Old Turkic script in the context of "First Turkic Khaganate"

Kyrgyz is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. There is a very high level of mutual intelligibility between Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Altay. A dialect of Kyrgyz known as Pamiri Kyrgyz is spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Turkey, parts of northern Pakistan, and Russia.

Kyrgyz was originally written in Göktürk script, gradually replaced by the Perso-Arabic alphabet (in use until 1928 in the USSR, still in use in China). Between 1928 and 1940, a Latin-script alphabet, the Uniform Turkic Alphabet, was used. In 1940, Soviet authorities replaced the Latin script with the Cyrillic alphabet for all Turkic languages on its territory. When Kyrgyzstan became independent following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, a plan to adopt the Latin alphabet became popular. Although the plan has not been implemented, it remains in occasional discussion.

The Ongin inscription was discovered in 1891 in Mongolia near the Ongi River, 160 km south of the Orkhon inscriptions and 402 km south-west of the Tonyukuk inscriptions. It was erected in honor of El Etmish Yabgu and written in Yenisey script. Line 12 makes it clear that the author of the inscription erected a memorial to his father. According to Gerard Clauson, it must have been erected between 716 and 735, during the reign of Bilge Qaghan. According to Ercilasun it was erected in 719 or 720.

The Kazakh language was written mainly in four scripts at various points of time – Old Turkic, Cyrillic, Latin, and Arabic – each having a distinct alphabet. The Arabic script is used in Iran, Afghanistan, and China, while the Cyrillic script is used in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Mongolia. In October 2017, a presidential decree in Kazakhstan ordered a transition from the Cyrillic to Latin script to be implemented by 2025. In January 2021, the target year for finishing the transition was pushed back to 2031.

Irk Bitig or Irq Bitig (Old Turkic: 𐰃𐰺𐰴 𐰋𐰃𐱅𐰃𐰏‎), known as the Book of Omens or Book of Divination in English, is a 9th-century manuscript book on divination that was discovered in the "Library Cave" of the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang, China, by Aurel Stein in 1907, and is now in the collection of the British Library in London, England. The book is written in Old Turkic using the Old Turkic script (also known as "Orkhon" or "Turkic runes"); it is the only known complete manuscript text written in the Old Turkic script. It is also an important source for early Turkic mythology.

Tuvan, also spelt Tyvan, is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Tuva in South Central Siberia, Russia. There are small groups of Tuvans that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in China and Mongolia.