Famous political observer Daniyar Ashimbayev severely criticized language policy.
In an interview given to Ia-Center.ru, Mr. Ashimbayev substantiates why nothing changes in the Kazakh language situation, and why the country shall introduce Latin alphabet a bit “faster than forever”. Below are some extracts from that interview:
Shallow Concept
Kazakhstan recently adopted this fashion of introducing not clear plans, but some generic doctrines and concepts. As a rule, they do not envisage some concrete measures and mechanisms, they just keep prolonging the time for implementation of documents adopted earlier.
At present, all of them are made until 2029, i.e. the time, by which President’s election program is supposed to be implemented. That is not only about the language concept, but all other state programs, national projects, doctrines and concepts. Out of half a dozen concepts approved last year, two, if I am correct, have already been fully changed. That is why, my personal willingness to study them is diminishing – just for their senselessness.
Real Aim of Language Concept
But we are talking about the language concept, that is why interesting is its core message. That is excessive ideological pattern that stands behind it. Just take a look at it – in the body of the text you will find numerous “title nation”, “ideology” and “national idea” references. On the other side, the text is a bit illiterate – there are spelling mistakes and style shortcomings.
That document has two key messages – heroism and successes of previous, well-budgeted state programs, and –arguments, why the language is in “disastrous condition” and is associated with problems that need solving.
– The concept says that more than 80% of population speak Kazakh perfectly well. 80% was taken from previous state programs, which programs, according to reports, have been fulfilled and out-performed. But when you start dissecting that documents, paragraph by paragraph, particularly how the language is used in this country, i.e. in what language letters are written to state bodies and courts, and how document circulation and accounting are kept, it becomes obvious that the real picture is much worse.
Given the above, it appears, that the document pursues only two targets – justify the request to give money to language use regulating departments and centers and report that the previous program was gloriously fulfilled and outperformed.
Latin Alphabet – Success or Failure?
First presidential edict on transition to the Latin was signed in the last of 2017. But only several months afterwards, in the beginning of 2018, the Latin alphabet was approved again. In 2020, President Tokayev criticized the new draft of the Latin alphabet. The new alphabet, going under the aegis of the Ruhani Zhangiru National Project was supposed to be adopted in 2022.
But, we know that no alphabet was introduced last year. Besides, nobody in this country ever thought about necessity to introduce legal acts giving the President the right of introducing alphabets. That little legal nuance got lost, and nobody, for some reason, paid attention to it. In general, in Kazakhstan some 40 variants of the new alphabet were designed, but there still is no single opinion.
Public opinion differ – some people do not hail it at all, those who support the Latin have divided into several groups, which groups, once in a while, have low intensiveness quarrels amongst themselves at various conferences and in Mass Media and social networks.
I understand, that the level of our philology science, as well as philology scientists is rather low. They just are not capable of designing something sound and logically complete. Any design they suggest immediately comes under fire massive of criticism.
Besides, forget not that starting from the 40-s of the 20th century, Kazakh language developed well on the platform of the Cyrillic alphabet. Besides, level of English command is rather high in Kazakhstan. In other words, our people know how to read and pronounce Latin. People who grew up talking and reading Kazakh in Cyrillic will have problems to psychologically integrate into projects offered by our philology experts.
That is why, transition to the Latin is only then possible, when all surrounding nuances are properly taken care of. That is not happening.
At present, 2025 is the deadline for transition to the Latin. There is a formal Edict for that, but the time is passing, the budgets are being used, but there is no Latin alphabet.
The concept, as I said above, is not a binding and a mandatory requirement.
Google Running Ahead of Kazakh Officials
Again – while our experts are elaborating a 30-volume academic dictionary and invent tens of thousands of new terms, Google and Yandex designed and introduced translators, that we are all using. And they did so without any funds from the government.
They say, that our language experts helped them, but if that really was so, our officials would have already reported that publicly. That does not happen. Based on that, we may conclude that global IT companies designed vocabularies and methodologies without participation of Kazakh science and officials.
Moreover, we need to recognize that throughout the years of independence, we failed to develop some good quality content in the Kazakh language. Not in the sphere of literature, not in the sphere of science either. Compared to Soviet period, when maximum attention was paid to the development of the Kazakh language and literature, today all we have left is acknowledgement of the our fiasco in that sphere.
It turns out so, that through the Russian language and Cyrillic alphabet we receive products of not only Russian authors and scientists. The well-calibrated system of translation in Russia brings us excellent translations of English, French, German and Spanish literatures, as well as many others. In other words, the Russian language is a big channel, thorough which our society acquires access to global literature and science.
