Karakalpak language

Karakalpak () is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southwestern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Nogai and neighbouring Kazakh languages, 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 and Nogai.

Classification

Karakalpak is a member of the Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, which includes Kazakh, Bashkir, Tatar, Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, Nogai and Kyrgyz. Due to its proximity to Turkmen and Uzbek, some of Karakalpak's vocabulary and grammar has been influenced by Uzbek and Turkmen. Like the vast majority of Turkic languages, 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 Iran and Afghanistan, as well as smaller diaspora in parts of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and other parts of the world speak Karakalpak.

Official status

Karakalpak has official status in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic.

Dialects

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

thumb|right|250px|Karakalpak vowels, from

Consonants

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"

! colspan="2" |

!Labials

!Alveolar

!Post-alv./ Palatal

!Velar

!Uvular

!Glottal

! colspan="2" |Nasal

|

! rowspan="2" |Stop

|

! colspan="2" |Affricate

|()

! rowspan="2" |Fricative

|()

|

|()

|

! colspan="2" |Approximant

|

! colspan="2" |Rhotic

|

Vowels

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

!rowspan="2"|

!colspan="2"| Front

!colspan="2"| Back

! ||

!Close

|

!Mid

|

!Open

|

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:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan="1" | Vowel

! colspan="1" | May be followed by:

| style="border-right-width: 1;" | || style="border-left-width: 0;" |

Vocabulary

Personal pronouns

{|class="wikitable"

!Singular

!Plural

!1st person

|мен/men 'I'

|бизлер/bizler 'we'

!2nd person

|сен/sen 'you'

|сизлер/sizler 'you (pl.)'

!3rd person

|ол/ol 'he/she/it'

|олар/olar 'they'

Numbers

бир – bir – 1
еки – eki – 2
үш – úsh – 3
төрт – tórt – 4
бес – bes – 5
алты<nowiki/> – altı – 6
жети – jeti – 7
сегиз – segiz – 8
тоғыз – toǵız – 9
он – on – 10

жүз – júz – 100
мың – mıń – 1000
миллион – million – 1000000

Orthography

thumb|300px|March 2006. A photo laboratory in [[Nukus – with the signboard written in Karakalpak language using the Latin alphabet]]

History

Karakalpak was written in the Perso-Arabic script until 1932, in the Latin script 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.

Arabic script

The Arabic alphabet consisted of the following 28 letters:

{| style="font-family:Arial Unicode MS; font-size:1.4em; border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style:solid; border-collapse:collapse; background-color:#F8F8EF;"

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ا

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ب

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |پ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ت

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ج

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |چ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |خ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |د

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ر

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ز

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |س

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ش

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ع

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ف

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ق

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ک

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |گ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ڭ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ل

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |م

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ن

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ھ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ە

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |و

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ۇ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ۋ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ىُ

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" |ي

| style="width:3em; text-align:center; padding: 3px;" | ٴ

The original Arabic alphabet on its own has a number of significant shortcomings: it lacks letters to indicate a number of specific Karakalpak sounds.

The new alphabet had 35 letters: Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Дд, <nowiki>Ее</nowiki>, Жж, Зз, Ии, Йй, Кк, Лл, Мм, Нн, Оо, Пп, Рр, Сс, Тт, Уу, Фф, Хх, Цц, Чч, Шш, Щщ, Ъъ, Ыы, Ьь, Ээ, Юю, Яя, Ғғ, Ққ, Ҳҳ. This alphabet had a number of significant shortcomings: it lacked signs to indicate the sounds /æ/, /œ/, /y/, /ŋ/ and /w/. To convey the sounds /æ/, /œ/, /y/, the letters а, о, у were used with the addition of a soft sign after the consonant letter located behind them (for example, тань (bread) instead of тәnн, созь (word) instead of сөз, жунь (wool) instead of жүн, etc.). To denote the sound /ŋ/, the нг digraph

Latin script

In the early 1990s, work began in independent Uzbekistan to translate the scripts of the peoples of this country onto a Latin basis. At the end of 1993, a project for a Latinized Uzbek alphabet was approved. Following this, in February 1994, a new alphabet was approved for the Karakalpak language. This alphabet was based on the General Turkic Alphabet and had the following form: Aa, Ää, Bb, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Ḡḡ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, N̄n̄, Oo, Öö, Pp, Rr, Ss, Şş, Tt, Uu, Üü, Vv, Ww, Yy, Zz.

However, in 1995, the Uzbek and Karakalpak alphabets were revised. All letters with diacritics were excluded from them, and digraphs and post-letter apostrophes were introduced instead. The transition to a new script was to be carried out by 2005. The alphabet in the 1995 version looked like this: Aa, Aʻaʻ, Bb, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Gʻgʻ, Hh, Xx, Iı, İi, Jj, Kk, Qq, Ll, Mm, Nn, Nʻnʻ, Oo, Oʻoʻ, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Uʻuʻ, Vv, Ww, Yy, Zz, Sh sh.

The last changes to the new Karakalpak alphabet were made in 2016: instead of letters with apostrophes (Aʻ aʻ, Oʻ oʻ, Iʻ iʻ, Uʻ uʻ, Gʻ gʻ, Nʻ nʻ), letters with acutes were introduced (Á á, Ó ó, Í ı, Ú ú, Ǵ ǵ, Ń ń). This is the seventh version of the Latin alphabet in Karakalpak writing since 1928.

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

{| class="wikitable" style="table-layout:fixed;width:100%"

!Cyrillic text

!Latin text

!English translation

|Barlıq adamlar óz qádir-qımbatı jáne huqıqlarında erkin hám teń bolıp tuwıladı. Olarǵa aqıl hám hújdan berilgen bolıp, bir-birine tuwısqanlıq ruwxındaǵı qatnasta bolıwı tiyis.

|All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Poets

Ájiniyaz
Berdaq Ǵarǵabay ulı
Kúnxoja
Ibrayim Yusupov