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Re: OT: Parlez vous Kazakh?

From:Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>
Date:Friday, May 2, 2003, 13:33
Andreas Johansson cazdy:


> Cool. I'm going to have some similar loaning going on in some conlang or
other. Yep. A posteriori conlanging widens your mindframes...
> While at it, I'm told that the Czarist practice of calling the Kazakhs
"Kirgiz"
> was due to a feeling that _Kazax_ sounded to much like "Cossack" (the Russian > version of which I can't for the moment recall - "kozak" [k6'zak]?). Is this > true?
Russian word is |kazak| [kV"zak]. But I don't think the practice was because of Czars. Those nomadic tribes used to call themselves different names, and |qazaq| just meant "freeman". Kazakh used to call themselves |qyrGyz|, and Kyrgyzs - |qara qyrGyz| "black Q." They felt to certain extent as if they belonged to different clans/tribes of one ethnic group/people till the Soviet times... Divide et impera. ~~~~~~Yitzik~~~~~~

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Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>