Karakalpak language

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.

Consonants

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:

Vocabulary

Personal pronouns

Numbers

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

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

Orthography

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:

The original Arabic alphabet on its own has a number of significant shortcomings: it lacks letters to indicate a number of specific Karakalpak sounds. However, in line with developments in other Turkic-speaking communities of the Soviet Union—specifically the development of the Yaña imlâ alphabet in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, and processes of standardization of the Arabic script in the Kazakh SSR and the Kirghiz SSR—the Karakalpak Arabic alphabet also underwent modifications and introduction of letters and conventions to represent the language more consistently.

A small uppercase hamza is used for indicating front vowels when vowel sounds cannot be perceived from other vowels or consonants in a word, very similar to the use of hamza in the Kazakh Arabic alphabet.

In November 1924, the first Karakalpak-language newspaper, Erkin Qaraqalpaq (یىُركین قاراقالپاق; lit. 'Free Karakalpak'), was printed written in the Arabic script. In 1925 the first textbooks in Karakalpak were published written in the Arabic script. Writer and educator Saifulgabit Madzhitov played a major role in the creation of the alphabet and the release of the first primers.

Yañalif

In the 1920s, a campaign was launched in the Soviet Union to romanize the writing systems of various languages within the country. This campaign gained particular scope after the First Turkic Congress, held in 1926 in Baku, at which all Turkic peoples of the USSR were recommended to switch to a new alphabet (Çaꞑəlip). In July 1927, by the decision of the Karakalpak regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the regional committee of the new alphabet was created. On 30 July 1928, a new alphabet, developed under the leadership of K. Avezov and S. Madzhitov, was submitted for consideration to the Government of the Karakalpak Autonomous Okrug.

In late 1928, after taking into account a number of comments put forward by specialists and intellectuals, this alphabet was approved. It had 32 letters: a, ʙ, с, ç, d, e, ə, f, g, h, x, i, ь, j, k, l, m, n, ꞑ, o, ɵ, p, q, ƣ, r, s, t, u, v, y, z, ş. There were no capital letters in this alphabet. At the beginning of 1929, newspapers and books began to be published in this alphabet. By 1930, printing and education in Karakalpakstan had completely switched from the Arabic alphabet to the Latinized one.

In 1930, on the initiative of the Karakalpak intelligentsia, a meeting was held at the editorial office of the newspaper Miynetkesh qaraqalpaq on issues of the alphabet and spelling. As a result, it was decided to exclude the letter c from the alphabet and write ş instead. By that time, the question arose about establishing firm rules for Karakalpak spelling. In 1932, the Ethno-linguistic section of the Karakalpak Comprehensive Research Institute and the Educational and Methodological Council of the People's Commissariat for Education presented two projects for the Karakalpak orthography and alphabet. During the discussion, both projects were combined into one and in September 1932, at the First Karakalpak Spelling Conference, it was approved. The main change was the introduction of capital letters, as well as a change in the order of letters in the alphabet. Now it was arranged thusly: Aa, Bʙ, Vv, Gg, Dd, Ee, Çç, Zz, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Ff, Xx, Şş, Hh, Əə, Qq, Ƣƣ, Ꞑꞑ, Ɵɵ, Yy, Ьь.

In June 1935, the Second Linguistic Conference was held in Turtkul. In addition to spelling issues, it also touched upon the issue of alphabet reform. It was proposed to exclude the letters Əə, Ɵɵ and Yy from it. However, during the discussion, this proposal was rejected, and the need for further elaboration of this issue was noted.

The third spelling conference was held in Turtkul in October 1938. The issue of alphabet reform was raised again. As a result, the letter Ŭŭ was introduced into the alphabet, the phonetic meaning of a number of letters was changed, and the order of their arrangement in the alphabet was slightly adjusted. As a result, the alphabet approved by the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic looked like this: Aa, Bʙ, Vv, Gg, Dd, Ee, Çç, Zz, Ii, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Tt, Uu, Ff, Xx, Şş, Ꞑꞑ, Əə, Ɵɵ, Hh, Qq, Ƣƣ, Yy, Ŭŭ, Jj, Ьь.

Cyrillic script

In the late 1930s, the process of transferring scripts to a Cyrillic basis began in the Soviet Union. In 1940, K. Ubaydullaev, K. Aimbetov and N. Davkaraev developed an alphabet and spelling rules for the Karakalpak language based on the Cyrillic alphabet. This alphabet was introduced by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on July 18, 1940. This decree also established a deadline of January 1, 1942 for the transition of the press, education and institutions to the new alphabet.

The new alphabet had 35 letters: Аа, Бб, Вв, Гг, Дд, Ее, 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 was used.

These shortcomings forced the Karakalpak Institute of Economics and Culture to develop a new alphabet and spelling rules for the Karakalpak language. In September 1954, a scientific and theoretical conference was held in Nukus, at which scientists from Karakalpakstan, Moscow, Tashkent and Frunze discussed the project of a new alphabet. The decisions of the conference were finalized taking into account the recommendations of the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek SSR and the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. As a result, the current alphabet was clarified and a new set of spelling rules was compiled. On February 28, 1957, the new alphabet and spelling were approved by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This alphabet came into effect in 1960. Compared to the previous version, the letters Ә ә, Ё ё, Ң ң, Ө ө, Ү ү, Ў ў were introduced into the alphabet, and the order of the letters in the alphabet was also changed. As a result, the Karakalpak alphabet began to look like this:

In 1963 and 1964, the issue of improving the Karakalpak alphabet was again raised in the pages of the local press. On this basis, in 1964, a special commission was created from employees of the Institute of History, Language and Literature of the Karakalpak branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Uzbek Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, as well as teachers from the department of the Karakalpak language of the Karakalpak Pedagogical Institute and employees of the Institute for Advanced Training of Teachers of the Karakalpak Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This commission developed a new draft alphabet and spelling. The project proposed the abolition of the letters ў and ң. However, this project caused objections among teachers and was not adopted as a result.

Despite the reforms of the 1990s and the 2000s, the Cyrillic alphabet of the 1957 model is still widely used. For instance, the largest newspaper in Karakalpakstan—Erkin Qaraqalpaqstan (Еркин Қарақалпақстан)—is still printed in the Cyrillic script, and document flow is carried out in government institutions.

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.

In 2009, changes were made to this alphabet again. According to the law of the Republic of Karakalpakstan dated October 8, 2009, the letter combination ts was replaced by c. The letters e, o and oʻ at the beginning of the original Karakalpak words began to be written as ye, wo and woʻ, respectively. The letter I ı has been replaced by Iʻ iʻ. The digraph ch has been introduced. After the reform, the Karakalpak alphabet received the following form: A a, B b, C c, D d, E e, F f, G g, H h, I i, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, P p, Q q, R r, S s, T t, U u, V v, W w, X x, Y y, Z z, Aʻ aʻ, Oʻ oʻ, Iʻ iʻ, Uʻ uʻ, Gʻ gʻ, Nʻ nʻ, Sh sh, Ch ch.

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.

The current Latin alphabet is as follows:

The Cyrillic, Latin, and Arabic alphabets are shown below with their equivalent representations in the IPA. Cyrillic letters with no direct equivalent in the Latin alphabet are shown in grey.

Before 2009, C was written as TS; I and Í were written as dotted and dotless I; and the letters with apostrophe are now letters with acute.

Sample text

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Poets

• Ájiniyaz
• Berdaq Ǵarǵabay ulı
• Kúnxoja
• Ibrayim Yusupov