Spelling and scripts
Karachay is written in Cyrillic. Every word here is stored in Cyrillic, and the Latin spelling is generated from it.
Cyrillic comes first
The Cyrillic spelling is the word. The Latin spelling is made from it, never the other way round. Spelling follows the Karachay literary standard.
We write дж, as Karachay does: джол, джангы, джаз. Balkar writes these words with ж, and some dictionaries that cover both languages use that spelling. Where a source spells a word with ж, the entry here uses дж.
The alphabet
In Latin, each sound is one letter. So къ, гъ, нг and дж, which take two letters in Cyrillic, take one in Latin.
| Cyrillic | Latin | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| а | a | /a/ |
| б | b | /b/ |
| ч | ç | /tʃ/ |
| д | d | /d/ |
| э | e | /e/ |
| ф | f | /f/ |
| г | g | /ɡ/ |
| гъ | ğ | /ʁ/ |
| х | h | /x/ |
| ы | ı | /ɯ/ |
| и | i | /i/ |
| дж | j | /dʒ/ |
| к | k | /k/ |
| л | l | /l/ |
| м | m | /m/ |
| Cyrillic | Latin | Sound |
|---|---|---|
| н | n | /n/ |
| нг | ŋ | /ŋ/ |
| о | o | /o/ |
| ё | ö | /ø/ |
| п | p | /p/ |
| къ | q | /q/ |
| р | r | /r/ |
| с | s | /s/ |
| ш | ş | /ʃ/ |
| т | t | /t/ |
| у | u | /u/ |
| ю | ü | /y/ |
| у | w | /w/ |
| й | y | /j/ |
| з | z | /z/ |
- ŋ. нг is written ŋ. ннг keeps both letters: меннге is menŋe. Web addresses use the same letter, so aŋarılırğa is at /words/aŋarılırğa/. You can type ng in search.
- ı and i. These are two different letters, as in Turkish, and so are I and İ: Ыйыкъ is Iyıq. ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş and ü each have their own place in the alphabet and their own page under A–Z.
- у and ю. у is either the vowel u or the consonant w, and ю is either ü or yu. The Latin spelling shows which.
- э and е. These are the same sound: э at the start of a word, е elsewhere.
- Capitals. Names of places, states, institutions, publications and people are capitalized in both scripts: Къарачай "Karachay, the homeland", Ислам. The name of a people or a language, and the words made from it with -лы and -ча, are lowercase in Cyrillic and capitalized in Latin: къарачай тил is Qaraçay til, орусча is Orusça.
Other Latin spellings
You can also read the site in the spelling used by Nevruz 1991, Seegmiller 1996 or Sipos & Tavkul 2015. Pick one in Settings, behind the gear at the top of the page.
Pronunciation
The line between slashes under a word shows its sounds, letter by letter. It does not mark stress and it is not a recording.
Karachay and Balkar
This dictionary focuses on Karachay. A meaning used only in Balkar is shown with the tag Balkar, and the Balkar spelling of a Karachay word is labeled Balkar spelling, so each can be told apart from the Karachay form. The conventions page explains the other labels.