Kazakh words that do not translate
A dhow, a kottu roshi, a khachapuri — words a dictionary can only give as a description in brackets, because the thing is not part of everyday life here. All such Kazakh words are collected here: 47 words with an explanation of what it is and what it is for.
Words and what stands behind them
Sour cow's milk of a homemade starter, thicker than kefir. It is drunk on its own, diluted with water as a summer drink, and used to dress dishes. The most everyday of the cultured milks — unlike kumys and camel milk.
A contest of two aqyns — improvised poets — in verse under the dombra: each answers the rival with a verse composed on the spot, until one wins. It runs for hours, fills halls and is shown on television. On the UNESCO list.
An elder whose word settles a dispute and whose blessing is asked for. Literally "white beard", but it is not about age: an aksakal is one people listen to.
The country's largest city at the foot of the Trans-Ili Alatau, the former capital. The name is tied to the word for "apple": the local mountains are considered the homeland of the wild apple, the ancestor of all cultivated varieties.
The cosmodrome in the steppe of the Kyzylorda region, from which Gagarin launched in 1961. The town attached to it is leased. The name originally belonged to another place — that was how the location was disguised.
Not every poet but the improviser: he composes verses on the spot, to the dombra, before his listeners, and his worth is exactly that he prepares nothing in advance. A writer who writes at a desk is named otherwise — the writer word.
The old custom of driving off the offender's livestock — not theft but a form of litigation: debts were collected and insults answered this way when there was no court. The case was later sorted by a council of judges, and the cattle returned with a surcharge.
A blessing spoken by an elder after the meal, with palms drawn down the face. Asking a white-bearded elder for bata before a journey or a wedding is ordinary practice. The words are the elder's own; there is no fixed text.
Pieces of leavened dough fried in oil into a golden ball. They are set on every dastarkhan in a heap. By belief, their smell rises to the ancestors, so they are fried at memorial days too.
Boiled meat with rolled sheets of dough and onion sauce on a common platter. The name means "five fingers": it is eaten by hand. The central dish of the feast; pieces are handed out by seniority, and the ram's head goes to the most honored guest.
The wedding rite of unveiling the bride: a singer names the groom's relatives one by one and the bride bows to each. The veil comes off at the end. This is how she is introduced to her new clan, all at once and in public.
A two-stringed plucked instrument with a long neck and a flat or spoon-shaped body. Kuis are played on it and singing is accompanied. It hangs on the wall of almost every home, musical or not.
A hunting eagle kept on the hand in a leather gauntlet and a hood. It is taken as a chick, hunts for several years and is then released back into the wild. The hunter is called "burkitshi".
A meal owed to a guest — a duty, not a courtesy: even a stranger traveler had to be fed and put to bed. Custom fixed the guest's right to it, and the reproach qonaqasy bermeu, to deny the guest feast, weighed heavy.
A sausage of horse rib meat with a stripe of fat, stuffed into gut and boiled. It is cut into rounds and laid on top of the beshbarmak. The most honored part of the meat table.
The folding lattice of crossed slats that forms the yurt's wall. It folds like an accordion for the move. The number of sections shows the size of the house: a six-wing yurt is bigger than a four-wing one.
A bowed instrument carved from a single piece of wood, with two strings of horsehair and an open body. The sound is husky and low, close to a human voice. It was considered the instrument of the baqsy — the shaman — and was played for rites, not for fun.
A horseback game in which riders snatch a goat carcass from one another and try to carry it to their goal. It runs at full gallop and without rules in the European sense. Staged at great festivals and weddings.
The matchmaking and the kinship it creates between two families. The parents of the bride and groom become "quda" to each other — a separate degree of kinship with its own rules of address and gift-giving.
An instrumental piece for dombra without words, behind which stands a told story — of a battle, of separation, of the steppe. Before performing it, players often retell the plot in words: without a story a kui is considered incomplete.
Mare's milk, soured in a leather sack and whipped until lightly fizzy. Slightly intoxicating, sour, and unlike anything else in taste. Drunk from bowls; the season runs from spring to autumn.
Salty balls of pressed and dried soured milk, hard as stone. They keep for years without cold — the food of the nomad camp. Nibbled on the road or stirred into water to make a soup.
The liver, lungs, heart and kidneys of a freshly slaughtered animal, fried with onion. It is made on the very day of the slaughter, before it cools, and served before everything else. The name comes from the verb "to fry".
The rite on a child's fortieth day: the baby is bathed in water poured with forty spoonfuls, the first hair and nails are cut, and sweets are handed to the guests. Before forty days, the child is traditionally not shown to outsiders.
Both the name of the month and the new year by the solar calendar — March 22, at the equinox. A festival of renewal: people make peace, forgive debts, pitch yurts on the squares and cook nauryz-koje from seven ingredients.
A soup of seven components — meat, water, salt, fat, grain, milk and groats — cooked for Nauryz. The seven stand for the days of the week and the fullness of the year. Everyone who comes in is treated.
Literally the cutting of the fetters, a rite for the child who has begun to walk: the legs are tied with a black-and-white cord and it is cut so the road ahead be easy. From it the figurative sense: the launch night of a book or film.
Clarified butter, golden and smelling of nuts. It is poured over beshbarmak, mixed into talkan and spread on baursaks. It keeps for months without cold — that is why it was clarified.
The tall conical headdress of the bride, up to seventy centimeters, adorned with silver, coral and pendants down to the chest. It cost as much as a herd of horses and passed within the family. It was worn once in a lifetime.
The wooden ring at the crown of the yurt, where all the poles of the dome meet — both a chimney and a window. It passes to the youngest son together with the house. It stands on the state emblem; "may your shanyrak be high" is a wish for a strong family.
A long loose robe of dense cloth, often quilted, with a wide sash. It is given as an honor: to lay a shapan on a guest's shoulders is to show the highest respect, and refusing is not done.
Showering someone with sweets and coins at a joyful moment: at a wedding, on returning from a long road, at a child's first step. Children pick it all up — that is part of the rite, not a mess.
A thin flatbread fried in oil. Seven are baked in memory of the dead: the smell is believed to reach the spirits of the ancestors. They are handed to neighbors on Thursdays and memorial days.
Soured camel's milk, thicker and saltier than kumys, with a sharp taste. Considered healing and especially prized in the west of the country, where camels are kept. Drunk chilled.
A rich meat broth served in a bowl at the end of the feast, after the meat. Drunk hot, sometimes with onion and pepper. It closes the meal rather than opening it — refusing it borders on insulting the hosts.
Not so much a field as the steppe — the country's defining space: a flat plain to the horizon, in tulips in spring, scorched by summer. The word enters the names of regions and the phrase "the Great Steppe".
A cloth spread for eating and the whole feast on it: to lay the dastarkan is to set the table, and to invite to the dastarkan is to invite to a meal. It was spread straight on the yurt floor, and the word kept that second sense.
A round or conical cap with no brim, often embroidered and with a tassel for children. It is worn under another headgear and on its own. In the old tradition one did not go about with uncovered hair.
Roasted and coarsely ground grain — wheat or millet — eaten with butter and sugar or stirred into milk. Travel food of the nomad camp: it keeps and needs no cooking.
A round flatbread with a pressed center, baked on the wall of a clay oven. The center is pricked with a stamp so it does not puff up. It is sold by the road in stacks, still warm.
A steppe sighthound: lean, long-legged, with feathered hanging ears. It runs down fox and hare in the open. Counted among the seven treasures of the nomad, alongside the horse and the golden eagle.
A felt carpet whose pattern is not sewn on but rolled in: colored wool is laid over the base and felted together with it. The design is therefore blurry at the edges — by this it is told apart from the sewn syrmak.
A triangular amulet on a cord, with a slip of paper carrying a prayer inside. It is worn on the neck, hung in the cradle and on the yurt. The triangle is the very shape of protection: it is believed to ward off the evil eye.
A curved pole of the yurt dome: its lower end is tied to the lattice wall, its upper end set into the shanyrak. There are about sixty of them, and all are bent to one pattern so the dome comes out even.
A portable dwelling of a wooden frame covered in felt: it goes up in an hour and holds both frost and heat. Inside it is divided into a men's and a women's half and a place of honor opposite the door. The art of raising it is on the UNESCO list.
The summer mountain pasture where livestock is driven from spring to autumn. Yurts are pitched there, mares are milked and kumys is made. The word means not a spot on the map but a part of the yearly circle: "at the zhailau" means in summer.
A bard who chants epic, a figure older and weightier than the aqyn: the zhyrau stood beside the khan as an adviser and told him what no one else would. He sang to the kobyz, not the dombra.
Why such words are in the course
These are a language's ID marks: they cannot be translated because the thing they name is not part of everyday life here, and they are exactly what you hear on day one. There are few of them on purpose — 47 words out of 4039 words in the course. A course where every seventh word is a local curiosity would teach local studies, not a language.
Every word here has its own page, with pronunciation, a look at the spelling and an example of use.
Frequently asked
Why can't these words simply be translated?
A translation assumes the thing exists here too and is just called differently. Not in this case: “a dhoni is a boat” is true and useless — there are many kinds of boat, and a dhoni is known by its tall curved prow and by being the only way between the islands. An explanation answers the question about the thing, not the word.
Do you have to learn them?
Not before everything else. But you will meet them early: local food is offered on the first day, and a festival is named without explanation. Knowing what stands behind a word is more useful than being able to translate it.