The Kazakh Plural

Kazakh grammar for beginners · One suffix, six written shapes

A noun takes one plural suffix, and that suffix is written six different ways. Which one you need turns on whether the sound in front of it is voiced or voiceless, so that is where this lesson starts.

First — what "voiced" and "voiceless" mean

Put two fingers on your throat and say a long sssss, then a long zzzzz. The z buzzes under your fingers; the s does not. That buzz is voicing — your vocal cords vibrating — and every consonant is either voiced or voiceless. The two sounds are otherwise identical: same tongue, same lips, voice on or off.

You already know which is which, because Turkish teaches the voiceless set as a sentence: fıstıkçı şahap — f, s, t, k, ç, ş, h, p. Kazakh has exactly that set, minus ç (which only turns up in Russian words) and plus q (қ), the k made further back in the throat. Everything else is voiced: j, z, l, m, n, ñ, r (ж, з, л, м, н, ң, р), the glides, and every vowel.

Most consonants come in pairs, the same sound with the voice switched on or off. d (д) is just t (т) with the voice on, and z (з) is s (с) with the voice on — which is exactly why each member of a pair pulls a different suffix.

And you already use the distinction daily. It is why Turkish says Ankara'da but Sinop'ta, evde but kitapta — the suffix goes voiceless after a voiceless consonant. Kazakh runs the same logic; it just applies it in more places, the plural among them.

Choosing the shape

Root ends in	Back vowels (a, o, ū, y (а, о, ұ, ы))	Front vowels (ä, e, ı, ö, ü (ә, е, і, ө, ү))
a vowel — or i (й), u (у), r (р)	-lar (-лар)	-ler (-лер)
a voiced consonant: j, z, l, m, n, ñ (ж, з, л, м, н, ң)	-dar (-дар)	-der (-дер)
a voiceless consonant: k, q, p, s, t, f, h, ş (к, қ, п, с, т, ф, х, ш) — and also b, v, g, d (б, в, г, д)	-tar (-тар)	-ter (-тер)

Two independent choices: the consonant comes from the preceding sound, the vowel from harmony. Three consonants × two vowels = six forms. i (й) and u (у) sit with the vowels in the top row even though Latin writes them i and u — they are glides rather than true vowels, and for this rule they behave like the vowels, so tau (тау) "mountain" takes -lar (-лар) and not -dar (-дар). r (р) is the only ordinary consonant in that row. The odd pairing in the bottom row is not a mistake: b (б), v (в), g (г) and d (д) are voiced letters, but Kazakh devoices them at the end of a word, so they select the voiceless form — pedagog (педагог) "teacher" gives pedagogtar (педагогтар).

All six forms

One place this suffix does not appear is after a number, as the numbers lesson showed: ekı bala (екі бала) is "two children", with the noun left singular.

The same L rule recurs everywhere

The table above is really one rule wearing six hats: if an affix's basic form begins with l (л), that consonant assimilates to d (д) or t (т) according to whether the root ends in a voiced or a voiceless consonant.

So this is not a fact about the plural at all. It carries over to every other suffix that starts with that l (л) — the one that turns a noun into an adjective among them: mañyz (маңыз) "meaning" gives mañyzdy (маңызды) "important", and qūrmet (құрмет) "respect" gives qūrmettı (құрметті) "respected". Learning it here pays off repeatedly.

One extra wrinkle: after a root already ending in l (л), the affix dissimilates to d (д) rather than doubling the l (л) — which is why äiel (әйел) "woman" gives äielder (әйелдер).

Keep going

← Seasons · Body Parts →

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
• 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
• Having and Not Having — No verb "to have" — only "there is" and "there is not"
• 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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