The state has reluctantly and indirectly acknowledged, if not failures in language policy, then at least inflated figures in previous reports. This concerns the Latin script, the proportion of people who speak the state language, and the status of the Russian language, which now seems to be nonexistent.
Renowned political analyst Daniyar Ashimbayev writes about this on his Telegram channel:
No Analysis
«The government has approved another Concept for the development of language policy in Kazakhstan for 2023-2029, ending the implementation of the State Program for the implementation of language policy for 2020-2025 (with a planned budget of 16.9 billion tenge).
If the State Program included tasks such as «the functioning of the Russian language in the communication-linguistic space» and «the development of languages of ethnic groups,» the new Concept is built entirely around questions of the Kazakh language.
There is no analysis, statistics, or assessments in the document; it goes straight to the action plan. However, comparing the indicators is already amusing.
According to the State Program, the goal was that by 2025, 95% of the population would speak the state language. The Concept aims to reach 84% by 2029.
Regarding the proportion of participants in written communication who use the Latin alphabet, the State Program aimed to reach 50% by 2025. Now, it is planned to be 15% by 2029.
As for the indicator of the share of Kazakh-language content in state media, the situation is different. The program envisioned having 79% in 2025, while the concept aims for 86% by 2029.
Three-Lingualism Forgotten
An indicator like the «proportion of the population proficient in three languages (Kazakh, Russian, and English)» has been completely removed from the plans.
In its place, we have new indicators:
- «The proportion of civil servants proficient in the state language at level B2 according to the ‘KAZTEST’ system (2029 — 50%).
- «The proportion of the use of the Kazakh language at international events held in Kazakhstan, as well as those organized by Kazakhstani diplomatic missions abroad» (2029 — 75%).
- «The proportion of document circulation in government bodies, national companies in the state language» (2029 — 94%).
- «The proportion of school graduates with a non-Kazakh language of instruction who are proficient in the state language at level B2» (2029 — 75%).
- «Volume of developed animation products in the state language» (2029 — 2500 minutes), etc.
Bureaucracy Decides Everything
The document is certainly not about «developing» the language but rather about managing budgets and a pile of unclear reporting, as before.
However, it allows us to draw several conclusions.
First, at the numerical level, another failure of language policy based on the development of the state language and the implementation of trilingualism has been confirmed.
Second, the state has rapidly abandoned Latinization, although the financing of the long-suffering transition and various developers will continue as before.
Recall that the new alphabet was approved in October 2017, then replaced in February 2018 with another version, which faced criticism at all levels but officially remained in place. In February 2021, the government submitted a third version of the alphabet to the president, which was not approved. In October of the same year, the national project «Uly Dala Ruhy Jangyru» was adopted, in which the approval of the alphabet and spelling rules of the Kazakh language in the Latin script was planned for 2022. The alphabet has not appeared, even though the transition deadline (2025) has not been canceled by anyone.
Now, the Concept includes the task of «submitting proposals for improving the alphabet and spelling rules of the Kazakh language based on the Latin script» (by December 2023, the Ministry of National Welfare should submit them to the Presidential Administration).
