Astana Kazakh
The Kazakh of northern Kazakhstan around Astana and Pavlodar. Closer to Tatar in several lexical and phonological features, with stronger Russian-contact influence.
Also known as: Qazaqşa, Southern Kazakh
A Kipchak Turkic language and the official language of Kazakhstan. The Almaty-area variety, traditionally the southern standard. Currently transitioning from Cyrillic to a Latin-based alphabet.
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Kazakh is a dialect of the Kazakh language.
Kazakh is primarily spoken in Kazakhstan.
Kazakh is part of the Central Asia region on DialectAtlas.
Yes — Kazakh is also referred to as Qazaqşa, Southern Kazakh.
Kazakh also includes Northern Kazakh, Western Kazakh, Eastern Kazakh. Each variety has its own vocabulary, pronunciation, and cultural context.
Astana Kazakh
The Kazakh of northern Kazakhstan around Astana and Pavlodar. Closer to Tatar in several lexical and phonological features, with stronger Russian-contact influence.
Atyrau Kazakh
The Kazakh of western Kazakhstan around Atyrau and Aktobe. The dialect group with the most extensive contact features from Tatar and Bashkir; transitional toward the Volga Kipchak varieties.
Semey Kazakh
The Kazakh of eastern Kazakhstan around Öskemen and Semey, near the Altai border. Carries contact features from Mongolic Oirat and Russian.
136 km away
A Sinitic language descended from late-19th-century Hui Muslim refugees who fled into the Russian Empire after the Qing-era Hui revolts. Written in Cyrillic, with substantial Russian, Persian, and Turkic loans.
195 km away
A Kipchak Turkic language and the official language of Kyrgyzstan. Carries the Manas oral epic, one of the longest oral epic traditions in world literature.
237 km away
The Korean variety of the Koryo-saram, descended from communities deported from the Soviet Far East in 1937 to Central Asia. A Hamgyŏng-derived dialect heavily influenced by Russian, now critically endangered.
668 km away
A Karluk Turkic language and the most-spoken Turkic language after Turkish. The official language of Uzbekistan, with substantial communities across Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Caucasus.
681 km away
The Persian variety spoken in Tajikistan, written in Cyrillic script with unique vocabulary influenced by Central Asia.
769 km away
A Pamir Iranian language spoken across the Wakhan Corridor where Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and China meet. One of the most archaic Iranian languages, retaining features of Old Iranian lost everywhere else.