Language code: ky

Technical information about ISO 639 language code ky

The table below provides technical details for the Kirghiz language, designated by the ky code from the ISO 639-1 standard.

Code

ky

Name

Official

Kirghiz

Native

Кыргызча

Family
Kipchak
Text direction

Left-to-Right

Language varieties
Northern KyrgyzSouthern Kyrgyz
Related languages
KazakhKarakalpakNogaiSouthern Altai
Key facts
Member of the Kipchak (Northwestern) branch of Turkic languagesUses a Cyrillic alphabet with extra letters such as Ң, Ө, ҮExhibits strict SOV word order and agglutinative morphologyVowel harmony controls suffix choiceThe epic trilogy Manas is a major monument of Kyrgyz oral tradition
Sample phrase

Салам, кандайсың?

Character encodings

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

Supported in Localizely

Kyrgyz belongs to the Turkic language family, more specifically to the Kipchak subgroup. It is one of the official languages in Kyrgyzstan and is used in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in China. It is primarily written using the Cyrillic script, known as the Kyrgyz alphabet. Historically, the Perso-Arabic script was also used, particularly before the mid-20th century. It is estimated that there are more than 5 million speakers worldwide.

Language presence globally

Speakers

160K

*The graph shows a rough estimate of Kirghiz speakers in countries where it is an official or minority language.

Related locale codes

ky-KG Kirghiz (Kyrgyzstan)

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