It is one of the official languages of Kazakhstan, and is also spoken traditionally in Afghanistan, China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Germany has some Kazakh speakers in the second half of the 20th century and onward.

There are approximately 6.5 million native speakers around the world. It is written using the Cyrillic, the Latin (Turkey), and modified Arabic (China, Iran, Afghanistan) scripts.

The Kazakh Cyrillic script is basically the Russian alphabet with 9 additional letters: Әә, Ғғ, Ққ, Ңң, Өө, Ұұ, Үү, Һһ, Іі.

See also: Kazakh, Languages of China