More than 6000 languages all over the world exist (Wikipedia). There are more
than 120 countries on the Earth. Moreover, unknown number of different tribes in
virgin lands of the planet exists. About
7 billion people live together on five continents (Wikipedia).
It is a fact that they all use different languages to
communicate. The languages are the tools to exchange information and knowledge. Thus, all languages
might be divided into subgroups. There are
majority and minority languages, living and dying languages, widespread and
local languages, etc.
Usually, in a multilingual society minority and
majority languages exist side by side. Of course, we cannot say that all of them have the same level of development
and support in a society. In Kazakhstan, for instance, major languages (Kazakh
and Russian) develop well because the
language policy pays more attention to
them than to minority languages. Usually education is provided in the language that is dominant and minority
languages suffer from less support. Moreover, the higher education institutions
are provided in Russian, Kazakh and English languages. So there is no need to
provide high education with minority
languages because the number of applicants would be less than it is appropriate.
Undoubtedly, it is very important to preserve and sustain
minority languages, because otherwise they will disappear. There should be a strong language policy to support the languages
of minorities. Minority languages and cultures have a chance to be saved in a society. Therefore,
there exists many cultural centers and language learning schools for minorities
in Kazakhstan. For instance, Korean cultural centers provide Korean celebrations, the language corner,
sharing traditions and customs (Korean Cultural Center).
In southern Kazakhstan schools for Uigurs, and Uzbeks
are opened. Children have an opportunity to study in their own language and that promotes minority languages. It is
crucial to support language identity, however soon those children will enter high education institutions that provide
education only in the
state language, Russian language as a language of communication and English
language as an international one (Law on Languages, 1997).
To summarize, minority and majority languages co-exist
in Kazakhstan. However, the last one has unstable position in a society. It is very
important to give minorities the possibility to preserve their mother tongue,
but it is impossible to equal them to Kazakh or Russian languages.
References
Korean cultural center. (2015). Korean cultural center of the republic
of Kazakhstan. Retrieved
Law on Languages. (1997). Republic of Kazakhstan. Retrieved from
Dear Dalmira!
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post! The first part of your essay is very informative, great job!
I totally agree with the point that the minority languages are not equal to the state and official languages. There are some reasons for that: that it not the policy of our country, that is very time - consuming (here I mean the Ministry of Education is not able to provide secondary, higher education in all languages existing in Kazakhstan) politically and financially that is impossible. However, the opportunity for minorities to learn their native languages is a sign of linguistically diverse country.
Thank you for sharing your point of view!
Dalmira, thank you for posting interesting topic! I agree that it is important to give opportunities to minority languages. Nevertheless, I support Mariyam`s comments that its a policy issue. As I know, in order to support minority languages there are national celebrations which they can share traiditions and language as well. I think children of minority languages become polyglot speaking at least in 2-3 languages and they practice their language only on family level. Even if there will be minority cohorts at Universities, will be there sufficient number of students of minority languages? Thats the question..... Maybe this is responsibilty of Ministry of foreign affairs of that country of minority languages to support them....
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with Mariyam that it is impossible to provide state education in all minority languages of the state. It is also a big issue when minorities cannot show even the basic knowledge of Kazakh or Russian. It means that they lose many essential opportunities to live and communicate in this country. Without basic knowledge of these languages it would be impossible to fully embody possible huge potentials that minority children have. I think government should deal with that by providing special language courses for them.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, when I first heard about Uyghur schools and the whole Uyghur region in Almaty, I was very surprised. To me, there have always been only Kazakh, Russian and mixed schools. This is a wonderful opportunity for people of different nations to educate children in their native language. Nevertheless, not all minorities have this chance. Unfortunately, their opportunities are rather limited. To improve this situation, more room for development should be provided in the form of cultural and educational centers.
ReplyDeleteI think that government is doing its best to support minorities.However, sometimes the issue is about finance not attention. I far as I know there are some schools for Uzbeks, Uyghurs and others in the Southern part of Kazakhstan. The fact that they can study at these schools is already good. I truly believe that they are given equal rights to feel Kazakhstan their home country.
ReplyDeleteYou are on point to say that in the country there should be the strong language policy to sustain the languages of minorities. As you mentioned there are many cultural centers and language learning schools for minorities. However, we should also have to point out the challenges that school children with Uzbek, Uighur and Tajik languages of instruction face when they apply for universities in Kazakhstan. The Unified National Testing (UNT) and Complex Testing of higher-education Applicants (CTA) in schools with Kazakh and Russian languages of instruction is carried out only in Kazakh and Russian languages. Therefore, in the schools with instruction in the languages of national minorities students pass the final exams in their native language. In addition to the final exams, in order to apply for the universities they have to pass CTA. It means that unlike their peers in the schools with Kazakh and Russian languages of instruction, graduates of ethnic schools are required to take an examination twice: when they leave school and when they enter the university. Accordingly, the students of ethnic schools have psychological stress and often feel discriminated against.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you!
DeleteIt is another issue of passing UNT in Kazakh or Russian languages, because only these two options are given for applicants to pass this exam. Therefore, I have mentioned that there should be very strong language police that might deal with minority languages as well as majority in order to prevent limitation of linguistic human rights.