“Mum” in Kyrgyz is апа and “dad” is ата. Parents together are ата-эне, while эне means “mother” in a more literary, formal sense. The family as a whole is үй-бүлө, literally “house-family”.
Апа and ата are short words with an open “a” and stress on the last syllable: a-PA, a-TA. The possessive adds -м: апам is “my mum”, атам “my dad”. The same pattern works across kinship words.
Апам is “my mum”, атам is “my dad” — the possessive -м is added to the word.
Апа is the everyday “mum”. Эне is “mother” in a literary or formal register; in the pair ата-эне it means “parents”.
Үй-бүлө — literally “house-family”, a compound word like many everyday concepts in Kyrgyz.
Every phrase on this topic comes with native-speaker audio, free and without signup.
Open the phrasebook Find a phrase Read the article on greetings All words with audio