Having and Not Having in Kazakh

Kazakh grammar for beginners · No verb "to have" — only "there is" and "there is not"

bar (бар) and joq (жоқ) are a pair. bar (бар) says that something exists, joq (жоқ) that it does not.

Neither is a verb, and in these sentences neither takes an ending. They stand at the end and the sentence is complete.

There is, there is not

A noun followed by bar (бар) says that the thing exists — that it is there, that it can be had. joq (жоқ) says the opposite, and answers a question on its own as "no".

Having something is that thing existing

There is no verb "to have" to reach for. Where English says "I have a book", Kazakh says "my book exists": the possessive ending goes on the thing owned, and bar (бар) follows it.

Nothing marks the owner twice. kıtabym (кітабым) already says the book is mine, so bar (бар) has only to say that it is there.

Asking whether someone else has something

joq (жоқ) and emes (емес) deny different things

emes (емес) denies that something is what you called it. joq (жоқ) denies that it is there at all.

Mūğalım emes (Мұғалім емес) says he is not a teacher, which leaves him something else. Mūğalım joq (Мұғалім жоқ) says there is no teacher — nobody to point at.

These are var and yok

bar (бар) and joq (жоқ) are the words Turkish spells var and yok, inherited by both languages from the same source, and used for the same two jobs: saying that something exists, and saying that someone has something.

Kıtabym bar (Кітабым бар) is Kitabım var word for word — the possessive ending on the noun, then the word for "exists". This is one construction you do not have to learn, only recognise.

Keep going

← Asking a Question · Where: the Locative →

All Kazakh lessons

• The Alphabet — Read Kazakh without learning Cyrillic
• How the Letters Behave — The things spelling does not tell you
• Turkish ↔ Kazakh Sound Laws — Six rules that unlock hundreds of words for free
• Vowel Harmony — The same system as Turkish — with one simplification
• Numbers — One to a thousand, and what a number does to the word after it
• Days of the Week — Saturday, and the days counted off it
• Months — Twelve names to learn outright
• Seasons — The four, and the weather that comes with them
• The Plural — One suffix, six written shapes
• Body Parts — From the top of the head to the sole of the foot, and the organs in between
• Personal Pronouns — Four ways to say "you", one word for "he" and "she"
• Possessive — The ending goes on the thing owned
• Family and Kinship — Lineages, generational ties, and reciprocal kinship
• The Copula — Saying "I am a teacher" with no verb at all
• Saying What Something Is Not — One extra word, and the personal ending moves onto it
• Asking a Question — One small word at the end, and nothing else moves
• Where: the Locative — Location and time: one ending
• Where to: the Dative — Direction, destination, recipient, and purpose
• Where from: the Ablative — Starting points, origins, and standards of comparison
• Whose: the Genitive — Possession, definite noun phrases, and relationships
• What: the Accusative — The thing an action is done to — marked only when it is a particular one
• With: the Instrumental — Who you did it with, and what you did it with
• All Seven Together — What each ending marks, and every shape it takes
• Spatial Postpositions and Relational Nouns — Expressing position, direction and time with postpositions and relational nouns
• Verbs, Infinitives and Commands — From dictionary forms in {{-у}} to bare stems, commands and polite requests
• Simple Present Tense — Habitual actions, general facts and future intentions in {{-а / -е / -й}}
• Simple Past Tense — Witnessed and completed past actions in {{-ды / -ді / -ты / -ті}}
• Distant Past and Past Participle — Experienced past actions in {{-ған / -ген}} and conversational negation with {{жоқ}}
• Habitual Past and the "Used-To" Aspect — Expressing past routines in {{-атын / -етін / -йтын / -йтін}} and habitual participles
• Reported and Narrative Past — Hearsay, indirect evidence and surprise discoveries in {{-ыпты / -іпті / -пты / -пті}}
• The Present Continuous Tense — Ongoing actions and the four auxiliary verbs of physical stance
• Future Tenses — Definite intentions in {{-мақ / -мек}} and probable futures in {{-ар / -ер / -р}}
• Desires, Intentions and Optatives — Expressing wishes in {{-ғым келеді}} and making proposals in {{-айын / -айық}}
• Ability and Inability — Expressing "can" and "cannot" using converbs in {{-а / -е / -й}} and {{алу}}
• Conditionals and "If" Clauses — Real and hypothetical conditions in {{-са / -се}} and counterfactuals with {{еді}}
• Sequential Converbs and Action Chains — Linking consecutive actions in {{-ып / -іп / -п}} without repeating conjunctions
• Causative, Passive and Reflexive Verb Voices — Grammatical voice derivations in {{-дыр / -қыз / -т}}, {{-ыл / -іл}} and {{-ыс / -іс}}
• Necessity, Obligation and Possibility — Expressing "must", "need to" and "might" with {{керек}}, {{қажет}} and {{мүмкін}}
• Verb Differences & False Friends — How common Kazakh and Turkish verbs parted ways over time

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