It is also a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China, and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of western Mongolia.

The language is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union (some 472,000 in Russia according to the 2010 Russian census), Germany, and Turkey.

In October 2017, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the writing system would change from using Cyrillic to Latin script by 2025.

Over one million Kazakh speakers in Xinjiang use a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script for writing.

The Kipchak branch of Turkic languages, which Kazakh is borne out of, was mainly solidified during the reign of the Golden Horde.

In the early 1900s, Kazakh activist Akhmet Baitursynuly reformed the Kazakh-Arabic alphabet, but his work was largely overshadowed by the Soviet presence in Central Asia.

Kazakh has 19 native consonant phonemes; these are the stops /p, b, t, d, k, ɡ, q/, fricatives /s, z, ɕ, ʑ, ʁ/, nasals /m, n, ŋ/, liquids /ɾ, l/, and two glides /w, j/.

The sounds [q] and [ʁ] may be analyzed as allophones of /k/ and /ɡ/ in words with back vowels, but exceptions occur in loanwords.

Moreover, the /æ/ sound has been included artificially due to the influence of Arabic, Persian and, later, Tatar languages during the Islamic period.

[11] Phonetic values are paired with the corresponding character in Kazakh's Cyrillic and current Latin alphabets.

Notably, urban Kazakh tends to violate rounding harmony, as well as pronouncing Russian borrowings against the rules.

The letter У after a consonant represents a combination of sounds і /ɘ/, ү /ʉ/, ы /ə/, ұ /ʊ/ with glide /w/,[17] e.g. кіру [kɪ̞ˈrɪ̞w], су [so̙w], көру [kɵˈrʏ̞w], атысу [ɑ̝təˈsəw].

Kazakh is generally verb-final, though various permutations on SOV (subject–object–verb) word order can be used, for example, due to topicalization.

[18] Inflectional and derivational morphology, both verbal and nominal, in Kazakh, exists almost exclusively in the form of agglutinative suffixes.

[19] From the first stanza and refrain of "Menıñ Qazaqstanym" ("My Kazakhstan"), the national anthem of Kazakhstan: Алтын күнаспаны{Алтын күн} аспаны[ɑ̝ɫ̪ˈt̪ə̃ŋ‿kʰʏ̞̃n̪ ɑ̝s̪pɑ̝̃ˈn̪ə]Altyngoldkünsunaspan-ysky-3.POSSAltyn kün aspan-ygold sun sky-3.POSS'Golden sun of the sky'АлтындәндаласыАлтын дән даласы[ɑ̝ɫ̪ˈt̪ə̃n̪‿d̪æ̝̃n̪ d̪ɑ̝ɫ̪ɑ̝ˈs̪ə |]Altyngolddängraindala-systeppe-3.POSSAltyn dän dala-sygold grain steppe-3.POSS'Golden grain of the steppe'ЕрліктіңдастаныЕрліктің дастаны[je̘r̪l̪ɪ̞kˈt̪ɪ̞̃ŋ̟ d̪ɑ̝s̪t̪ɑ̝̃ˈn̪ə]Erlık-tıñcourage legend-GENdastan-yepic-3.POSS-NOMErlık-tıñ dastan-y{courage legend-GEN} epic-3.POSS-NOM'The legend of courage'Елімеқарашы!Еліме қарашы!

'НамысынбермегенНамысын бермеген[n̪ɑ̝̃məˈs̪ə̃m bʲe̘r̪mʲe̘ˈɡʲẽ̘n̪]Namys-ynhonor-3.POSS-ACCber-me-gengive-NEG-PTCP.PSTNamys-yn ber-me-genhonor-3.POSS-ACC give-NEG-PTCP.PST'They did not give up their honor'ҚазағыммықтығойҚазағым мықты ғой[qʰɑ̝z̪ɑ̝ˈʁə̃m məqˈt̪ə ʁo̞j ‖]Qazağ-ymKazakh-1SG.POSSmyqtystrongğoiEMPHQazağ-ym myqty ğoiKazakh-1SG.POSS strong EMPH'My Kazakhs are mighty!