TOP FIVE REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO KNOW KAZAKH

1. There are very few people in America who learn or speak Kazakh! Those who study Kazakh can find careers in a variety of fields including translation and interpreting, consulting, foreign service and intelligence, journalism, and many others. 2. Kazakhstan is the biggest country in Central Asia, with the largest economy, the second largest population, and the most trade with the United States. Business partnerships with Kazakhstan and the U.S. are growing, creating a demand for educated Americans who are fluent in Kazakh. 3. Kazakh is a gateway to accessing Turkic languages spoken by millions of people in the former Soviet Union, China, and the Caucuses, including the Tatar, Azerbaijani, and Uyghur peoples. These regions are of vital strategic importance in the world today! 4. The revival of the Kazakh language is an exciting storyand just by learning Kazakh, you become part of it. Kazakhs appreciate foreigners who take the time to learn their language and share their unique way of life. 5. Learning Kazakh is fun! The grammar of Kazakh is consistent and the spelling is phonetic. Yes, learning Kazakh can be challenging, but remember what you wont have to worry about: nouns dont have gender, adjectives dont have to agree with nouns, and verbs arent irregular! Best of all, by learning Kazakh you will get to know the Kazakh people, immerse yourself in their rich cultural heritage, and experience their way of life and the values they share.

WHERE IN THE U.S.A CAN YOU LEARN KAZAKH?

The Department of Central Eurasian Studies (CEUS) at Indiana University offers courses in Kazakh language, its culture, history, and society. For more information, visit their website at http:// www.indiana.edu/~ceus or contact them via email at ceus@indiana.edu. The Summer Workshop in Slavic, East European and Central Asian Languages (SWSEEL) at Indiana University offers intensive courses of Kazakh. For more information, visit their website at http://www.indiana. edu/~swseel or contact them via email at swseel@ indiana.edu. Also, the following universities offer various levels of Kazakh: - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor - University of Wisconsin, Madison - University of Washington - University of Arizona - University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - University of Chicago

KAZAKH
Uzbeks are the most numerous Turkic people in Central Asia. They predominantly mostly live in Uzbekistan, a landlocked country of Central Asia that shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south. Many Uzbeks can also be found in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.

WHO SPEAKS UZBEK?

WHERE CAN YOU OBTAIN RESOURCES FOR LEARNING KAZAKH?

The Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR) at Indiana University develops materials for learning and teaching Central Asian languages. For more information, visit our website at http://www.indiana. edu/~celcar. The Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC) at Indiana University has a wide variety of Kazakh books, videos, CDs, DVDs, costumes, and artifacts. The center lends and ships these materials for use in the classroom free of charge. For more information, visit their website or http://www.indiana. edu/~iaunrc or contact them at iaunrc@indiana.edu.
718 Eigenmann Hall, 1900 East 10th Street, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47406 Phone: (812) 856-1230 Fax: (812) 856-1206 E-mail : celcar@indiana.edu Web site: http://www.indiana.edu/~celcar

Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region (CeLCAR)

WHO ARE THE KAZAKHS?

Kazakhs are Turkic people, traditionally nomads, who mostly live in Kazakhstan, the largest country in Central Asia. Kazakhstan occupies the vast grasslands between Russia, Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, and the three smaller Central Asian nations to the south: Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Many Kazakhs also live in Xinjiang, Mongolia, Russia, and Uzbekistan.

the collapse of the Soviet-Union, Kazakh lexicon went through a major de-Russification process. As a result, many Russian loanwords were replaced with the original Kazakh ones.

WHAT ALPHABET DO KAZAKHS USE?

Throughout their history, Kazakhs used a number of alphabets. Old Turkic, a predecessor of all Turkic languages, including Kazakh was recorded in the runic script. As the Kazakh language emerged in the wake of the Mongol empire, the Perso-Arabic script was adopted. Under Soviet Russian rule, Kazakh adopted first the Latin script and then the Cyrillic script also used to write Russian. This Cyrillic script is well designed to fit the language, using special letters to represent the distinctive Kazakh sounds with a completely phonetic spelling. Today Kazakhs of Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and of post-Soviet states continue using the Cyrillic alphabet. Only those in China still use the Perso-Arabic script.

WHAT KIND OF LANGUAGE IS KAZAKH?

Kazakh belongs to the Turkic group of languages, which includes languages such as Uzbek, Turkish, Uyghur, and Tatar. Turkic languages have been spoken across vast territory from the Balkans to China for many centuries. Kazakh is the most widely spoken language of the Kipchak sub-branch of the Turkic languages. Kazakhs represent the majority of the population (65%) of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Kazakh is the official language of Kazakhstan. But until recently, it was rarely used in administration and government. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the general attitude toward Kazakh has been changing, and government bodies have been switching to Kazakh. Kazakh is an agglutinative language in which suffixes that indicate only one meaning are attached to the word stem one after another in a set order. Unlike some other Central Asian Turkic languages, Kazakh also has a vigorous system of vowel harmony in which the vowels of the suffixes change to fit the vowels in the stem. But Kazakh does not have the difficulties that inflecting languages have with grammatical gender and multiple systems of declension and conjugation. The vocabulary of Kazakh has been influenced by Arabic, Persian, Mongolian, and Russian. However, after

Traditionally, Kazakhs are pastoral nomads, raising horses, sheep, goats, two-humped camels, and cattle. Horsemeat and fermented mares milk are still favorite Kazakh foods. Soviet collectivization policies forced on Kazakhs ended in famine and a mass outmigration of Kazakhs to the neighboring China. Beginning in the 1990s, due to Kazakhstans economic boom, many ethnic Kazakhs began returning to their historic lands from China, Mongolia and other post-Soviet states. Contemporary Kazakh culture is truly Eurasian: a unique blend of nomadic traditions, Russian and Soviet past and modern-day Western influences. Regional and clan influences remain strong among the Kazakhs, who were traditionally divided into three jz (hordes): the Senior jz, the Middle jz, and the Junior jz. Each jz has a dozen or more different clans, and although belonging to a certain jz or clan does not play a major role in peoples social-economic lives todays, many Kazakhs are still proud to identify themselves within their jz and know their ancestors within seven generations. Kazakhs are avid musicians. Dombra, a traditional Kazakh musical instrument, accompanies all kinds of Kazakh ceremonies and get-togethers. Traditionally, Kazakhs arrange song contests, aitysh, during festivity or holidays and the public chooses the best folk singer among the contestants.

WHAT IS KAZAKH CULTURE LIKE?

Kazakhstan is the heart of nomadic Central Asia. For centuries, the cities of southern Kazakhstan participated in the cultural renaissance of the Silk Roads, while nomadic conquerors have repeatedly come out from the Kazakh steppes to build great empires. Kazakhstan was deeply influenced by the Mongol world empire, and many Kazakhs honor Genghis Khan as a national hero. Like other Turco-Mongolian peoples, the ancient nomads of Kazakhstan worshipped the sky deity Tengri. In the wake of the Mongol empire, the Kazakh khans adopted Islam, and grew closer to the culture of the southern oasis cities. Today, almost all Kazakhs are Sunni Muslims, but they also value the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of Kazakhstan.