The word "zhol" is often spelled as "jol" or "zhul" in English transliteration. In IPA phonetic transcription, the pronunciation of "zhol" is /ʒol/. The initial sound is a voiced postalveolar fricative (/ʒ/), followed by an open-mid back rounded vowel (/ɔ/) and a voiced alveolar lateral approximant (/l/). This Kazakh word means "road" or "way" and is commonly used in phrases such as "zhol kөrsіn" (I see the road).