Kazakh (Kyrgyz) Tutorial

Author: Hu Zhenhua
Editor-in-Chief: Dai Peili
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1995-07-01
Features:
Excerpt: What is language? The phonetic and written forms of language—phonemes, letters, speech organs, vowels, consonants, vowel letters, consonant letters, compound letters, soft sign, separation sign.
1. What is language? Language is a tool used by people to express thoughts and communicate with each other. The development of human society cannot proceed without language. To carry out cultural exchanges between the Han and Kazakh ethnic groups, as well as between China and Kyrgyzstan, if neither party speaks Chinese or Kazakh, nor a third common language, communication cannot take place. Language consists of three parts: phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary. Phonetics is the material substance of language, which constitutes words to express meaning—a convention established by society. Otherwise, it would just be ordinary sound and could not fulfill the role of language as a tool for human communication and thought exchange. Each word in language is composed of phonetics, and the sum of these words is called vocabulary. Words, when combined according to certain rules, can form sentences. These rules are the grammar of the language. To learn Kazakh well, we must approach it from these three aspects.
2. The phonetic and written forms of language: To fully master the language of a written ethnic group, one must grasp its phonetic and written forms. The phonetic form is spoken language, while the written form is writing. Spoken language is expressed through phonetics; the written form—writing—is represented by letters or other symbols.
3. Phonemes and letters: The smallest unit of language is the word, which has two aspects. One is how it is expressed in spoken language through phonetics, and the other is how it is represented in writing using the letters of the script. From the perspective of the written form of Kazakh, it is composed of letters, which are the smallest units of the written form of words. The Kazakh script has thirty-six letters. From the perspective of the phonetic form, it is composed of phonemes, which are the smallest units of the phonetic form of words. The Kazakh language has thirty-six phonemes. In some languages, the number of phonemes may not necessarily be equal to the number of letters.