The history of the Kyrgyz people and the land now called Kyrgyzstan goes back more than 3,000 years. Although geographically isolated by its mountainous location,it had an important role as part of the historical Silk Road trade route. Turkic nomads,who trace their ancestry to many Turkic states such as the First and Second Turkic Khaganates,have inhabited the country throughout its history. In the 13th century,Kyrgyzstan was conquered by the Mongols;subsequently it regained independence but was invaded by Kalmyks,Manchus,and Uzbeks. In 1876,it became part of the Russian Empire,remaining in the USSR as the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic after the Russian Revolution. Following Mikhael Gorbachev's democratic reforms in the USSR,in 1990 pro-independence candidate Askar Akayev was elected president of the SSR. On 31 August 1991,Kyrgyzstan declared independence from Moscow,and a democratic government was subsequently established.
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages,spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia,East Asia,North Asia (Siberia),and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China,where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken,from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.
The Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West,Central,East,and North Asia as well as parts of Europe,who speak Turkic languages.
Kyrgyz 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 north-eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union,Afghanistan,Turkey,parts of northern Pakistan,and Russia.
The Kyrgyz people are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia. They primarily reside in Kyrgyzstan,Uzbekistan,China,Pakistan and Afghanistan. A Kyrgyz diaspora is also found in Russia,Tajikistan,and Kazakhstan. They speak the Kyrgyz language,which is the official language of Kyrgyzstan.
Turkestan,also spelled Turkistan,is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and East Turkistan (Xinjiang). Turkestan is primarily inhabited by Turkic peoples,including Uzbeks,Oghuz Turks,Kazakhs,Khazars,Kyrgyz,and Uyghurs. The region hosts Russian and Tajik-Persian minorities. Turkestan is subdivided into Afghan Turkestan,Russian Turkestan,and East Turkistan. Today,"Turkestan" mainly refers to Xinjiang,where Turkic peoples constitute more than half of the population.
Kyrgyzstan,officially the Kyrgyz Republic,is a landlocked country in Central Asia,lying in the Tian Shan and Pamir mountain ranges. Bishkek is the capital and largest city of the country. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north,Uzbekistan to the west,Tajikistan to the south,and China to the east and southeast. Ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the country's 7 million people,followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians.
Chagatai,also known as Turki,Eastern Turkic,or Chagatai Turkic,is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia. It remained the shared literary language in the region until the early 20th century. It was used across a wide geographic area including western or Russian Turkestan,eastern or Chinese Turkestan,the Crimea,the Volga region,etc. Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages,which includes Uzbek and Uyghur. Turkmen,which is not within the Karluk branch but in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages,was nonetheless heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries.
The Kipchaks or Qipchaks,also known as Kipchak Turks or Polovtsians,were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe.
Zhetysu or Jeti-Suu,also transcribed Zhetisu,Jetisuw,Jetysu,Jeti-su or Jity-su,is a historical name of a part of Central Asia corresponding to the southeastern part of modern Kazakhstan.
The Khakas are a Turkic indigenous people of Siberia,who live in the republic of Khakassia,Russia. They speak the Khakas language.
The Karluks were a prominent nomadic Turkic tribal confederacy residing in the regions of Kara-Irtysh and the Tarbagatai Mountains west of the Altay Mountains in Central Asia. Karluks gave their name to the distinct Karluk group of the Turkic languages,which also includes the Uzbek,Uyghur and Ili Turki languages.
Mahmud ibn Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar.
The Turkic migrations were the spread of Turkic tribes and Turkic languages across Eurasia between the 6th and 11th centuries. In the 6th century,the Göktürks overthrew the Rouran Khaganate in what is now Mongolia and expanded in all directions,spreading Turkic culture throughout the Eurasian steppes. Although Göktürk empires came to an end in the 8th century,they were succeeded by numerous Turkic empires such as the Uyghur Khaganate,Kara-Khanid Khanate,Khazars,and the Cumans. Some Turks eventually settled down into sedentary societies such as the Qocho and Ganzhou Uyghurs. The Seljuq dynasty settled in Anatolia starting in the 11th century,resulting in permanent Turkic settlement and presence there. Modern nations with large Turkic populations include Kyrgyzstan,Turkmenistan,Turkey,Azerbaijan,Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan,and Turkic populations also exist within other nations,such as Chuvashia,Bashkortostan,Tatarstan and the Sakha Republic of Siberia in Russia,Northern Cyprus,the Crimean Tatars,the Kazakhs in Mongolia,the Uyghurs in China,and the Azeris in Iran.
The Yenisei Kyrgyz,were an ancient Turkic-speaking people who dwelled along the upper Yenisei River in the southern portion of the Minusinsk Depression from the 3rd century BCE to the 13th century CE. The heart of their homeland was the forested Tannu-Ola mountain range,in modern-day Tuva,just north of Mongolia. The Sayan mountains were also included in their territory at different times. The Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate existed from 538 to 1219 CE;in 840,it took over the leadership of the Turkic Khaganate from the Uyghurs,expanding the state from the Yenisei territories into Central Asia and the Tarim Basin.
The Department of Central Eurasian Studies,often abbreviated as CEUS,is a specialized academic department in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies,at the Bloomington campus of Indiana University,in Bloomington,Indiana. Since its original formation in 1943 as a language-training program for the U.S. military,the department has become the sole independent degree-granting academic unit staffed with its own faculty dedicated to Central Eurasia in the country. Due to the department and the presence of several additional centers - the Inner Asian &Uralic National Resource Center,the Denis Sinor Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies,and the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region - Indiana University currently hosts the premier program of Central Asian studies in the United States.
Kyrgyz,Kirghiz or Kyrgyzstani may refer to:
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Kyrgyz language.
