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Kazakh is a Central Asian Turkic language spoken by approximately 10 million people in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, and China. It belongs to the Qipchaq subgroup of the Turkic languages, within which it is in the first place closely related to Karakalpak, Bashkir, and Altay and secondly to Kyrghyz, Karachay-Balkhar, Kumyk, and Tatar (on the history of Kazakh, see Balaqaev and Sayrambaev 1997; Sïzdïqova 1993, 1994). Like most Turkic languages, the Kazakh lexicon includes a considerable number of Arabic loanwords, albeit fewer than, for instance, Uzbek. Arabic words entered Kaza…