What about Kazakhstan vs Kazakstan?

[Morten Abildsnes]

At 10:56 2000-08-22 -0500, you wrote:
>On Tue, 22 Aug 2000, Stuart Goldberg wrote:
>
>> Kazakhstan is transliteration of the Russian.  In Kazak (or Kazakh or Qazaq),
>> both consonants are the same (neither a Russian "k" nor "kh" -- I'm sorry to
>> say I don't know the linguistic terminology).  So Kazakstan is
transliteration
>> of the Kazak.
>
>Interesting.  Would that consonant be uvular -- like a k, but a bit
>further back?

Exactly, it is similar to the k-sound
that appears  in place names like Qatar, Iraq or Qaqortoq.

In the Library of Congress database the transliterated name
of the country is Qazaqstan.

Does anybody know how "Kazakh" was spelled in
the Latin script which was used in the 30s?

By the way, have the Turkmens insisted that their country should
be spelled with Umlaut, i.e. Türkmenistan?

Morten Abildsnes, Trondheim, Norway

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