ACTIVITY:

Today, 16 political parties of differing ideological orientation are registered in Kazakhstan. There are 3,500 NGOs in the Republic, their activities covering more than thirty activity directions, including entrepreneurship support, people’s rights, protection activities, promotion of legal knowledge among the public, preventing social conflicts, and assistance in social development of rural areas, among others. Seventy per cent of the 1,431 mass media operating in Kazakhstan are non-governmental. Of 1,292 periodicals currently being published, 218 are printed in Kazakh, 540 in Russian, 407 in both languages and 127 in various other languages used in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan's citizens read newspapers in 11 languages, watch TV programs in 12 and listen to radio broadcasts in 6.

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