The southern dialect of Kirghiz spoken in China is an important Kirghiz variety. Over ist long history, it has distinguished itself from the literary language under the influence of contact languages, and it has formed unique characteristics based on the internal dynamics of its evolution. The article surveys phonetic features of the southern Kirghiz dialect, which has been influenced by Uyghur, Uzbek, and Tajik. Another key factor is that whereas literary Kirghiz is a written language with standardized orthography, the southern dialect is a spoken language and has no writing system. The article presents new insights into Kirghiz phonology on the basis of new dialect data.