A Short Introduction to Kazakh

Vowel Harmony

• Vowel Harmony
• Hard and Soft Vowels
• Consonant Harmony

As mentioned in the Introduction, Kazakh, like other Turkic languages, uses something called vowel harmony. An adherence to vowel harmony doesn't really exist at all in English.

Kazakh's spelling and pronunciation relies not only on vowel harmony, like most other Turkic languages, but also on consonant harmony. That is, the ending vowels in the word determine the form of the suffix. Likewise, the ending consonant of a word also determines the form of suffix that word will take

What is Vowel Harmony?

In Kazakh, the meaning of a word changes based on the endings you tack onto it.

• бала (bala) – Child
• балалар (balalar) – Children
• балаларға (balalargha) – To the children
• балаларыңызға (balalaryngyzgha) – To your children

The last vowel in "бала" is a hard vowel. As a result, all of the endings added to that word, according to the rules of Kazakh grammar and spelling, must also be hard vowels.

Now let's look at a word with soft vowels әң (eng– song, melody):

• әң (eng) – Song
• әңдер (engder) – Songs
• әңдері (engderi) – Their songs
• әңдерінің (engderi)– Of their songs

So why isn't the plural form of әң әңлар? Again, according to the rules of Kazakh spelling, a word ending with a soft vowel cannot have an ending with a hard vowel. You'll also notice that not only does the vowel change, but the consonant of the plural ending changes as well. We'll explain why in another section.

Hard and Soft Vowels

Listen to the vowels as you play the audio file and try to replicate them outloud yourself.

Notice where in your mouth the vowel is coming from. Are you using more the back of your mouth to produce the sound or the front? If you find yourself using the back of your mouth to produce the sound (as you should find for the vowels А, Ы, Ұ, and О), you are pronouncing a hard vowel. If you're using the front, you're producing a soft vowel.

Kazakh's vowels are divided into hard and soft vowels. Examples of hard vowels are:

Consonant Harmony

So, perhaps you noticed above that the plural ending for әң, “дәр” was different from the plural ending for бала, “лар”. Why is this? Well notice that the word әң ends in the "ng" sound, which is called a sonorant (like m and n) and бала ends in a vowel. That's right! Not only do you have to pay attention to the ending vowel, but you have to pay attention to the ending consonant as well.

We will cover this more in depth in the grammar section. For now, just know that words ending in a vowel will have different endings than words ending in a voiced consonant or sonorant, which will have different endings than those ending in an unvoiced consonant

Voiced Consonants, Sonorants, Unvoiced Consonants

Examples of Consonant Harmony

You'll notice that бала ends in a vowel. However, vowels are treated by certain grammatical endings as if it were a voiced consonant or sonorant.

Words Ending in Vowels and Voiced Consonants

• бала – child   балалар – children    баладан – from the child
• қасқыр–wolf   қасқырлар–wolves  қасқырдан –from the wolf
• гүл –flower   гүлдер –flowers   гүлден– from the flower
• қаз–goose   қаздар –geese  қаздан–from the goose

Words Ending in Sonorants

• әң –song  әңдер –songs  әңнен–from the song
• қалам –pen  қаламдар –pens  қаламнан–pen the song

Words Ending in Unvoiced Consonants

• сөздік– dictionary  сөздіктер –dictionaries  сөздіктен–from the dictionary
• хат –letter   хаттар–letters   хаттан – from the letter