This volume presents the results of the project “Kazakh – Its structure and function in post-Soviet Kazakhstan”. The project was unique in so far as for the first time the Kazakh language was the subject of a scientific project in a Western country. The aim was, on the one hand, to provide a snapshot of Kazakh as it is spoken and written in contemporary Kazakhstan, and, on the other, to analyze Kazakh in its sociocultural context.
Linguists from Kazakhstan, Germany, China, Turkey and Sweden came together at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen to discuss current issues on Kazakh. The papers presented in this context cover language planning, language contact, language and identity, latinization of the alphabet, terminology as well as varieties of Kazakh.