The Kazakh Language

Abstract. This research paper demonstrates an overall language situation in Kazakhstan which reflects on a national building of the presently independent country. At first, it analyses a historical background on a foundation of the Kazakh language starting from a the Soviet Union period to the language problem since the time of early independence. The investigation conducted in this paper explains main reasons of weak language community as well as policy-making decisions and directions to the further language development. The examination includes the respondents’ answers and, consequently, the following results and discussions.

Introduction. The following research was deliberately conducted in order to analyze a problem related to the existing bilingualism in Kazakhstan. This linguistic situation is considered as one of the debatable questions in the modern Central Asian country, because it examines whether a the Kazakh, “the native tongue of the ethnic majority and the de jure state language of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan” (Kuzhabekova, 2000, p.viii), should gain an absolute status of an only national language or should equally share its position with the Russian language, which is “the state language of Soviet Kazakhstan and the alternate present official language” (Kuzhabekova, 2000, p.viii). This language issue challenging the Kazakhstani government started from the first years of newly independent country. From the end of a Soviet Union power in 1991 Kazakhstan became a sovereign republic as other Post-Soviet countries. Consequently, the first years of a new country were devoted to a conversion from the Soviet Union pressure to the freedom of self-governing country. However, such a transition accordingly involves many challenges and responsibilities. One of them was the issue of a “kazakhization”, which is “ideological and propagandistic idea of reviving the Kazakh people’s language, culture and traditions, one the one hand;