As Tupak Amaru points out, the orthographical rule says the following: The letter Қ (voiceless uvular stop, [q]) never occurs with low front vowels in the same syllable. It is recognized as an orthographical error if you write қә, қе, қі, қү, қө.

Even though I agree with the rule provided by Tupak Amaru, I would like to discuss the following question with you.

Kazakh morphology is based on synharmony. The so-called lingual harmony operates strongly in Kazakh: the quality of the vowel in the first syllable of a word imposes its quality on the other vowels in the word. For instance, if the first syllable contains a front vowel, the rest of the word must only contain front vowels (and never back vowels). The fact that mixed syllables are found only in loanwords was noted by Kazakh researchers such as Akhanov (in his book Basics of Kazakh Linguistics [1973]) and others, such as Edward Vadja (in his article “Kazakh Phonology” [2004]). However, Suleimenova (in her article “Some problems of Russian Loans in Kazakh” [1965]) has shown that all Kazakh words of Arabic and Persian origins adapted to the phonotactics of Kazakh before the twentieth century. Therefore, words of Arabic and Persian origin should follow the synharmony of Kazakh as well.

The words қауіп (danger), қатер (danger), and қадір (respect) originate from Arabic and the orthographic rule was probably imposed on these words. However, when these words are pronounced, the first vowel is not pronounced as a back vowel. In the word қауіп, the second vowel affects the first one; and as a result, the first vowel sounds softer, despite the presence of the uvular [q], which supposedly occurs only with back vowels. There are also other examples that contradict the rule, such as the words қазір and қәзір (now), or words such as қадыр and қaдір (respect), which are all equally found in the writing of native speakers.

So why would we spell these words in a certain way even though we pronounce them in another way? Moreover, why do their counterparts appear in the writing of native speakers if the rule is perfect?

It seems to me that their counterparts appear because many native speakers intuitively feel that vowel harmony is essential to Kazakh, not because they don’t know the rule. Consider the following example, which I found on Askat’s blog: the word қәтер instead of қатер.

The orthographic rule provided by Tupak Amaru is prescriptive. Isn’t it time to make Kazakh language rules more descriptive?

To read this post  in Kazakh, click here.

In the United States, all university students (whether they are American or foreign) are required to take courses that place great emphasis on professional writing, whether it is for business, science, or communication. At American universities, writing is recognized to be an important skill for being successful in life, and therefore the instruction of writing cannot be limited to the writing of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism.

American writing courses teach students how to express their opinions but also how to provide supporting evidence for these opinions, how to analyze problems but also how to solve problems. Moreover, these writing courses are not limited to writing; they also involve a lot of speaking. From the Anglo-American perspective, writing and speaking are forms of communication that are related; and writing should not be so complicated that it cannot be turned into speech.

In modern English (and in other modern languages, such as German), the main principles of professional writing are as follows:

1.  Writing has to be divided into paragraphs.

2. Every paragraph has its own topic and purpose.

3. Every paragraph focuses exclusively on this topic and purpose, and discards everything else.

4. Every paragraph should therefore also be concise.

With the help of these principles, students learn how to organize any kind of writing and communicate efficiently with their readers.

As we all know, English is becoming the language of global business and science. As the language that is most influenced by modern communication technology, English has not become worse at all: it has become very efficient and perhaps even more beautiful. Is it because of the nature of English? I don’t think so. I think every language, including Kazakh, has the potential to develop this way. What do you think?

To read the post in Kazakh, click here.

I came up with a Kazakh translation of the phrase: аударғанда адасқан. I think that the Kazakh language needs this term badly. If native speakers of English have fun with the English mistranslations they encounter around the world (click here), Kazakhs face a more serious issue: the lost-in-translation advertisements, billboards and street signs in their own country. Kazakhstan’s law on state language requires that all advertisements, billboards and street signs should be translated into the country’s official language, Kazakh. The Russian-speaking advertising agencies that dominate the market appear to feel no need to double-check the Kazakh translations that appear in their ad campaigns, no matter how ridiculous or nonsensical the result may be. In a by-now famous instance, the Russian-speaking ad people managed to translate their advertisement for a new cell phone as follows: “Relationship gives you heating. Fill in your balance and don’t lose your opportunity to get 20% off.” ( Қарым- қатынас жылу береді. Балансыңды толтыр да, шотыңа 20% алу мүмкіндігін жіберіп алма.)

Upset with this abuse of their language, Kazakh journalists have used bitter words:  mistranslations into Kazakh, they have said, “are as freely breeding as head lice.”

Earlier in 2009 the chief of Kazakhstan’s language fund came up with a new way of fighting Kazakh mistranslations: he announced a photo-competition that would put on display the most egregious cases and result in the humiliation and punishment of those responsible for them. It was announced that photos would be published every three months in the newspaper Aikyn, but no news so far.   

Perhaps it would be better to follow Charlie Croker’s English-language example and start collecting all the Kazakh mistranslations that clutter the streets of Kazakhstan on the Web. Feel free to give examples of bizarre or nonsensical translations that you have come across during your travels in Kazakhstan in the comments section (preferably in the Kazakh-language version of this blog).

The first is that “in order to learn Kazakh, one should know Russian.” This is difficult to sustain. From my own teaching experience, I know that even if learners don’t know Russian, they can acquire the Cyrillic alphabet in a short period of time. The alphabet is the only element that Kazakh and Russian have in common. Unlike Russian, Kazakh is an agglutinative language that is based on sound harmony and on adding suffixes to the roots of words. Moreover, with the exception of a few Russian loanwords, Kazakh derives most of its vocabulary from ancient Turkic, Arabic and Persian.

Second, the article claims that it is difficult to learn Kazakh because there is no methodology of teaching Kazakh. It seems that many people adhere to this opinion, but I think that many linguists and teachers of Kazakh would disagree. Especially because this opinion appears to be an implicit criticism of Kazakh teachers. What is a methodology of teaching? It is a set of techniques that teachers apply in their teaching. It is not some kind of super-theory that a ministry of education should provide. After all, the methods that have been proposed over the years (the grammar-translation method, the direct method, the audio-lingual method, the communicative method) are purely theoretical.

In practice, good teachers (and most Kazakh teachers are good) integrate a variety of techniques in their lessons, because their purpose is to improve all 4 language skills: reading, writing, comprehension and speaking. What Kazakh teachers need is not an abstract methodology, but more resources. They need professionally made books and dictionaries, and training seminars where they can exchange their teaching experiences. Internet forums would be very helpful, too, except that most Kazakh teachers don’t have access to the internet.

I am curious to hear what my readers think about these issues.

To read this post in Kazakh, click here.