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Karakalpak Qaraqalpaq tili, Қарақалпақ тили
Spoken in:	Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Russia
Region:	Karakalpakstan
Total speakers:	412,000 (1993)
Language family:	Altaic  Turkic   Kypchak    Kypchak-Nogay     Karakalpak
Official status
Official language in:	Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan is the official area)
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	kaa
ISO 639-3:	kaa
Map showing locations of Karakalpak (red) within Uzbekistan
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Karakalpak is a Turkic language mainly spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan), as well as by Bashkirs and Nogay. Ethnic Karakalpaks who live in the viloyatlar of Uzbekistan tend to speak local Uzbek dialects.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Classification 2 Geographic Distribution 2.1 Official Status 2.2 Dialects 3 Sounds 3.1 Consonants 3.2 Vowels 3.3 Vowel Harmony 4 Vocabulary 4.1 Personal Pronouns 4.2 Numbers 5 Writing system 6 References 7 External links

Karakalpak is a member of the Kypchak Turkic family of languages, which includes Tatar, Kumyk, and Kazakh in addition to Karakalpak. The Kipchak family is a subgroup of the Turkic languages, which most linguists believe to be member of an Altaic language family. Within the Kipchak Turkic family, Karakalpak is most closely related to Kazakh and Nogai. Due to its proximity to the Uzbek language areal, much of the vocabulary and grammar has an Uzbek influence.

Like Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish, Karakalpak has vowel harmony, is agglutinative and has no grammatical gender. Word order is usually Subject Object Verb.

Karakalpak is spoken mainly in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic of Uzbekistan. Approximately 2,000 people in Afghanistan speak Karakalpak and smaller diaspora in other parts of Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and other parts of the world speak Karakalpak as well.

Karakalpak has official status in the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic.

The Ethnologue identifies two dialects of Karakalpak: Northeastern and Southeastern. Menges mentions a third possible dialect spoken in the Fergana Valley.

Karakalpak has 21 native consonant phonemes and regularly uses 4 non-native phonemes in loan words. Non-native sounds are shown in parentheses.

Consonant phonemes

	Labial		Alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Uvular		Glottal
Plosive	p	b	t	d			k	g	q
Affricate			(t͡s)		(t͡ʃ)
Fricative	(f)	(v)	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	x	ɣ			h
Nasal	m		n				ŋ
Flap/Tap			r
Lateral			l
Approximant	w				j

Vowel harmony functions in Karakalpak much as it does in other Turkic languages. Words borrowed from Russian or other languages may not observe rules of vowel harmony, but the following rules usually apply:

Vowel	May be followed by:
a	a, ɯ
æ	e, i
e	e, i
i	e, i
o	a, o, u, ɯ
œ	e, i, œ, y
u	a, o, u
y	e, œ, y
ɯ	a, ɯ

men I, sen you (singular), ol he, she, it, that, biz we, siz you (plural), olar they

bir 1, eki 2, u'sh 3, to'rt 4, bes 5, altı 6, jeti 7, segiz 8, tog'ıs 9, on 10, ju'z 100, mın' 1000

Karakalpak was written in the Arabic alphabet and in Persian until 1928, in the Latin alphabet (with additional characters) from 1928 to 1940, after which the Cyrillic alphabet was introduced. Following Uzbek independence in 1991 the decision was made to drop Cyrillic and to revert to the Latin alphabet. Whilst the use of Latin script is now widespread in Tashkent, its introduction into Karakalpakstan remains gradual. The Cyrillic and Latin alphabets are shown below with their equivalent representations in the IPA. Cyrillic letters with no representation in the Latin alphabet are marked with asterisks.

Cyrillic	Latin	IPA		Cyrillic	Latin	IPA		Cyrillic	Latin	IPA
Аа	Aa	a		Ққ	Qq	q		Фф	Ff	f
Әә	A'a'	æ		Лл	Ll	l		Хх	Xx	x
Бб	Bb	b		Мм	Mm	m		Ҳҳ	Hh	h
Вв	Vv	v		Нн	Nn	n		Цц*	ts	ʦ
Гг	Gg	g		Ңң	N'n'	ŋ		Чч*	sh	ʧ
Ғғ	G'g'	ɣ		Оо	Oo	o		Шш	SHsh	ʃ
Дд	Dd	d		Өө	O'o'	œ		Щщ*	sh	ʃ
Ее	Ee	e		Пп	Pp	p		Ъъ*
Ёё*	yo	jo		Рр	Rr	r		Ыы	Iı	ɯ
Жж	Jj	ʒ		Сс	Ss	s		Ьь*
Зз	Zz	z		Тт	Tt	t		Ээ	Ee	e
Ии	İi	i		Уу	Uu	u		Юю*	yu	ju
Йй	Yy	j		Үү	U'u'	y		Яя	ya	ja
Кк	Kk	k		Ўў	Ww	w

• www.karakalpak.com

Menges, Karl H. (1947). Qaraqałpaq Grammar. Morningside Heights, New York: King's Crown Press. 

Johanson, Lars and Csató, Éva Ágnes (1998). The Turkic Languages. London: Routledge. 

• Ethnologue report for Karakalpak

v • d • e Altaic languages
Turkic languages • Mongolic languages • Tungusic languages • Japonic languages* • Korean language*
Notes: *Japonic and Korean are not generally recognized as belonging to the Altaic language family. See also Buyeo languages.

v • d • e Turkic languages
Oghur	Bulgar† | Chuvash | Hunnic† | Khazar† | Turkic Avar†
Uyghur	Old Turkic† | Aini²| Chagatay† | Ili Turki | Lop | Uyghur | Uzbek
Kypchak	Altay | Baraba | Bashkir | Crimean Tatar¹ | Cuman† | Karachay-Balkar | Karaim | Karakalpak | Kazakh | Kipchak† | Krymchak | Kumyk | Kyrgyz | Nogai | Old Tatar† | Tatar | Urum¹
Oghuz	Afshar | Azerbaijani | Crimean Tatar¹ | Gagauz | Khorasani Turkic | Ottoman Turkish† | Pecheneg† | Qashqai | Salar | Turkish | Turkmen | Urum¹
Arghu	Khalaj
Northeastern	Chulym | Dolgan | Fuyü Gïrgïs | Khakas | Shor | Tofa | Tuvan | Western Yugur | Sakha/Yakut
Notes: ¹Listed in more than one group, ²Mixed language, ³Disputed, †Extinct