Kazakh
Changing alphabets, again
A Turkic language on its third writing system in a century, currently moving from Cyrillic to Latin.
- Arabic script until the 1920s, Latin briefly, then Cyrillic under the Soviet Union, and now a return to Latin planned to finish by 2031.
- Agglutinative, with vowel harmony, so endings stack and change shape to match the stem.
- No grammatical gender, and no articles.
- Almost everyone who speaks it also speaks Russian, and the balance between the two is a live political question.
- Turkish and Kazakh speakers can catch pieces of each other. The family stretches from the Balkans to western China.
A Turkic language across the world's largest landlocked country, mid-move from Cyrillic to Latin script. Vowel harmony and suffix stacking: one word can be a sentence. The new Silk Road runs through Almaty; oil, steppe and eagle hunters included. Russian gets you around, Kazakh gets you welcomed.
Where Kazakh parts company with the languages closest to it, and what each one would cost you from here.
Reading about a language is not speaking it. These are the places I would go to find someone to speak Kazakh with.
The Kazakh Passepartout is not out yet
Five printed pages that carry you through the arrival. Leave your address and you hear about it first, and nothing else.
Leaving takes one click.
Short stories written inside a measured vocabulary, with the word lists and nothing invented for a textbook.