Kyrgyz Language
Kyrgyz (; autonym: , tr. ''Kyrgyz tili'', ) is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. There is a very high level of mutual intelligibility between Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Altay. A dialect of Kyrgyz known as Pamiri Kyrgyz is spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Turkey, parts of northern Pakistan, and Russia. Kyrgyz was originally written in Göktürk script, gradually replaced by the Perso-Arabic alphabet (in use until 1928 in the USSR, still in use in China). Between 1928 and 1940 a Latin-script alphabet, the Uniform Turkic Alphabet, was used. In 1940, Soviet authorities replaced the Latin script with the Cyrillic alphabet for all Turkic countries. When ...
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Kyrgyz People
The Kyrgyz people (also spelled Kyrghyz, Kirgiz, and Kirghiz; ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is the nation state of the Kyrgyz people and significant diaspora can be found in China, Russia, and Uzbekistan. They speak the Kyrgyz language, the official language of Kyrgyzstan. The earliest Kyrgyz people were the descendants of several central Asian tribes, first emerging in western Mongolia around 201 BC. Modern Kyrgyz people are descended from the Yenisei Kyrgyz that lived in the Yenisey river valley in Siberia. The Kyrgyz people were constituents of the Tiele people, the Göktürks, and the Uyghur Khaganate before spreading throughout Central Asia and establishing their own Kyrgyz Khanate in the 15th century. Etymology There are several theories on the origin of ethnonym ''Kyrgyz''. It is often said to be derived from the Turkic word ''kyrk'' ("forty"), with -''iz'' being an old plural suffix, so ''Kyrgyz'' literally means "a collec ...
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