Kyrgyz - the oldest nation in CA.

Dear friends,

Let�s discuss about Kyrgyz � one of the oldest nation of Central Asialace, the nation whose history was very hard and severe. The nation who presented to humanity the biggest epos of the world �MANAS�.

Kyrgyz - nomads who appears apx. 2200 years ago.  Some Kyrgyz tribes became Kazakhs and Uzbeks.

Kyrgyz during this long way were in fight with a lot of neighbors like Chinese, jungars, kalmyks, Russians etc.

Kyrgyz in 9 century broke the uigur kaganat and established a new large empire named "Kyrgyz kaganat". This empire was very big and has parts of present Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia, China and Uzbekistan. After 140 years, Kyrgyz could not control such a big territory and some part were loosed. Today Kyrgyz Republic is small country where the people remember about the great history of small nation.

Edited by Kyrgyzbay

We had a discussion about kyrgyz langauge here: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=786

Dear Mustafa,

You are right kyrgyz use cyrillic and there is no any way to use latin letters in coming future, because there are a lot of problems like finance, education, retrainings etc. Presently I do not know whether we have books like you need, but i can recommend you to visit www.kyrgyzstan.us It's site where the kyrgyz talks with each other all the people are able to speak english, russian, turkish and german I hope they will be able to recommend you something for learning kyrgyz without learning cirillic letters. 

But I have to mark that it is not a big problem to learn cirillic. Its very easy. 

Good luck!

Kyrgyzbay

Thank you both for your help. I will visit that website that Kyrgyzbay recommended. As to Cyrillic. I know it's not that difficult to learn...so maybe I should just sit on my butt and learn it once I have the time.  The problem is, of course, that cyrillic is pronounce differently in russian and kyrgyz, so if I learn the more accessible russian pronunciation it won't help me all that much. Is there a transliteration table for Kyrgyz cyrillic and latin pronunciation?

Mustafa

Thanks for the history of your homeland kyrgyzbay...I would love to learn more details of your past.  If you have the time, could you write more history?

Thank you!

 

Could you roughly tell us about the content of Manas? And how long is it?

Hello everyone,

I should say that Manas - is the biggest epic in the world. It contains about 500 000 lines.  It was created long before Chyngyzkan was born :-) Recently, Kyrgyz Republic celebrated the millenium of this epos (in 1995 I guess).  Manas is very unusual epic, a real manaschy, a man, who tells Manas, has some kind of vision.

This epic tells about how kyrgyz people fought for their freedom. Manas, his son Seytek, and grandson Semetey have been the leaders of kyrgyz people.

I read in a german book that tibetan "k�ng Gesar" was the longest, anyway, are there any other lyrical heroic epos among kyrgyz?

Hi everybody again, thanks for the interest in Kyrgyz and its culture.

Chono, indeed, there are quite a few other kyrgyz epics, "Kojojash", "Janysh Baiysh", "Er Tabyldy", etc.

ihsan, many scientists think that epic Manas is based on real stories, which took place long time ago, and nobody exactly knows what period of time it describes. Generally, it doesn't describe some certain period of time, or certain events. Manas was modified during many centuries by kyrgyz people, and at some point, Islam was also added I guess.

Ok thanx Manap

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