Turkic · ISO 639-3 kir · ky
Kirghiz Language кыргызча
Kirghiz is a Turkic language spoken by about 4.6 million people in 3 countries. It is an official language of Kyrgyzstan. It is written in the Cyrillic and Latin scripts.
Where Kirghiz is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Kirghiz
Language family
- Turkic
- Common Turkic
- Kipchak-Turkestan
- Kipchak
- Southeast Kipchak
- East Kipchak
- Kirghiz
Writing system
Cyrillic and Latin scripts
Related languages
About the Kirghiz language
Kirghiz (кыргызча) is spoken by about 4.6 million people, which makes it the 195th most spoken language in the world — just behind Sango (4.6 million) and ahead of Eastern Oromo (4.5 million). It belongs to the Turkic language family and, more precisely, to the East Kipchak group within the Kipchak-Turkestan branch.
Where is Kirghiz spoken?
Kirghiz is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in Kyrgyzstan (3.0 million), China (481,453) and Türkiye (1,177).
Share of the population that speaks Kirghiz: Kyrgyzstan 48% (3.0 million), China <0.1% (481,453) and Türkiye <0.1% (1,177).
Kirghiz is an official language in 1 country: Kyrgyzstan.
Writing system and status
Kirghiz is written in the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Kazakh, Tatar, Bashkir, Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, Northern Uzbek and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ky, ISO 639-3 kir.
Frequently asked questions about Kirghiz
How many people speak Kirghiz?
Where is Kirghiz spoken?
In which countries is Kirghiz an official language?
What language family does Kirghiz belong to?
What is Kirghiz called in Kirghiz?
Is Kirghiz an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.