Kyrgyz language

Kyrgyz is the state language of Kyrgyzstan and is also spoken in China's Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture, Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan and among Kyrgyz in Afghanistan and Türkiye. Mutual intelligibility with Kazakh and Altai is very high.

The Kyrgyz once used the Old Turkic runic script, later the Arabic alphabet, then Latin from 1928 to 1940 and Cyrillic from 1940; Cyrillic remains the official script.

The Law on the State Language was adopted on 23 September 1989, and the date is celebrated as State Language Day. The Manas epic is regarded as the greatest treasure of the Kyrgyz language.