Talk:Kazakhs

Kazakh should be spelled with no extra h (Kazak) (unless your Russian)! What do you think about changing that?

Dawit

I don't mean it badly but if you are Russian you are not using this alphabet anyway. I like the H it is a good reminder that the last K is just a K by default, it could nearly be a R. Carole a 19:28, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think nowadays Kazak is used more often though. Perhaps we should just use Qazaq, the official latin spelling.--Erkin2008 10:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Photo

I added the photo, and soon after I started to worry that it would look like I was trying to "pigeon hole" the look of the Kazakh people. I don't want it to come across as a racial over simplification. This is not meant to be the case. When I took this picture this man showed great pride in being a Kazakh shepard in the steppe. His self pride was beautiful, and to me illustrate nicely the Kazakh spirit. I wanted this picture to show the Kazakh spirit not their look. Is it coming across alright, or should I delete the picture? Carole a 16:50, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Added another picture, does this help? Carole a 19:05, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nice pics! When i opened up the article I was pleasently surprised, I think there often aren't enough pics on the wikipedia :) -- Are there any other pics you know of, particularly historical? Would it be worthwhile of having a variety of pics versus time? FrancisTyers 03:17, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Very interesting picture, so i added a link to it in the "See also" thread. The reason i dared to replace it by Prokudin's work is that the latter picture is more valuable from the historical point of view and is really precious one, since it shows the appearence of kazakhs, when they still used to be nomads - the appearence you can find only in movies nowadays. i am so grateful to the person who posted it here GaiJin 08:49, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The infobox photos have been cleaned up. It was crowding the top of the page. Konchevnik81 (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Quarashi

isn't QUAZAQ just a WRONG transcription made by Westerners who thinks a Q is always followed by a U? wathiik.

If your assumption was true would it not then be QUAZAQU?

Requested move (moving discussion from Wikipedia:Requested moves)

• Kazakh → Kazakhs because they are a people, so why is the title singular? --Hottentot

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one sentence explanation and sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support "Kazakhs" is the name of a people, which has no singular form (a Kazakh is one person). Many other Wikipedia articles about peoples are named this way. —Michael Z. 2005-07-4 19:10 Z
• Oppose The word "Kazakh" refers to an ethnicity, a language, a culture, etc. If this article is meant to be specifically about the people, and not about that other stuff, then it should be renamed "Kazakhs" or "Kazakh people". (IIRC there was such an article, but it was merged into this one.) But it's not just about the people- there's other stuff in there too (culture, language). --Staecker 4 July 2005 19:31 (UTC)

"Kazakh" as a noun refers to a Kazakh individual. Otherwise it is an adjective, and not suitable for an article title. This article is about the Kazakh people, called the Kazakhs. Their language and culture are aspects of them. The Kazakh language and Kazakh culture already have main articles which go into more depth. —Michael Z. 2005-07-4 21:02 Z

"Kazakh" as a noun also refers to the Kazakh language. ("What language do the Kazakhs speak?" "Kazakh.") If this article is to be about the Kazakh people, then it should be called "Kazakh people." An article with the title "Kazakh" should probably be a brief summary of each of these 3 (or more) aspects (The people, The language, The culture) with links to each of the main articles. Or it could just be a standard disambig, like English. --Staecker 4 July 2005 22:43 (UTC)

But Kazakh is short for Kazakh language, the standard form for language articles in Wikipedia. Many or most articles about peoples have titles in a standard form like Kazakhs, others like Kazakhi or Kazakh people. Kazakhs is the simplest English form, and there is no conflict with other articles. See for example Category:Ethnic_groups_of_Europe. —Michael Z. 2005-07-5 17:10 Z

Yes I know "Kazakh" is short for "Kazakh language", just like English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, etc. Note that every one of these links to a disambig. So this article (with parts removed) can move to "Kazakhs", with a redirect from "Kazakh people", and "Kazakh" can be a disambig, as in the above examples. I hope we can agree on that? I'm glad this is getting settled! --Staecker 5 July 2005 17:33 (UTC)

Sounds great! —Michael Z. 2005-07-5 18:06 Z

I guess more appropriate an analogy is to German, which I believe functions grammatically the same as the word "Kazakh". Staecker 4 July 2005 22:49 (UTC)

• Move to Kazakh people. I am entirely convinced by the above arguments and inspection of the page content, but Kazakh people is the appropriate precedent from English people, French people, German people, Spanish people, etc. Dragons flight July 9, 2005 05:05 (UTC)

But by my quick count, in Category:Ethnic groups of Europe there are 22 articles titled in a form like "Kazakh people" and 69 like "Kazakhs". —Michael Z. 2005-07-9 06:57 Z

That's a curious list. By my inspection, it would appear that most of the groups that have their name incorporated in the title of a country go by X people, and that the minor plural is used mostly for more minor groups (e.g. Moglenites, Arvanites), and ethnic classes which are primarily of historical significance (e.g. Angles, Goths). Though obvious exceptions exist, such as Greeks and Poles. I still believe that in comparison to major living ethnic groups, "Kazakh people" is the better choice of title. Dragons flight 20:32, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

• support move to Kazakhs. Reasons above. --Irpen 06:00, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

Because we use singulars by policy. — Chameleon 3 July 2005 11:06 (UTC)

Well apparently it's a policy that hasn't been enforced except for this article, and it doesn't even look correct. --Hottentot

Incidentally, I've recently added a clarification to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (plurals), by specifically mentioning the titles of articles about peoples in the section about "Some nouns are always in the plural" (under #Grammatical niceties). If you have a moment, please review and comment or amend. —Michael Z. 2005-07-4 21:11 Z

Here's my list of possible titles for an article about the Kazakh people. Kazakh doesn't belong here because as a noun, it means an individual member of the Kazakh people, or the Kazakh language. Feel free to add others I haven't thought of.

Chameleon, please note that, in my opinion, even though some of these are formed from words in the plural form, they are all singular nouns representing the one Kazakh people (i.e., the nation or race). —Michael Z. 2005-07-9 15:56 Z

• Kazakhs
• Kazakh people
• Kazakhi (is that the word in Kazakh?)

The word in Kazakh is "Kazak" (noun) or "Kazaksha" (adj), I believe. Anyways it's never "Kazakhi". Staecker 9 July 2005 16:53 (UTC)

Just to set the record straight, the proper words in Kazakh are "kazak" (singular noun), "kazaktar" (plural noun, i.e. Kazakhs), "kazak" (adjective), whereas "kazaksha" is an adverb that means 'in the Kazakh language'. The proper words in Russian are "kazakh" (singular noun), "kazakhi" (plural noun, i.e. Kazakhs), "kazakhskiy" (adjective), and "po-kazakhski" ('in the Kazakh language').

• Kazakh nation

Early twentieth-century photo

There ought to be a place for this image in the article. It's a color photograph from somewhere between 1905 and 1915. Isomorphic 15:43, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

the image added back. thank you for the rare picture. GaiJin 08:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

It was making things look messy on the bottom, because of overcrowding when I took it off again. But I would off left it on, except that I don't believe that they were actually Kazakhs. Perhaps Mr. Gorskii was wrong. In Central Asia you can tell where somebody is from, and what ethnic group they are from pretty well by there "dopa" (hat). And the hats being worn here would not point to anything Kazakh. In fact, there is nothing in the picture that would give the slightest indication that they were Kazakh.--Erkin2008 23:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Culture Section: Physical Description

Although phenotypes tend to be a fairly subjective topic, I disagree with the notion that Kazakhs display "predominantly mongoloid" features. I disagree with the terms "mongoloid," "caucasoid," and "negroid" as it is, but for the sake of the article featured (as well as many others), this will not be dealt with. However, although "mongoloid" influences seem to be among the most widespread of facial features, the majority of Kazakhs do not really look fully mongoloid; therefore, stating that "mongoloid" features are predominant is a bit of a stretch. Most Kazakhs have moderate to strong "caucasoid" influences in their ethnic look, and many of these "caucasoid" features seem to be derived from Mediterranean elements. In fact, Kazakhs seem to mark a logical transitional point between Western and Eastern Asians-- even the images of featured Kazakhs show photos of people that look like a combination of Arabs/Persians/Mediterraneans and more Eastern/"mongoloid" peoples. It is difficult to find academic information verifying this 100%, but it is certain that Kazakhs are an ethnically/"racially" mixed Central Asian group that exhibit a very wide range of phenotypes.69.235.152.12 18:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)James Lopez

It seems you are mixing race and location using confusing terms as Asian and Mongoloid, which are not necessarily synonims. Kazakhs are not fully Mongoloid but they belong to South Siberian race where Mongoloid features prevail over Caucasoid. I would not call Kazakhs a "transitional point" from anthropological point of veiw. Among Central Asian Uzbeks are genetically and anthropologically closer to your vision of transitional point. Volga region Tartars and Bashkorts also are could be called mixed race ethnicity when Kazakhs are closer to Mongoloid race than Caucasians.

I make note of your points, but I think that my use of the terms "Western Asian," "Eastern Asian," and "Central Asian" makes it very clear that I do not think that Asian is synonymous with "mongoloid" (unlike many Westerners, who do seem to see it this way). As I mentioned previously, I don't even agree with the term "mongoloid," as I do not believe in racial theory; however, since it is used in this article, and my point is not to dismantle the term itself, I am supposing its legitimacy for the sake of the discussion here. There is not a whole lot of readily available material regarding the DNA compositions of Kazakhs, or many other Central Asian populations for that matter; however, based on the diversity of cultural elements found within "Kazakh culture" (Mongol/proto-Mongolian, Turkic, Slavic, Arabic, Persian), as well as the phenotypical evidence of the physical appearances of Kazakhs in general, I still think they mark a very logical transition between Western Asians (Arabs, Western Persians, Western Turks) and Eastern Asians (numerous Chinese ethnic groups as well as Eastern Mongolians). Perhaps they are not as transitional of a population as the Uzbeks, but they, like the Turkmens and the Khyrgyz, do not fit very easily into having more in common with Western or Eastern Asians. There is probably no such thing as a perfect 50/50 transition from one ethnic category to another, but I think Kazakhs constitute a fairly logical example of a trasitional population, as they exhibit physical and cultural traits from both "opposite" ends of the continent and yet remain distinctly Central Asian.69.235.152.155 02:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)James Lopez

Guys, it is damn so ridiculous to be ashamed of oneself. Take pride in what you are and start loving it. There's no need to try to stretch yourself into what you are not. To hell every racist! Sahib-qiron (talk) 15:42, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Famous Kazakhs

What happened to the section Famous Kazakhs?Spring01 01:58, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

About Etymology

I think that it should be noted in article that before of 1920s or so kazakhs were called by russians as "Kirgiz-kaisaki". I studied something about this name and was surprised to find probably the original versions of "Kazakh" name. Here are some of the versions of this name: Qazaq, Kazak, Kasaq, Kaisaq, Ghaisak, Gaisaq. This ending -SAQ sounds very intriguing. SAQ is known to be kazakh word for ancient Sacae people that were believed to originate or at least live on territory of Modern Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan & Iran. SAQ is also are short name for Senior or Great juz (Short names for two other juz also exist, it is Skf,Skyf or Skyp for Junior and Ghunn for Middle). There could be a relationship between ancestors of modern Kazakh people and ancient Sacae people. Genetical or cultural. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.218.162.203 (talk) 10:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Who are the pictured Kazakhs?

Near the top right hand corner, there are about 7 Kazakhs pictured. It'd be helpful if their names were written below the pictures.Bless sins (talk) 16:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

From the top left, going row by row, to bottom right, I have identified the following: ____, Ablai Khan, ____, Chokan Valikhanov, Toktar Aubakirov, _____, _____.Bless sins (talk) 16:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

The person in the top-left corner is Abay Qunanbayuli. Selerian (talk) 02:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Dana Kaparova

This person is vandal. There is no such person titled as Miss Kazakhstan 2007. It's vandalism, this person advertising herself. She also added her name on other pages connected with kazakhs. And she doing it systematically. This person must be deleted from the list of famous kazakh —Preceding unsigned comment added by Attila kz (talk • contribs) 11:41, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Farabi?

Kazakhs are an interesting friendly nation but Farabi was not a Kazakh nor an Uzbek (as friends from Uzbekistan claim). He lived in central Asia much longer before the settlement of Kazakhs and Uzbeks in those areas. I am sure that there are enough great famous Kazakhs that can be depict on this page instead--Babakexorramdin (talk) 01:20, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Alexander the Great is depicted on the Greeks article. How is he related to modern Greeks? He was born on the territory which belongs to modern Greece. The same thing is here. Al-Farabi was born in area close to modern Taraz in Kazakhstan. Britannica [1] also says "He was of Turkic origin...".BernardTom (talk) 03:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not know about Alexander. Some say Macedonians were Greeks and some say no they were no Greeks but observed some Greek traditions. But I think Farabi's cultural background was a way more different than the Kazakh. In addition the ethnogenesis of the Kazakhs and their presence in the area occured later.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 08:32, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Al-Farabi's cultural background has not been firmly established. There are sources pointing to a Turkic origin, in which case he fits precisely within the proto-Kazakh Turkic culture of the area. Also, the Kazakh ethnogenesis defines the beginning of Kazakhs as a nation but not of their presence in the area. Kazakhs' ancestors have been in the area for thousands of years. Selerian (talk) 19:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Al-Farabi is a famous person from what is now the territory of Kazakhstan. It is a strech to say that this makes him a Kazakh, as there was technically no such people per se at the time. The distinction is like King Arthur (if he existed!): he is a famous Briton, but not a famous "English" person, even if many/most people in England count Arthur's people as their ancestors. Alexander the Great is a different matter, because he was at least a cultural Greek...the idea of Hellenism is older than him and reaches down to the modern day. Konchevnik81 (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding replacement of East Turkistan with Xinjiang in line 114

• 02:34, 1 March 2009 Zlerman (Talk | contribs) (20,792 bytes) (Reverted to revision 273949798 by Amethystus; pls check wiki links to the two articles: Xinjiang is not Tibet (see map), East Turkistan is Xinjiang. (TW)) (undo)

• 20:21, 28 February 2009 Ibrahim4048 (Talk | contribs) (20,798 bytes) (Undid revision 273949798 by Amethystus (talk) Tibet is also called Xizang will you replace tibet with Xizang also?) (undo)

• 19:47, 28 February 2009 Amethystus (Talk | contribs) (20,792 bytes) (present-day region of Xinjiang) (undo)

• 19:41, 28 February 2009 Ibrahim4048 (Talk | contribs) (20,798 bytes) (Undid revision 273648395 by Amethystus (talk) Do you call Tibet Xizang also? Why remove East Turkistan? Turkhater perhaps? (undo)

• 13:22, 27 February 2009 Amethystus (Talk | contribs) (20,792 bytes) (Undid revision 248986236 by 78.105.75.103 (talk)) (undo)(He changed East Turkistan to Xinjiang).

Read carefully what I wrote Professor Zlerman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I didn't say that Tibet is Xinjiang, I said Tibet is Xizang. I am Turkish myself and studied history at Leiden University and know very well the difference between Tibet and Xinjiang even if I am not a Professor. Perhaps YOU are the one that should check the wiki links to the two articles Xizang and Xinjiang. They are separate Chinese regions/provinces that sound similar. Just like Austria and Australia sound similar but are separate countries. Xizang is the Chinese name of Tibet and Xinjiang is the Chinese name of East Turkistan/Uyghuristan. What I was saying is that the inhabitants of Xinjiang/East Turkistan prefer the name East Turkistan (Sherqiy Türkistan) over the Chinese name Xinjiang since the native inhabitants are predominantly Turkic Uyghurs and Kazakhs and not Chinese. I made the comparison of Tibet/Xizang to point out that it is strange that in the case of Tibet you would prefer the name Tibet over the Chinese name Xizang while in the case of East Turkistan you prefer the Chinese name Xinjiang over East Turkistan against the wishes of the native turkic population. I don't see any reason why Amethystus would replace East Turkistan by Xinjiang. Does Amethystus work for the Chinese government and he replaces Tibet with Xizang and East Turkistan with Xinjiang every time he encounters them or does he just have something against the word Turk? If you look at his contributions you might think so. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 00:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Name use on Wikipedia is primarily based on the most common usage in the English language. By far, Xinjiang is more commonly used than East Turkistan (simply compare the number of Google hits for the two terms). Concerning Tibet, the name 'Tibet' is the common English term, while 'Xizang' is not used in English at all, except when someone is transliterating from Chinese (the difference here is that Xinjiang, while also a transliteration, has become an English-language toponym, while Xizang has not). Additionally, this sentence is in the present tense, and currently the region in question is officially known (in English) as Xinjiang (the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, to be exact). Arguments about whether this name is 'right' or 'wrong' due to the current political situation violates WP:NPOV, and therefore have no bearing. Please carefully read over Wikipedia:Naming conventions. Also, be careful accusing anyone of "working for" someone, like you did above, as it could violate Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Otebig (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe the english can even pronounce Xinjiang let alone prefer it over East Turkistan. Since there are over a billion chinese in the world all of whom are more likely to google Xinjiang than the average english person it wouldn't be surprising you get 5.700.000 results for Xinjiang of which only 470 are in latin script by the way. The classical english usage has always been East Turkistan and as far as I know it still is. I never heard anyone say Xinjiang in my live. This region together with tibet has been repeatedly in the news during the olympics and everytime they either said Uyghur Autonomous Region or East Turkestan. Why do people support Tibet and their struggle by the way and not the Uyghur struggle? It is exactly the same situation, same opression and same circumstances. Only difference is that Uyghurs are turkic and muslim, maybe that's the problem. I wasn't seriously accusing Amethystus for working for the chinese government. I know he doesn't. I was mocking him because I have seen his other contributions and noticed his antipathy against turks and muslims. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Yes he does give citations and references for every anti turk/muslim contribution he makes but that off course is not a problem since there is no shortage of publications which give anti-muslim, anti-turk, anti-semitic, anti-anything ammunition. I mean I could even give quotes from Mein Kampf and reference them if it is only about referenceing. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 03:33, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

If you would actually investigate the matter yourself, you would see that "Xinjiang" has over seven million hits on Google, all of which are in the Latin script (and mostly in English). Your argument about Chinese speakers is moot since they would search for 新疆, in Chinese characters. It is very clear from this search engine test that Xinjiang is the most commonly used term in English, whether you personally believe it or not. As I said above, your personal beliefs or concerns carry no weight here due to WP:NPOV. That doesn't mean they aren't valid or respectable, but simply that everyone has their own opinions, and as a result Wikipedia is run on more neutral principles, such as WP:NAME, which again, I would encourage you to read. Additionally, "mocking" someone is a personal attack, and inappropriate here, even if you disagree with them. Otebig (talk) 05:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I have investigated it. [7] It came up with 5,670,000 and if you click at the page numbers you end up at page 57 with Results 561 - 569 of about 5,700,000 for Xinjiang. It doesn't go any further. Why is that? If Xinjiang is the (only) official name used by the english government I can accept that. Do you have a source for that? I just didn't like how Amethystus was targeting certain groups of articles. It seems to me that truth here on wikipedia depends on how many people gather together to tell a lie. Ibrahim4048 (talk) 06:09, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

There is no country called East Turkestan. There is no country called West Turkestan or South Turkestan or North Turkestan. If people in Xinjiang believe they are Turkestanis and that they belong to Turkestan or that they are Turks or Turkic, then they should move to the countries of Turkestan or Turkey (if these countries will have them). 86.177.121.24 (talk) 14:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Photo Gallery

I think this needs to be expanded, and most need to be removed and replaced with something more appropriate. I think it is not appropriate to have Dariga Nazarbayeva, Marat Tazhin, Absattar Derbisali and "Kazakh paratrooper" as some sort of example Kazakhs. This would be similar to the Americans section featuring pictures of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Billy Graham and a "Green Beret"!

Kazakh people are not the playthings or mere copies of their current ruling elite. These pictures would make you think that this current ruling elite is somehow the most important and most "representative" incarnation of Kazakhs in history. This is an injustice to Kazakhs, and should embarass all Kazakhs who edit this page. Please look at the Georgians, Ukrainians, and even Russians pages, and you will not see pictures of Saakashvili, Yanukovich, or even Putin! Let's please look for pictures of Kazakh artists, musicians, writers, poets, and regular people. It will reflect the Kazakh people more accurately.Konchevnik81 (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Kazakhs' race

Although the language of the Kazakhs is given as Turkic, from the pictures of Kazakh's given, they clearly look Mongoloid, or in the USA would be called Asian-Pacific. It should be clear that genetically the present Kazakhs are East Asians who in their history adopted the Turkic languages, rather like African-Americans are genetically Africans who had adopted a European language (English). This is important because the Kazakhs are not a Turkic people (ie a people resembling the Turks of Turkey) in the biological and genetic sense, in the same way English-speaking African-Americans are not Europeans and cannot be described as Anglo-Saxons simply because they speak English. 86.177.121.24 (talk) 14:22, 20 March 2010 (UTC)