Kyrgyz, also Kirghiz (Кыргыз тили) — is a Northwestern Turkic language, and with Russian makes up the official languages of Kyrgyzstan. Its ISO 639 codes are kir and ky. It is so close to Kazakh that they can be mistaken for each other.

Also spoken in China, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey (Asia), Uzbekistan, there are about 5 million speakers. Kyrgyz uses a modified Cyrillic (Kyrgyzstan) and modified Arabic (China) scripts. Latin script was used during 1928-1940 in Kyrgyzstan, and is enjoying official endorsement again, but actual use is sporadic and inconsistent.

The modified Cyrillic alphabet includes these additions, sounds are indicated using the SAMPA chart:

CapitalSmallNameSound
Ңң /N/
Үү /y/
Θθ /9/

See also: Kyrgyz people, Languages of China