A number of issues regarding Kazakh language have come out recently. First, there was the announcement on the 24th of October that Kazakhstan will switch to the Latin alphabet, whereas now it uses a Cyrillic alphabet. Historically, Kazakh was originally written in a Turkish script and then in Arabic script, and briefly in Latin script before Russian colonization and assimilation in the Soviet Union. So the move has some historic roots. Many blogs have taken up the issue of the new alphabet, and I was going to sum them up, but as I’m writing this, I got scooped by NewEurasian Live Journal, so I’ll just link to their summary here. Great minds think alike!

I will post directly to this blogger’s informal transcription proposal with examples, because it’s fun to look over.

Uzbekistan moved to a Latin alphabet for Uzbek after independence, which many viewed as a move to assert independence from Russia and the Soviet past. Kazakhstan may be making a similar stand. In the end I suspect it is a move toward making it easier for both foreigners to learn Kazakh (and make it a more “friendly” language), and for Kazakhstani to learn English.

The current thinking in the government is to produce a tri-lingual nation and new textbooks for kids have come out recently, including one called The Kingdom of Three Languages which teaches Kazakh, Russian, and English through the adventures of two Kazakh brothers, a Russian boy, and a British girl.

Recently, at the meeting of the Assembly of the People of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev said that civil servants who do not speak Kazakh will be out of a job. This comes in the midst of ministries switching to Kazakh as the language of memos and internal letters. Also, the President announced that there will need to be new words in Kazakh for scientific and technical terms, so that Kazakhs are not just borrowing Russian or English words. This creates a great deal of prestige for Kazakh, but does make it harder for non-speakers—this non-speaker relies heavily on borrowed words to understand things in Kazakh. (more…)