Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Series Editors
John Peterson, University of Kiel
Anju Saxena, Uppsala University
Editorial Board
Anvita Abbi, Jawaharlal Nehru University
Balthasar Bickel, University of Zurich
George Cardona, University of Pennsylvania
Carol Genetti, University of California, Santa Barbara
Geoffrey Haig, University of Bamberg
Gilbert Lazard, CNRS & cole Pratique des Hautes tudes
Harold F. Schiffman, University of Pennsylvania
Udaya Narayana Singh, Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, India
VOLUME 2
Edited by
Harold F. Schiffman
LEIDEN BOSTON
2012
Cover illustration: Afghanistan landscape and village, Band-e-Amir lakes and canyons, Bamyan
Province. Christophe Cerisier, 2010.
Language policy and language conflict in Afghanistan and its neighbors : the changing
politics of language choice / edited by Harold F. Schiffman.
p. cm. (Brills studies in south and southwest Asian languages; 2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-20145-3 (hardback)
1. Asia, CentralLanguagesPolitical aspects. 2. AfghanistanLanguagesPolitical
aspects. 3. Language planningAsia, Central. 4. Language planningAfghanistan.
I. Schiffman, Harold F.
P119.32.A783L36 2012
306.44958dc23
2011037005
ISSN 1877-4083
ISBN 978 90 04 20145 3 (hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 21765 2 (e-book)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
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Fees are subject to change.
CONTENTS
SECTION I
AFGHANISTAN AND IRAN
SECTION II
CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS OF THE
FORMER SOVIET UNION
SECTION III
THE NORTHWEST FRONTIER PROVINCE AND
PASHTO, PUNJABI, AND BALOCHI
SECTION IV
PEDAGOGICAL RESOURCES AND CONCLUSION
Senzil K. Nawid focuses her research on the political, social, and cul-
tural history of Afghanistan in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Her book, Religious response to Social Change in Afghanistan: King
Aman-Allah and Afghan Ulama, 19191929 was published in 1999
and was recently translated into Dari. She has published a number of
articles and book chapters on Afghan history, language, and history
of Afghan women. Her most recent work, Afghan Women under
Marxism. was published as a book chapter in From Patriarchy to
Empowerment: Womens Paricipation, Movements, and Rights in the
Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (ed. V. Moghadam) by
Syracuse University Press. She has taught courses on Persian language
and literature and the history of Central Asia at the University of
Arizona.
list of contributors xv
1
For more on this issue, see the chapter by Schlyter, this volume.
afghan languages in a larger context 3
politically significant for all classes of the society throughout the coun-
try. As a result of the British interest in the area up to 1947, the Rus-
sian until 1917, the Soviet from 1917 to 1991 and American activities
in the region since 1948, and especially since 1979, there is consid-
erable variation among the various approaches of both Western and
local scholars.2
2
See in particular the chapters by Nawid, and by Hakala, this volume.
ROMANIA RUSSIA MONGOLIA
BOSNIA
Sarajevo KAZAKHSTAN
AZERBAIJAN
BLACK SEA Khwarazm Shimkent
BULGARIA GEOR
GIA CASPIAN UZB
SEA EKI KYRGYZSTAN IEN
AR STA Khujand
T SHAN
M Bokhara N Osh
EN TUR
IA KM
EN Samarqand Konibodom
TURKEY IST
AN Dushanbe Kashgar XINJIANG
Tabriz Tursunzoda TAKLA MAKAN
Marv Khotan
ALB Esfarain CHINA
U RZ Mashhad TAJIKISTAN
SYRIA
MEDITERRANEAN
AFGHANISTAN Islamabad Amritsar Indus
SEA Isfahan Lahore
AN
IRAQ Ludhiana
IRAN
D
P U N J A B
ZA
G
Quetta
JOR
RO Kerman Multan
S Shiraz
BALUCHISTAN New Delhi
PE PAKISTAN
R NEPAL
GU SIA
DH
LYBIA LF N SISTAN Kalat
SIN
EGYPT Hyderabad BANGLADESH
SAUDI MAKRAN
Karachi
ARABIA Dacca
RED BENGAL
SEA Calcutta
AN
INDIA
DEC
OM
NCA BAY
YEMEN ARABIAN Hyderabad
CHAD SEA of
SUDAN BENGAL
ETHIOPIA
CENTRAL
AFRICAN REPUBLIC
IA
AL
M
SO
afghan languages in a larger context
DA
AN KENYA
UG
N
W E
larger Islamic world, China and Indiato the north and south as well
as the east and west. What became Afghanistan in 1747 had been bor-
derland territory between the Safavid Empire in Isfahan to the west,
the Mughal Empire in Delhi, and the Uzbek Khanates to the north.
Qandahar, the first Afghan capital (17471776), had changed hands
more than once between the Safavids and the Mughals. Herat, still one
of Afghanistans four major cities, changed hands between the Safavids
and the Uzbeks, and was part of Iran as late as 1863. Before the advent
of Islam in the 7th century ad, the area had since the 6th century
bc formed the eastern marches of the Iranian world (i.e., the world
dominated by tribal populations speaking Iranian languages) contain-
ing the sites of much important Iranian cultural legend. What became
Afghanistan in the 18th century had been a shatter zone between the
major political centers of earlier history and sheltered refugee com-
munities from all sides, including Mongols.
In 1880 the British recruited a surviving collateral member of the
Afghan royal family, Abdul-Rahman Khan, from his exile north of the
Oxus, and placed him on the throne in Kabul. He ruled for 21 years,
and with the aid of methods that would have upstaged Draco (and cre-
ated trouble for the British Indian Government when they reached the
ears of Queen Victoria via her relatives in St. Petersburg) created the
basis for a unitary nation-state in which all inhabitants, whatever their
language, or cultural heritage, were persuaded to think of themselves
first not only as Muslim but as Afghan.
In 1893, just over half way through Abdul-Rahmans reign, the Brit-
ish drew the boundary which would divide British India from Afghan-
istan. It was known as the Durand Line after Sir Mortimer Durand
who was commissioned to draw it. The Durand Line ran through the
middle of the territories that were then and now inhabited by Pash-
tuns. Neither Abdul-Rahman nor any of his successors ever ratified
it, but they acquiesced in its imposition by the British. Since 1947 it
has been a source of serious disagreement between Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Pashtuns (pronounced Pakhtun in eastern dialects) who in South
Asian countries are known as Pathans, were known by others as
Afghansbefore Abdul-Rahman reworked this word as the national
identity of all inhabitants of Afghanistan. Afghan is not a Pashto
word; it is probably Persian in origin (cf. Morgenstierne 1979:28).
This should not surprise us. Other tribal populations in the region
8 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
are similarly known by blanket terms that may not be native to them,
viz. Baluch, Kurd, which are Iranian in form, if not in origin.3 Over
the past millennium Persian has been the language of literacy, either
uniquely, or par excellence, throughout Central Asia and far beyond, in
all directions. The man who created the new empire in 1747 that has
now become the nation-state of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Durrani,
was Pashtun, as were all his successors (save one short-lived usurper
in 1929) down to the recently deceased Muhammad Zaher Shah. But
his administration, like the administration of all surrounding states,
was conducted in Persian. In 1776 his son and successor, Timur,
moved his capital from Qandahar (which shares with only one other
city, Ghazni, the distinction of being an entirely Pashtun city) out of
Pashtun territory to Kabul. Kabul is located in eastern Afghanistan
at the foot of a major pass that carries the historical trade route from
India to central Asia over the ranges that extend the Hindu Kush into
the Paropamisus and Koh-i Baba mountainsthe ranges that separate
the southern and northern halves of modern Afghanistan. From that
date onwards, relations between the Pashtun dynasty that continued
to rule and the plurality of Pashtun tribes has been ambivalent. Timur
imported a non-Pashtun, Persian-speaking bureaucracy, and both the
dynasty and its entourage became similarly Persian speaking.
Pashtun nationalistic sentiments began to influence national policy
in the 1930s. Starting around that time a small amount was added
to the salaries of civil servants who passed a (not very demanding)
examination in Pashto. In the constitution of 1964 Persian was named
the official language and Pashto the national language. The name of
the Persian language as used in Afghanistan was changed from farsi
(which means the language of the province of Fars in southwestern
Iran, and has been the name in most common use throughout the
eastern Islamic world over the past millennium) to dari (which also
has a long history, and means the language of the court). But not very
much progress was made in the advancement of Pashto as a language
of either speech or literacy outside the Pashto-speaking tribes of the
south and a few of the Pashtun colonies that Abdul-Rahman settled in
the north. Since 1978, language has been further politicized. All of the
3
In English, after all, we call the Deutsche Germans, the Hellenoi Greeks, and we
used to call the Iranians Persians.
afghan languages in a larger context 9
4
See in particular the chapters by Nawid and by Hakala, this volume.
10 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
5
See the article by Spooner on Balochi, this volume.
afghan languages in a larger context 11
6
The article by Diamond (this volume) is pertinent here.
7
Spooner, this volume.
12 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
Persian has been building since the 1920s, and it was included in the
constitutions of 1933 and 1964. In 1936 and in the constitution of
1964 it was reaffirmed that Pashto, alongside Dari, should function as
an official language (Miran 1977:1).
8
The term diglossie was earlier used by Marais (1930) to characterize Arabic, but
the term did not gain currency until Ferguson elaborated on it.
9
This discussion of diglossia is based largely on Schiffmans 1997 chapter in Coul-
mas 1997 (The Handbook of Sociolinguistics) published by Blackwell, and used with
their permission.
10
Part of the reason that some researchers find only minimal diglossia in certain
languages is that the model they are influenced by is that of Arabic, where we find the
most extreme diglossia (between Classical Arabic and its spoken dialects) existing in
any language of the world. Compared to Arabic, therefore, other languages diglossia
is minimal, or certainly not as extensive. But diglossia is not an either-or situationit
is variable, and though it is hard to measure and quantify, it is clear that in any lan-
guage where the literary version is incomprehensible to illiterate speakers, who only
know the spoken variety, we clearly have a case of diglossia.
afghan languages in a larger context 15
A. Function
The functional differentiation of discrepant varieties in a diglossia is
fundamental, thus distinguishing it from bilingualism. H and L are
used for different purposes, and native speakers of the community
would find it odd (even ludicrous, or outrageous) if anyone used H in
an L domain, or L in an H domain.
B. Prestige
In most diglossias examined, H was more highly valued (had greater
prestige) than was L. The H variety is that of great literature, canoni-
cal religious texts, ancient poetry, of public speaking, of pomp and
circumstance. The L-variety is felt to be less worthy, corrupt, broken,
vulgar, undignified, etc. A good example of this in this volume are the
articles by Nawid and by Hakala on the extended diglossia between
Persian (a.k.a. Dari) and Pashto in Afghanistan. The latter is clearly the
commonest spoken language, but lacks the prestige of Persian/Dari, so
has been relegated to lower status off and on throughout history.
C. Literary Heritage
In most diglossic languages, the literature is all in H-variety; no written
uses of L exist, except for dialect poetry, advertising, or low restricted
genres. In most diglossic languages, the H-variety is thought to be the
language; the L-variety is sometimes denied to exist, or claims are made
that it is only spoken by lesser mortals (servants, women, children).
11
In this volume, almost every chapter deals with a Fishman-type diglossia of some
sort, whether it is Uzbek or Kazakh and Russian, Persian and Urdu, Panjabi, or Balochi,
or some other combination, also involving English.
16 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
D. Acquisition
L-variety is the variety learned first; it is the mother tongue, the lan-
guage of the home. H-variety is acquired through schooling. Where
linguists would therefore insist that the L-variety is primary, native
scholars tend to see only the H-variety as the language.12
E. Standardization
H is strictly standardized; grammars, dictionaries, canonical texts, etc.
exist for it, written by native grammarians. L is rarely standardized
in the traditional sense, or if grammars exist, are written by outsid-
ers. The article in this collection by Hakala deals with the problem of
variability within Pashto, with no overarching standard that is clearly
accepted by all users.
F. Stability
Diglossias are generally stable, persisting for centuries or even millen-
nia. Occasionally L-varieties gain domains and displace the H-variety,
but H only displaces L if H is the mother tongue of an elite, usually
in a neighboring polity. The classic example of stable diglossias in this
part of the world is that of Arabic, with its H-variety the language
of the Quran and other great literature, while L-variety spoken dia-
lects are used for less prestigeful purposes. This situation has remained
stable for centuries, and will probably continue, given the high value
associated with Quranic Arabic, not a syllable of which can be altered
without dire consequences. L-varieties may expand their usage if they
can move into newer domains, such as popular journalism, the movies,
or talk-shows on television, but traditional domains of the H-variety
remain inviolable.
12
In the studies in this volume, Persian is the language that was dominant in almost
every situation until the late medieval/early modern period, then Russian in Central
Asia, and English in South Asia tended to replace it.
afghan languages in a larger context 17
G. Grammar
The grammars of H are usually more complex than the grammars of
the L-variety. They can have more complicated tense systems, gender
systems, agreement, and syntactic structures than the L-variety.
H. Lexicon
Vocabulary is often somewhat shared between H and L, but generally
there is differentiation; H has vocabulary that L lacks, and vice-versa.
The H-variety may exhibit large amounts of vocabulary borrowed
from another H-variety, such as Sanskrit or Arabic, which the L-variety
may lack.
I. Phonology
Two kinds of systems are discerned. One is where H and L share the
same phonological elements, but H may have more complicated mor-
phophonemics. Or, H is a special subset of the L-variety inventory.13 A
second type where H has contrasts that L lacks, systematically substitut-
ing some other phoneme for the lacking contrast; but L may borrow
elements as tatsamas (i.e., in the same form as the H-variety), using
the H-variety contrast in that particular item, but not in general.
13
But it is often possible to observe that speakers sometimes fail to keep the two
systems separate.
14
See Spooner chapter on Balochi, this volume.
18 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
Asia, South Asia). Most diglossias involve literacy, but oral diglossias
are also conceivable.
L. Development in Time
Diglossias usually do not spring up overnight; they take time to
develop. Diglossia emerges in the presence of an ancient or prestigious
literature, composed in the H-variety, which the more influential elites
of the society wish to preserve as such. Literacy is usually restricted to
a small elite. When conditions require universal literacy in H, peda-
gogical problems ensue. These three factors, especially if linked with
religion, make diglossia extremely stable in Arabic and other linguistic
cultures in South and West Asia.
ally different languages and consensual dialects, since there are often
questions about whether the H-variety in a particular diglossia is in
fact the historical ancestor of the L-variety, unless the members of the
linguistic culture consent to the notion of ancestry, or at least do not
contest it.15 Fishmans 1980 taxonomy of kinds of linguistic relation-
ships between Hs and Ls is worth stating in full:
A. H as classical, L as vernacular, the two being genetically related, e.g.,
classical and vernacular Arabic (Marais 1930), classical or classicized
Greek (Katharevousa) and demotiki, Latin and French among fran-
cophone scholars and clergy in earlier centuries, classical and ver-
nacular Tamil, classical and vernacular Sinhalese, Sanskrit and Hindi,
classical Mandarin and modern Pekinese, etc.
B. H as classical, L as vernacular, the two not being genetically related,
e.g., Loshn koydesh (textual Hebrew/Aramaic) and Yiddish (Fishman,
1976) (or any one of the several dozen other non-semitic Jewish Ls,
as long as the latter operate in vernacular functions rather than in tra-
ditional literacy-related ones (Weinreich, 1980). The diglossia involv-
ing Pashto in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with Persian (Dari) as
H and Pashto as L is another example.16
C. H as written/formal-spoken and L as vernacular, the two being genet-
ically unrelated to each other; e.g. Spanish and Guaran in Paraguay
(Rubin, 1972). English (or French) and various vernaculars in post-
colonial areas throughout the world.
D. H as written/formal-spoken and L as vernacular, the two being genet-
ically related to each other. Here only significantly discrepant written/
formal-spoken and informal-spoken varieties will be admitted, such
that without schooling the written/formal-spoken cannot even be
understood (otherwise every dialect-standard situation in the world
would qualify within this rubric), e.g., High German and Swiss Ger-
man, standard spoken Pekinese [Putonghua] and Cantonese, Stan-
dard English and Caribbean Creole. (Fishman 1980, 4).
These differences often have to do primarily with power relation-
ships in the societies characterized by them. Various scholars have
proposed that extended diglossia is usually unstable, unless certain
15
In South Asia, for example, we have L-varieties associated with H-varieties that
are not in fact their closest genetic ancestor; for example, eastern varieties of Hindi
(Bihari dialects, etc.) that have long been noted to have descended from eastern apabh-
ramsas but are treated by their speakers as being dialects of standard Hindi; one could
make the case that Sri Lanka Tamil may also be more closely related to Malayalam
than it is to Tamil, but not in the minds of its speakers.
16
See also Nichols article on Pashto in the Northwest Frontier Province here.
20 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
17
Chapters 5 and 6, this volume.
afghan languages in a larger context 21
reasons noted above. Aside from this, however, there is also the issue
that increasingly, the discourse of science is a global one, and those
scientists who do not work in an established international language
such as Russian, French, German, or English, will find themselves out-
side the discourse, and unable to keep up with developments being
described in one of these languages. In fact, even in France, where
the government tries to shore up the prestige of French and encour-
age its use as widely as possible, some scientists prefer to publish in
English. In 1989, the editors of the various journals published by the
Institut Pasteur, one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific insti-
tutes in the world, decided to publish henceforward in English only.
The French government was not happy, but the editors noted that
only about 5% of the articles submitted to them were in French, so
switching to English exclusively seemed to be the realistic thing to do
(Markham 1989).
Another issue in creating new registers is that, as we noted above,
new registers are created by the users and developers of the particular
discipline or subdiscipline that they are working in. Language pur-
ists always want to show that their language is capable of being used
for scientific purposes (i.e., it is sophisticated enough and intellec-
tual enough to serve this purpose) but what this entails is creating
vocabulary for everything that has already been developed in another
language. This is a daunting task, not only for the committees tasked
with the job of translating (usually) the vocabulary and terminology of
another language, but also a daunting task for the users, who must now
become comfortable with terminology provided to them, not by users
or scientific researchers in their field, but by language pundits intent
on creating vocabulary that is wholly based on indigenous sources.
Earlier in the industrial revolution, this was less difficult, and nations
like Japan that decided in modernize beginning in the 19th century
were able to adapt by borrowing much of the vocabulary already in
use in other, more modern languages. But late modernizers often
resist borrowing since their languages are already swamped with loan-
words and loan-translations, so they are faced with an almost insur-
mountable taskcreate totally new terminology, and convince their
own people to adopt and use it. But those scientists already trained
in a LOWC such as English or French often do not see the utility of
disconnecting themselves from a global discourse in their discipline, in
order to further the agenda of language purists. In this volume, we find
that attempts to create scientific and technical registers for languages
24 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
like Persian, Urdu and Pashto are facing an uphill battle, as they must
compete with already established languages of wider communication
such as Russian and English.
But of course the reliance on English for science and technology
means that diglossia is maintained and reinforced, and will prob-
ably continue to be maintained, and not just in India. English is also
important in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world
of science. For Central Asia and the former republics of the USSR, the
struggle to replace Russian in science and technology will therefore
not be easy, for the same reasons that eliminating English in South
Asia has not been successful.
18
See the chapters by Diamond and Nichols, this volume, especially for the treat-
ment of Pashto and Punjabi.
26 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
the policy, and the matter is settled.19 We, however, tend to see imple-
mentation as the most problematical area of language planning, since
it involves many details and variables, and it may also involve taking a
long view of the process that may not outlast the impatience of poli-
ticians seeking quick fixes for a problem. As far as the implementa-
tion of language policy in Afghanistan and its neighbors is concerned,
it seems quite clear that many of the problems with language policy
in the area are problems of implementation, especially if policies are
handed down from above (so-called top-down language policy)
rather than designed to meet local needs, as determined by consulta-
tion with users at the grass-roots level.20 The recent move to prioritize
Kazakh as the official language of Kazakhstan, and to demote Russian
to secondary status illustrates the fragility of implementation plans
that are not carefully thought out (Fierman Chapter 4).
References
Brown, Roger and A. Gilman. (1960). The pronouns of power and solidarity, repr.
in Fishman, J. (ed.), 1968, 1970, pp. 252-75.
Coulmas, Florian. (1997). The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. London: Basil Blackwell,
Ltd.
Farhadi, A.G. Ravan. (1970). Languages of Afghanistan, in The Kabul Times Annual,
pp. 121-4.
Ferguson, Charles F. (1959). Diglossia, WORD, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 325-40. Repr. in
Hymes (1964) pp. 429-39.
. (1991). Diglossia revisited, in A. Hudson (ed.), 1991.
Fierman, William. (1995). Problems of Language Law Implementation in Uzbeki-
stan, in William Fierman (ed.), Nationalities Papers 23/3 (September 1995).
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. 1991. Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assis-
tance to Threatened Languages. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
19
This issue is particularly pertinent when attempts are made to substitute one
language for another, as we see in the chapters by Diamond, Fierman, Nichols, and
Schlyter.
20
This issue as it applies to Malaysia is illustrated in great detail by Mead in his
1988 work.
28 harold f. schiffman and brian spooner
Halliday, M.A.K., McIntosh, Angus and Strevens, Peter. (1964). The Linguistic Sciences
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SECTION I
Senzil Nawid
2.1. Introduction
2.2.1. Pashto
Pashto, also rendered Pakhtu, and sometimes Afghani, is a member of
the southeastern group of the Iranian branch of Indo-European lan-
guages and is spoken by the Pashtuns in Afghanistan and in north-
western and western Pakistan. Its dialects fall into two main divisions:
32 senzil nawid
southern and eastern. Although Pashto literature exists from the 7th
century, the Pashto language did not gain prominence until the 18th
century when Ahmad Shah Durrani (17471773) established the Dur-
rani Empire, which became known as Afghanistan in the 19th century.
Pashtuns make up the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, com-
prising from 38 to 44 percent of the population. The Durrani tribe
is the largest and most important Pashtun tribe. The Durranis ruled
Afghanistan from 1747 to 1978. Their original homeland is the region
west and southwest of Qandahar. The second largest Pashtun tribe
is the Ghilzai tribe. The Ghilzais live in regions between Ghazni and
Qandahar. Other important Pashtun tribes are the frontier tribes, the
Waziris, Khattaks, Mohmands, Shinwaris, Yusufzais, and the Afridis
who are known as the guardians of the Khyber Pass. The delineation
of the Durand Line as the southern and eastern border of Afghani-
stan by the British in 1893 divided the frontier Pashtun tribes between
Afghanistan and British India. According to Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, the
Durand Line greatly lessened the power of Pashtuns in Afghanistan.
However, this loss was reversed in some measure when Amir Abdur
Rahman forced resettlement of large numbers of Pashtun tribes from
the frontier to the northern regions of Afghanistan.1
2.2.2. Dari
Dari is the name for the Persian language as used in Afghanistan.
Various dialects of it are spoken natively in the north and west by the
Tajiks, who comprise more than one-third of the Afghan population.
Dari is the lingua franca of most other Afghans. Various Dari dialects
are spoken in Herat, Hazarajat, Balkh, Ghor, Ghazni, Badakhshan,
Panjsher, and in Kabul. The dialect of Kabul has become the standard,
which is broadcast and popularized by Kabul Radio.
Spoken Dari takes its root from its archaic phonetic characteristics.
The pronunciation of literary Dari is based on the traditional old dic-
tion of the northern regions of present-day Afghanistan. Literary Dari
was the language of administration and the judiciary from the time
of the Ghaznavids in the tenth and eleventh centuries. As the lingua
franca, Dari was also the language of commerce. With the formation
of the modern state of Afghanistan by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747,
1
Anwar ul-Haq, 1995, p. 632.
language policy in afghanistan 33
2.2.3. Uzbek
The Uzbeks and Turkman of Afghanistan are ethnically and linguisti-
cally of Turkic origin. They occupy the northern agricultural region of
Afghanistan from the Faryab Province to Badakhshan Province and
constitute about eight percent of the population. They moved into the
area in the sixteenth century from Central Asia. As a result, there are
many mixed Uzbek and Tajik villages in northern Afghanistan. At
the end of the nineteenth century, Amir Abdur Rahman consolidated
the Uzbek principalities (khanates) under his rule and, as mentioned
above, enforced a resettlement policy that resulted in Pashtun inroads
into traditionally Uzbek areas. His intention was to promote national
unity by intermingling people of different linguistic backgrounds in
the north.
Despite the fact that a new wave of Uzbek and Turkman immi-
gration took place in the north of Afghanistan as a result of Czarist
Russian conquest of their native lands and subsequent local uprisings
in Central Asia against the Bolsheviks, later immigrations of Pashtun
tribes in the 1920s and 1930s relegated Uzbeks to a minority in the
area they once dominated.3
In view of the large number of people who spoke Pashto and because
of the political power of the Pashtuns, Pashto was held in high regard.
2
Tajikam Portal-Secret Documents Reveal Afghan Language Policy, http://tajikam
.com/index.
3
University of MarylandMinorities at Risk: Background Information (Assess-
ment for Uzbeks in Afghanistan) [#30498], [ID 1199] http://www.ecoi.net/188769
::afghanistan/314494.313281.7999 . . . eth.565382/background-information.htm.
34 senzil nawid
4
Seraj al-Akhbar, vol. 2, no. 9, Dalw 3, 1291/Jan. 23, 1912.
5
Ibid., vol. 5, no. 2, Sonbola 20, 1294 (Sept. 12, 1915).
6
Ibid., vol. 5, no. 1, Sonbola 4, 1294 (August 27, 1915, pp. 2, 19, 5; vol. ii, no. 9,
pp. 9-12, cited in Gregorian, 1969, p. 175.
7
Gregorian, 1969, p. 175.
language policy in afghanistan 35
8
Seraj al-Akhbar, vol. 5, no. 2, Sonbola 20, 1294 (Sept. 12, 1915).
9
Gregorian, 1969, p. 348.
10
Schinasi, forthcoming. Among the main contributors were imminent writers
and scholars, such as Sarwar Guya, Fikri Saljuqi, Muhammad Ali Kohzad, Gholam
Muhammad Ghobar, Sayyid Qasim Rishtiya, Ahmad Ali Durrani, Qari Abdullah,
36 senzil nawid
The choice of official languages became a vexing issue during the 1930s
and early 40s. In 1936, Pashto was declared the official language of
Afghanistan. Its use and promulgation were encouraged. A year later,
the Advisory Board of Education adopted regulations making Pashto
the medium of instruction at the elementary school level in all parts
of Afghanistan.11 The Literary Society, now under the jurisdiction of
the Ministry of Education, changed its name to Pashto Tolena (The
Pashto Academy) and was expanded to include several divisions.12 The
Academys main tasks were to produce Pashto dictionaries and stan-
dardize Pashto grammar and pronunciation. The Persian title of the
literary journal, Majalla-i-Kabul, was changed to De Kabul Mojalla, in
Pashto. The title of the yearbook was also changed to Pashto, De Kabul
Kalanai (The Kabul Annual). Later in 1941, the yearbook was changed
in Pashto to De Afghanistan Kalanai (The Afghanistan Annual ). How-
ever, despite the Pashto titles, the language of the content of the jour-
nal and yearbook remained predominantly Persian.
According to Sayyid Qasim Rishtya, the Minister of Press at a later
date, the intention of the ruling elite at the time in making Pashto
both the national and the official language was to strengthen national
unity and create a strong Afghan national identity through the pro-
motion of a single state language.13 The change was hailed by Pashtun
nationalists and intellectuals, who always aspired to a Pashtun, ethnic-
and Gholam Hazrat Bitab. The famous Pashto scholars who contributed to the new
literary and historical journal included Abdul Rauf Binawa, Gul Pacha Olfat, Sed-
diqullah Reshtin, Zemiryalai, and later Abdul Haiy Habibi, the well-known Afghan
scholar and historian.
11
Afghanistan dar Pinjah Sal-i-Akhir (Afghanistan in the Past Fifty Years). 1347/
1968, p. 61; Payinda M. Zahir and M Yusuf Ilmi, 1339/1960, p. 52.
12
Sayyid Qasim Rishtiya, 1992, 25.
13
Ibid.
language policy in afghanistan 37
14
This sentiment has been recently expressed by Nazif Shahrani, 1984, p. 55.
15
http://www.khyberwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=595&page=10
16
Rishtiya, op. cit.
17
Afghanistan dar Pinjah Sal-i Akhir, p. 52.
38 senzil nawid
18
Thomas Ruttig, Islamists, Leftistsand a Void in the Center: Afghanistans
Political Parties and where they come from (19022006). http://72.14.205.104
/search?q=cache:skD-zjg8hYcJ:www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_9674-544-2-30.pdf+Wesh
+Dzalmian&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a.
language policy in afghanistan 39
19
Rishtiya, p. 203.
40 senzil nawid
20
US Embassy Report, Airgram, May 23, 1964, Kabul, US Department of State, Pol.
15-5 AFG, 95900. Afghanistan-Pakistan Documents by Paul Wolf. http://www.icdc
.com/~paulwolf/pakistan/ashford23may1964.htm.
21
These sentiments have been expressed by Nazif Shahrani.
22
Afghanistan: Experiment in Democracy, Documents from the U.S. National
Archives, 19611973, http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/pakistan/afghanistan.htm.
language policy in afghanistan 41
23
Muhammad Yusuf s press conference dated June 17, 1964, cited in Afghanistan
dar Dawra-i-Inteqali (Afghanistan during the Period of Transition). Kabul: Govern-
ment Press, 1965, p. 102.
24
Torpekai Sultani (Representative of Kibou no Gakko, Japan). The Current
Situation of Basic Education in Afghanistan, http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:
AlqhRGRHhbEJ:www.criced.tsukuba.ac.jp/pdf/04_Afghanistan_Sultani.pdf+Pashto
+tolena&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a.
25
Herbert B. Leggett report, US Embassy in Kabul, Embassys A-546, July 13, 1963,
http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/pakistan/leggett13july1963.htm.
42 senzil nawid
26
Edwards, 2002, pp. 46-8.
27
Ruben, 1995, p. 126.
language policy in afghanistan 43
28
Amin Tarzi, Lessons from the Past: The Saur Putsch, Afghanistan Report. 1 May
2003, vol. 2, no. 15, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/05/15-
010503.htm.
44 senzil nawid
29
Cited in Michael Bruchis The Effect of the USSRs Language Policy on the
National Languages of Its Turkic Population. In Yaacov Roi, ed., The USSR and
the Muslim World: Issues in Domestic and Foreign Policy. London: George Allen and
Unwin, 1984, 129.
30
James Marshall, Fight reaction on all fronts, Weekly Worker, 408, Thursday
November 15, 2001.
31
Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, Decline of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan. Asian Survey,
vol. 35, no. 7, July 1995, 622.
language policy in afghanistan 45
32
Kreindler, Isabelle. Lenin, Russian, and Soviet Language Policy. International
Journal of the Sociology of Language, 33, 1982, pp. 129-35.
33
John McLeish, The Soviet Conquest of Illiteracy. The Alberta Journal of Educa-
tional Research, vol. 18, 1972, p. 310.
46 senzil nawid
bring the country a step closer to socialist revolution.34 The two fac-
tions were also deeply divided by ethnic and tribal rivalries.35
34
A Revolution Backfires, Government Publication Access, Afghanistan Country
Study, www.gl.iit.edu/govdocs/afghanistan/ARevolutionBackfires.html.
35
Edwards, pp. 46-7.
language policy in afghanistan 47
Ethnic and linguistic rivalry worsened after the fall of the PDPA in
1992. Najibullahs attempts to moderate the PDPAs reforms and bring
about national reconciliation (ashti-milli) did not diminish resistance
36
Constitution of Republic of Afghanistan. Kabul: Albiruni Publishing House, June,
1990.
48 senzil nawid
to the regime. Even though the Soviet Union had withdrawn its troops
from Afghanistan in 1989, resistance to the Soviet-backed government
continued, and the regime collapsed with the takeover of Kabul by
mujahedin forces in April 1992.
Following the mujahedin victory, a Loya-Jirga, or grand council of
Afghan elders, was supposed to be convened to designate an interim
administration that would hold power for up to a year, pending elec-
tions. Instead, in May 1992, a religious leadership council (ahl-i-hal
wa al-aql) elected Burhanudin Rabbani to form the Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan. Intense factional warfare erupted after the selection of
Rabbani as president by the religious leadership council, and Kabul
was quickly ravaged by civil war. Outside the capital, local warlords
took power over their regions.
The Rabbani government lacked sufficient administrative capacity
to enforce any kind of language policy. Inasmuch as his organiza-
tion, Jamiat-i-Islami, derived most of its support from the Dari- and
Turkic-speaking minorities in the northern part of Afghanistan, con-
certed efforts were made during his four-years presidency to diminish
the use and weaken the influence of Pashto. In 1995 Ahady wrote:
The Pashto language has also lost status in the government controlled
media, radio, television, and newspapers. Since the 1920s and before the
downfall of the Najibullah regime, the development and popularization
of Pashto received preferential treatment in the governments cultural
policy, or at least equality with Dari, and 50% or more of radio-tv pro-
grams were in Pashto. Since April 1992 Pashto-language programs have
decreased drastically, and the official print media allocates even less
space to Pashto.37
A notable additional measure was the change of the language of the
national anthem from Pashto into Dari.
In 1996, after four years of civil war, Taliban forces took over Kabul
and toppled the Rabbani regime. The rise of the Taliban, who were
primarily Pashtuns, resulted in a resurgence of Pashtun nationalism.
37
Anwar ul-Haq Ahady, p. 624.
language policy in afghanistan 49
2.9. Summary
References
38
Although other polities recognize a distinction between national and official
language, the distinction is often unclear. In the case of Afghanistan, the distinction
marks the status of the language of the community that played the leading role in the
establishment of the Afghan polity, as distinct from Persian, which has always been
the language of administration.
39
Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free
Europe. /www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/11/mil-031103-rferl-
154117.htm.
52 senzil nawid
Anwar ul-Haq Ahady. (1995). Decline of the Pashtuns in Afghanistan, Asian Survey,
vol. 35, no. 7, July 1995.
Bruchis, Michael. (1984). The Effect of the USSRs Language Policy on the National
Languages of Its Turkic Population, in Yaacov Roi, ed., The USSR and the Muslim
World: Issues in Domestic and Foreign Policy. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Constitution of Republic of Afghanistan. 1990. Kabul: Albiruni Publishing House, June,
1990.
Edwards, David B. (2002). Before Taliban: Genealogies of the Afghan Jihad. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Gregorian, Vartan. (1969). The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Kreindler, Isabelle. (1982). Lenin, Russian, and Soviet Language Policy, Interna-
tional Journal of the Sociology of Language, 33.
Marshall, James. (2001). Fight reaction on all fronts, Weekly Worker, 408, Thursday
November 15, 2001.
McLeish, John. (1972). The Soviet Conquest of Illiteracy, The Alberta Journal of
Educational Research, 18.
Rishtiya, Sayyid Qasim. (1992). Khaterat-i-Siyasi-i- (Political Memoirs). Peshawar:
Markaz-i- Mutaliat-i-Afghani.
Ro I, Yaacov, (ed.) (1984). The USSR and the Muslim World: Issues in Domestic and
Foreign Policy. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Ruben, Barnet. (1994). The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press.
Ruttig, Thomas. Islamists, Leftistsand a Void in the Center: Afghanistans Political
Parties and Where They Come From (19022006).
Schinasi, May. Sal-nama-i-Mojalla-i-Kabul, Encyclopedia Iranica (forthcoming).
Seraj al-Akhbar-I Afghaniya, Kabul, 19111918.
Shahrani, Nazif. (1984). Marxist Revolution and Islamic Resistance in Afghanistan,
in Sharani, N. and Canfield, R. Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthro-
pological Perspectives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tarzi, Amin. (2003). Lessons from the Past: The Saur Putsch, Afghanistan Report.
1 May 2003, vol. 2, no. 15.
Zahir, Payinda M. and M. Yusuf Ilmi. (1339/1960). De Afghanistan de Maarif Tarikh
Bilingual. Kabul: the Ministry of Education Press.
CHAPTER THREE
Walter Hakala
3.1. Introduction
1
I have benefited immensely from the extensive comments of Harold Schiffman
and James Caron, both of the Department of South Asia Studies at the University
of Pennsylvania, and I am grateful to them for steering me away from a number
of errors in interpretation. Responsibility for the errors that remain, however, rests
entirely with me. The reader of this study will likely note two great shortcomings,
one for which I may beg some indulgence, and the other clearly less excusable. The
first is the dearth of references to Soviet scholarship on Pashto, due mostly to my
unfamiliarity with Russian. The second absence is that of references to scholarship
on Pashto produced in Pashto, Farsi, and Urdu, for which I cannot wholly claim
the excuse of linguistic incompetence. All translations (from the Pashto, French, and
German) and responsibility for mistranslations are, of course, entirely mine. I am
particularly dissatisfied with the incomplete and inconsistent historical narrative that
emerges from this survey. A more complete historical account of the languageone
that takes into consideration not just the literature but the sociology of Pashto writing
and reading in past centuries and combines this with recent fieldwork among Pashto
speakers from a variety of backgrounds (such as has been carried out by Rzehak and
others)is a great desideratum. Filling part of the historical gap is Carons PhD dis-
sertation (2009), which is a significant contribution to our understanding of the period
from approximately 1915 to 1960. Following the preponderance of source materials
included here, years are given as Anno Domini and dates are written according to the
Gregorian calendar.
2
I have since discovered that Dunning Wilson (1969) was grappling with the same
issues in his attempt to define an Afghan Literature.
54 walter hakala
3
Evocative and exotic descriptions of which may be found in the fiction of Rudyard
Kipling and in Rabindranath Tagores short story The Cabuliwallah.
locating pashto in afghanistan 55
As is well known, the Pashtun people place a great deal of pride upon
their language as an identifier of their distinct ethnic and historical
identity. While it is clear that not all those who self-identify as ethni-
cally Pashtun themselves use Pashto as their primary language, lan-
guage does seem to be one of the primary markers of ethnic identity
in contemporary Afghanistan. As Crews and Tarzi (2008: 21) note,
the boundary separating Pashtuns from others has been fluid in a
variety of contexts. Some self-identified Pashtuns speak only Dari (the
dialect of Persian spoken in Afghanistan), while some Tajiks speak
only Pashto, though they are not regarded by surrounding Pashtuns as
members of their community because they do not own land or belong
to the Pashtun tribal structure. In the case of a Pashtun tribe residing
in the southwestern province of Nimroz, the western border of which
is with Iran and whose southern border is adjacent to the Pakistani
province of Baluchistan, a recent observer notes that while
Nurzi are Pashtuns by origin [. . . and m]embers of this tribe still regard
themselves as Pashtuns in regions with a predominantly Pashtun popu-
lation. In regions like Nimroz, where the majority is Baluch, however,
most Nurzi switched over to the Baluch language and even adopted a
Baluch identity. Here only elderly Nurzi still use Pashto as their primary
language and will specify their ethnicity as Pashtun if they are asked
(Rzehak 2008: 383n2).
56 walter hakala
4
It would seem to go without saying that Pashtuns adhere to the Islamic faith,
overwhelmingly as Sunnis of the Hanafi school. This, rather than language, is a central
marker of identity for Barth (1969: 119). The Pashto language for him is a neces-
sary and diacritical feature, but in itself not sufficient: we are not dealing simply with
a linguistic group. Insofar as it is necessary to do Pashto, not just speak Pashto,
the bar for authentic belonging within this ethnic group is set quite high relative to
other proximal identities. With regard to their interactions with Baluchis in southern
Afghanistan, Barth notes that there is a flow of personnel from Pathan groups to
Baluch groups, and not vice versa. Indeed, large parts of some Baluch tribes acknowl-
edge Pathan origin. However, the incorporation of Pathans into Baluch type political
structures goes hand in hand with a loss of Pathan ethnic identity, so the categorical
dichotomy of Pathan tribes and Baluch tribes remains (124-5). As such, maintain-
ing Pashtun identity is a matter of some social distinction, though no study to my
knowledge considers Pashtun identity through an application of Bourdieus theories
of a market of symbolic goods (see, e.g., Bourdieu 1985, 1991, 1993). By contrast,
in regions where Pashtuns enjoy unrivaled political hegemony, non-Pashtun groups
tend to adopt a Pashtun style of life, causing the term Pashtn (or Pakhtn as it may
be) increasingly in those regions to designate the whole population in contrast to the
population of other, non-Pashto-speaking areas (Barth 1969: 128).
5
The classic study of this is, of course, Paul Brass work (1974), whose main focus is
on language and identity in North India (in particular Uttar Pradesh) following Inde-
pendence. Titus (1998) gives an excellent treatment of colonial stereotypes of Pashtun
and Baloch ethnic types, demonstrating how these notions have in themselves become
central in the formation of contemporary Pashtun and Baluch identity.
locating pashto in afghanistan 57
6
Naby (1980: 239) notes that the Pashtuns are Afghan in Soviet terminology,
Pathans to the Indians.
7
Barfield adds, It is therefore the people who inhabit the most marginal lands that
are poor and beyond government control who see themselves as the only true Pash-
tuns. These include the Ghilzai border regions of eastern Afghanistan and the Kar-
lanri FATA [Federally-Administered Tribal Areas] regions of the NWFP [Northwest
Frontier Province] because only they can maintain the strict standards of autonomy
demanded by the Pashtunwali. In richer rural areas, such as the irrigated plains around
Peshawar or Kandahar where governments have been long established, this is less pos-
sible (10). In the case of the Kabul-based Muhammadzai of the erstwhile Afghan
nobility and other urbanized Pashtuns, the proximity to the centralized authority
58 walter hakala
is so great that it becomes very difficult for people of any importance to assert and
exhibit the autonomy and independence that their identity and position demand
(Barth 1969: 129). Somewhat incongruously, Barth adds, the elite and urban middle
class in this purely Afghan kingdom have shown a strong tendency to Persianization
in speech and culture, representing . . . a sophisticates escape from the impossibility of
successfully consummating a Pathan identity under these circumstances (ibid.).
8
Whether the Pashtun population of Afghanistan was ever a majority or is instead
a plurality is a matter of continued contention and not insignificant political conse-
quence.
locating pashto in afghanistan 59
9
Rubin (2000: 1790), citing U.N. figures published in 1996 and 1997, indicates that
45% of the male population and only 18% of the female population was literate. These
figures were among the lowest in the world.
10
It is interesting here to note the attention given by Ravertythe father of Eng-
lish-language Pashto studiesto putative assertions made by both Afghan and English
authors (including Raverty) identifying the origins of Pashto in Hebrew and Chaldaic.
See, for example, Raverty (1987 [1860]: 15-20; 2001 [1867]).
11
Morphological differences between the dialects do in fact exist, but have not
been studied in any systematic manner. Personal communication, James Caron (Oct.
2007).
60 walter hakala
12
An exception to this may be found in a recent article by Mirdehghan (2010)
whose focus is on a comparative survey of the orthographies employed for Urdu,
Persian, and Pashto.
13
The value of the term vernacular as applied to South Asian languages (including,
one would presume, Pashto) is questionable, to be sure, and Pollock acknowledged
this in a more recent publication (2006: 22).
14
In the modern army since at least Abdurrahman and to some degree well before
him, Pashto was a ritual language used for ranks, technical terminology, and techni-
cal commands. Even the attan [a form of dance] was instituted for military exercise.
locating pashto in afghanistan 61
Pashto speakers are able to converse in more than one dialect of the
language. Again, determining prestige may be difficult as speakers may
subjectively attach greater esteem to their own speech forms while at
the same time using a different dialect to communicate with an out-
sider. Grierson, writing in the tenth volume of his monumental Lin-
guistic Survey of India (1921) about the state of Pashto in Afghanistan,
has the following comments suggestive of the shifting diglossic situa-
tions of the multilingual environment described above:
So far as non-British Afghanistan is concerned it must be remem-
bered that the whole of the population in any particular district is not
Pasht-speaking. There is a great mixture of races, viz. Tjiks, Hazrs,
Qizilbshs, etc., who, according to their origin, speak Persian, Turki,
Balch, or one of the Kfir languages. The map [of Pashto-speaking
regions] in many cases shows districts where only the majority of the
inhabitants are Afghns and Pasht speakers . . . On the other hand, in
every district of non-British Afghanistan villages of Pasht speaking
Afghns are constantly met with which are in a locality not shown in
the map as Pasht-speaking, and this mixture is more than ever the case
at the present time . . . Round the large cities, Persian is generally the lan-
guage spoken, even in a Pasht country, notably in the cases of Jalalabad
and Ghazni (Grierson 1921: 6).
Within Afghanistan, the language has had, in the last century, some
limited government support, especially as a language of the plurality (if
not majority) of its citizens. To a certain extent, the Pashto Academy
(Pato Tolna), founded in Kabul in 1931 for the purpose of carrying
out research on the Pashto language, folklore, and literature, has pro-
vided some stimulus for standardization, modernization, and language
instruction (Shafeev and Paper 1964: 1). In Afghanistan, Pashto has
gradually assumed a role as a language of governance and mass media,
though rather recently and often with some resistance:
Pashto became the official language of Afghanistan by royal decree in
1936.15 However, since the majority of Afghanistans officialdom was
and is Persian-speaking, it proved impossible to change suddenly from
This all was an icon for the supposed Pashtun military prowess. But the language of
the modern army in a more practical way was Dari, since most Pashtuns were exempt
from conscription. James Caron, personal communication, Oct. 2007. Cf. Edwards
2002: 71.
15
Prior to that, the official language of Afghanistan was Kabuli [also known as
Dar], one of the dialects of Tajik. In 1936, Pashto was declared to be an official
national language along with Kabuli (Shafeev and Paper 1964: 1).
62 walter hakala
16
The exceptions are primarily for certain women and in the tribal regions, for in
these populations, the range of possible interactive situations may be limited.
locating pashto in afghanistan 65
Some debate continues today about how best to categorize the variet-
ies of Pashto spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mackenzie (1959)
and Henderson (1983) have both independently advanced the notion
of there being four dialects of Pashto, varieties on the basis of the
pronunciation of the second consonant in the name of the language
(Henderson 1983: 595), each associated with a population center and
distinct geographical range. This would agree, according to Louis
Dupree, with the work of the Soviet linguist, N. Dvoryankov, had
he also been able to engage in field research in Pakistan (Dupree
1984: 761). Dupree summarizes this remarkable incidence of schol-
arly convergence in the following table:
U.S.S.R.
CHINA
IRAN
Herat KABUL
AN
N IST Wardak
x
A Peshawar
GH
AF
s.
Kandahar
N
S TA
KI
PA
Quetta
INDIA
17
Permission to reprint this map was granted by Jonathan Rodgers, Secretary-
Treasurer of the American Oriental Society.
TADJIKISTAN
OUZBEKISTAN
CHINE
(Tadjiks)
TURKMENISTAN
PAMIRIS
TURCS Sheber-
ghan 21 20 17 13
Feyzabad
FARYAB 18
22 19 14 BADAKHSHAN BOUROUCHOS
IRAN
PERSANS Baglan
Meymaneh
JOWZJAN BAGLAN PASAKIS
27
10
PERSANS 28 (Hazaras) 8 NURIS-
12
SELSELEH 24 23 15 TANIS PAKISTAN
16 11 9
Chaghcharan 7 CACHMIRIS
Herat (Tadjiks) 5
26 6 INDE
GHOWR 25 1 3 4
2
ORUZGAN
Gardez
Ghazni LAHNDA-
FARAH AFGHANS
PAKTIA SINDHIS
(Pachtouns) Tarin Kowt
Farah 1: Baraki Barak 15: Charikar
HELMAND GHAZNI
2: LOWGAR 16: PARVAN
Qalat 3: Jalalabad 17: Qondus
DASHT-E KHASH
Lashkar Gah ZABOL 4: NANGARHAR 18: QONDUZ
5: Kabul (Kaboul) 19: Kholm
HINDIS
Qandahar 6: KABUL 20: SAMANGAN
locating pashto in afghanistan
18
Rzehak (2008: 183), however, reports, Persian is the main language of adminis-
tration and education in Nimroz Province, whereas Baluchi may be used, along with
Persian, as the lingua franca in everyday communication, even by non-Baluch people.
These non-Baluch people of southwestern Afghanistan include Pashtuns, mostly
of the Ghilzai tribe, who also use Persian as their primary language in this region
(ibid.).
locating pashto in afghanistan 69
have emerged: The type of Peshawar; the Eastern type; the Kandahar
type (Penzl 1954: 74).
Two subsequent German grammars of Pashto continue to advance
the two branches model. On the one hand, Lorenz, basing his gram-
mar largely upon Shafeev and other Soviet linguists, states that one
arranges the dialects into the west or southwest group, Paxto (Pashto),
with the center in Kandahar, and the east or northeasts group,
Paxto (Pachto, Pakhto), with the center in Peshawar (north Paki-
stan) (Lorenz 1982: 15). Meyer-Ingwersen, on the other hand, citing
MacKenzie (1959), differentiates between spoken Pashtos large num-
ber of dialects and the language of literature and writing of the cultural
centers Kandahar, Kabul and Jelalabad (Afghanistan) and Peshawar
(Pakistan) [which are] substantially more uniform (Meyer-Ingwersen
1966: 1-2). He writes that for the latter, Differences exist here only in
the realization of some consonant phonemes, in the differentiation of
the short vowels . . . and in the rendition of fewer morphemes.
More recent scholarship has shown the actual situation of Pashto
dialects to be far more complex than the two-, three-, or fourfold divi-
sions (and especially those based exclusively on consonantal phonol-
ogy) might suggest. Kieffer, responding to the notion of Pashto being
divided into hard (where and are pronounced as a velar frica-
tive and velar occlusive, respectively) and soft dialects (where they
are pronounced as an unvoiced retroflex fricative sibilant and alveolar
fricative, respectively), writes,
Thus appears in the region of pato [i.e., the southeast region] a group
of geographically intermediate speeches B, clearly distinct from the
hard [i.e., northwest] dialects (A) and the soft [i.e., southwest] dia-
lects (C), which are localized in a median zone which clearly separates
the mareqi [eastern] (or allbti) zone from the marebi [western]
(or kandahri) zone and which we will call manjany, central, interme-
diate. The eccentricity does not stem from a particular pronunciation
of the phonemes that are usually used in order to differentiate the dia-
lectal regions. Indeed these speeches B have, on the contrary, the most
unexpected divergences that distinguish it, without hesitation, from the
speeches A and C; if they do not present any trace of uniformity, they
have, however, a major and clearly distinctive coherence; they all are
characterized by unique phonetic features and by certain characteristics
of their grammatical structure (Kieffer 1975: 5).
These unique phonetic features are constituted not by the pronuncia-
tion of consonants (i.e., the usual and criteria), but certain vowel
shifts:
70 walter hakala
. . . the metaphony or vowel shift of the waziri type, a/o, o/e, u/i sum-
marizes this change, which in Afghanistan, appears mainly in the speech
of the wazir and jadrn ethnic groups. According to materials of the
ALA [lAtlas Linguistique de lAfghanistan] the metaphony of the waziri
type appears in the speech of the following ethnic groups: wazir, jadrn
(marwat, alixanxel, giyanxel) then in tan i, gerbz and esmelxel, which
are perhaps also of jadrn or are allied with them (Kieffer 1973: 18).
Septfonds grammar Le Dzadrni: Un parler pashto du Pakty (Afghan-
istan) (1994) and Kieffers Grammaire de lrmur de Baraki-Barak
(Lgar, Afghanistan) (2003) clearly go a long way towards providing
linguists with valuable lexical and grammatical material for two hith-
erto unrecognized dialects of Pashto. The value of these works rests
in their being able to draw more useful distinctions among Pashto dia-
lects beyond the overused and simplistic division into varieties on the
basis of the pronunciation of the second consonant in the name of the
language (Henderson 1983: 595), a facile distinction whose descrip-
tive use is clearly limited.
within Afghanistan, the fact that it is the only dialect which has a
phonemic system corresponding to the prevailing orthography has
been important in determining the great prestige of the Kandahar
dialect (Penzl 1955: 9) as the cradle of Pashto orthography (Penzl
1955: 9; Penzl 1954: 81).
This, according to Mackenzie, is in direct opposition to Morgen-
stiernes earlier hypothesis from his 1932 Report on a Linguistic Mis-
sion to North-west India (MacKenzie 1959: 233). In support of this
north-eastern hypothesis, Mackenzie describes an earlier ortho-
graphic tradition than that now prevailing:
In the earliest known Pashto manuscript, written in ah 1061/ad 1651,
(with a subscript dot) is written for j, . . . for , and ( with central dot) for
. These signs were still used in a MS Dwn of Mrz, dated ah 1101/ad
1690, but were abandoned shortly thereafter (MacKenzie 1959: 233).
Mackenzies rejoinder, then, to Penzls attribution of linguistic priority
(if not temporal, then in literary normativity) to the Kandahar dialect,
is that while the Kandahar dialect has preserved all the consonant
phonemes expressed in the standard dialect . . . it has put [the full range
of vowel phonemes] to use in novel ways (MacKenzie 1959: 259). He
goes on to write that
It is an obvious inference that an older stage of Pashto [than the Kanda-
hari form privileged by Penzl], still current in the seventeenth century
if the orthographic evidence is trustworthy, combined a south-western
consonant system with a north-eastern vowel phoneme system . . . It is
this conceptual phonemic scheme, then, therefore, which is reflected in
the verse of Xush l Xn and Rahmn Bb [sic]. Apart from the evident
value of this Standard Pashto, in its discreet native dress, as a universal
literary medium among Pushtuns, it appears to have another important
application. It permits the description of Pashto morphology in more
accurate and universal terms than does any single dialect (MacKenzie
1959: 259).
In other words, Mackenzie suggests locating a Standard Pashto within
the very narrow limits of a literary tradition concluding with two sev-
enteenth century poets literary and, more importantly to Mackenzie,
orthographic productions. Despite the universal reverence Pashtuns
seem to feel for this shared tradition, the fact that this linguistic stan-
dard ceased to be current not long after these two poets stopped pro-
ducing poems does not seem to bother Mackenzie. Indeed, Mackenzie
reports with great satisfaction in a post-script to his essay that A
meeting of Pashtun scholars and writers from both Afghanistan and
Pakistan, held in Kabul during August 1958, proposed a number of
72 walter hakala
19
James Caron, personal correspondence, Oct. 2007.
locating pashto in afghanistan 73
Pashto textbook, often a versified one for interest, to teach the basics
of Islam. From their exposure to the Arabic script of the Quran some
of the Bibis also picked up literacy in the Pashto script which, being in
naskh after the initial stages, was more similar to Arabic than to Persian.
The women did not, however, confine themselves to religious texts. They
also read story books, also in verse, which they bought from vendors.
These were inevitably romances, notably of Adam/Durkhani, Jalat/Meh-
booba, Musa Khan/Gul Makai, and so on, and were already part of the
oral folklore since time immemorial. Professional story-tellers sang them
in the hujras (mens common rooms) in Pashtun villages and they too
purchased the same books to which the women found access (Abrar,
1979: 91). These popular books were very cheap. They had to beafter
all, neither village women, madrassas students or story-tellers had much
[disposable] income (Rahman 2002: 359).
From this discussion, it may be inferred that one of the main driving
forces behind the development of Pashto as a written literary language
was its potential as a medium for womens education.20 With very lim-
ited access to the outside world, and in particular, to unrelated men,
Pashtun women naturally would have little exposure to or need for
the lingua franca, Persian. However, exposure to Arabic literacy was
encouraged, though often this literacy was limited to inculcating a
rather passive capacity for recitation and memorization of the Qurn.
Actual exegesis was conducted instead through Pashto commentaries
and translation. In other words, the development of a written Pashto
was, according to Abrar and Rahman, at least initially spurred by the
pedagogical exigencies of Pashtun women. This conclusion, however,
must be taken with a grain of salt. As limited as literacy was (and
remains) among Pashto-speaking men, it is difficult to demonstrate
that women were able to exercise then a degree of financial agency
sufficient to institute, as Rahman and Abrar suggest, an entirely new
literary tradition. That many of the earliest Pashto sermons were versi-
fied suggests that they circulated in oral form, being memorized and
transmitted both in public (e.g., in mosques and in the male quarters
of a household) and in private (e.g., among women in worship).21
20
Raverty also holds this view. See Raverty (1987 [1860]: 26-7).
21
I am grateful to James Caron (personal communication, Oct. 2007) for suggest-
ing this to me.
locating pashto in afghanistan 75
22
This is part of what Pollock calls literization. On Arabic prosody, see Meredith-
Owens 1979 (compare with Blochmann 1872 and Pybus 1924). For other comments
on the limitations of Pashtos modified Perso-Arabic script, see Mackenzie 1959: 231.
It would, however, be difficult to identify any language with a conventional script that
perfectly represents the entire phonemic inventory of its speakers.
locating pashto in afghanistan 77
the instructors are primarily Afghans who labor under the serious
disadvantage of being the only ones who are exposing the students to
English (316). When he was writing, only students of Estaklal could
go on to attend the Kabul University Medical School (where classes
were taught by professors from the Sorbonne), students of Nedjat, the
sciences (taught by University of Cologne faculty), and students of
English, agriculture and engineering (taught by faculty from the Uni-
versity of Wyoming). The author is obviously alarmed by the prospect
of increasing interest in Russian language (as a means of entering the
Russian-medium Afghan Army School), and the increasing number
of Communist Chinese who are studying Persian or Pashto (318).
Calling Afghanistan a new Babel (318), he applaudsprematurely
for surethe government of India, which, has boldly made Hindi its
national choice (319). While one is left with little doubt as to which
foreign language he would like to see as official, and that he leaves
ambiguous which official single national language he wants privi-
leged above the other suggests that by this time, Pashto was seen to be
approaching equal political standing with Dari.
Beyond the capital, however, Pashto, admittedly with Persian, has,
generally speaking, occupied a more hegemonic H role in terms of
traditional theories of diglossia. With regard to the highly-localized
languages of the Hindu Kush, Pashto appears to occupy a compara-
tively privileged place, as is described by Fussman (1972). Using data
compiled by Morgenstierne from the early part of the 20th century
(and in particular, during a visit in 1924). Fussman endeavored to
produce the Atlas Linguistique des Parlers Dardes et Kafirs. Due to its
focus on the Dardic and Kafir languages, its applicability to the study
of Pashto is rather limited. It is useful, however, in gaining insight
into the historical development of what Penzl in 1955 described as
the advance of Pashto, in this case, at the expense of the Dardic and
Kafir languages of northeast Afghanistan. In the passage that follows,
Fussman describes how Morgenstiernes work, while suffering from
very incomplete accounts of vocabulary; nuances of meaning little
or poorly noted; phonetic transcription, not phonologic; [and] above
all very little information on morphology and syntax, is nevertheless,
for those who hail from the school of historical linguistics . . . truly
irreplaceable.
From their contact with the great languages of civilization (Persian
and Pashto), the Dardic and Kafir languages (even those in which the
structure is quite solid, like Pashai) are continuing to adopt borrowed
78 walter hakala
. . . the Brahuis and Baluches who are living in the southwestern portion
of Afghanistan; the Dards who live in the northeast portion of the coun-
try and speak the Pashai, Guwarbati, Sawi, Tirahi language; the Gujars
who speak dialects of Hindi/Urdu and Pashto; the Jats, small gypsy bands
of wandering tradesmen who speak Pashto, as well as Dari; and some of
the small groups such as the Hindus and Sikhs also speak Pashto. All of
these small ethnic groups who speak Pashto either as a first, second, or
third language, with the exception of the Hindus and Sikhs, learn Pashto
because of geographical distribution, rather than for political, economic,
or social reasons. The Hindus and Sikhs learn Pashto because of eco-
nomic reasons, i.e., to use with monolingual Pashto speakers in transac-
tions of trade and other business matters (Miran 1977b: 124).
The analysis Miran gives of issues raised by Afghan bilingualism and
possible diglossia among various Afghan ethnic groups, however, is
not especially involved, and indeed quite limited in its practical scope.23
Miran may have been rather too sanguine in his hopes for extending
Pashto diglossia among non-Pashtun groups. Other accounts argue
instead that the policy of official bilingualism and with the increased
influence of Iran in the region over the past decade [i.e., the 1970s],
and the slow extension of its culture and language in the wake of its
growing political and economic power, the Persian language was gain-
ing ever wider acceptance in Afghanistan (Naby 1980: 242). Others
have noted that Pashto works from the same period attest to the inabil-
ity of Pashto-speaking elected officials to participate in Dari-language
national debates.24 One would like to see Miran or other future schol-
ars grapple more productively with the issues he raises and suggest
pedagogical means by which to overcome them.
A misconception has arisen that by the 1980s, Pashtun political
successes (and by extension, the success of the Pashto language) had
been undone by the Afghan-Soviet war. Pstrusiska (1992) argues, in
a fiercely polemic and, unfortunately, historically misinformed essay
treating recent Afghan sociolinguistics, that the war was no more than
an anti-Pashtun pogrom. The Soviets are implicated at the beginning
of the essay for The unavoidable process of cultural discontinuity
which accompanies war, [and which] has been intensified by the con-
scious demographic, ethnic and linguistic policies of the communist
regime . . . based on Soviet national policy and possibly recommended
23
Some of the languages mentioned (especially Tirahi) were extinct long before
Miran carried out his work in the 1970s. See the extended quotation of Fussman
(1972: 5-6) above.
24
James Caron citing Abdullh Bakhtanai in personal communication, Oct. 2007.
80 walter hakala
and prepared by the Soviets (359). Noting how the population of war
refugees is overwhelmingly Pashtun, she concludes, apparently with-
out considering it hyperbole, the first priority of the regime was to
rid Afghanistan of Pashtun (Afghan!) people (360). She documents a
few examples of the reversal of Pashtun dominance, and the suprem-
acy of the Pashto language in political discourse (360-1), the rise of
an anti-Pashto party (361), and the decline of state sponsorship and
promotion of Pashto through the Pashto Academy and schools (361).
Together with this, she notes the rise of the Russian language (at the
expense of Pashto and English) in secondary and higher education,
which she fears will lead in the not-so-distant future, if continued, to
dependency on Russian as a medium of interethnic communication
(!) (362) and the insertion of communist and military terminology into
all Afghan languages (363). Under the Soviets, attempts were appar-
ently made to bring Dari (a form of Persian spoken in Afghanistan)
closer to the Tajik (also considered to be a form of Persian) spoken
then in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (363).
Many of Pstrusiska assertions, while if not entirely inaccurate (see
Crews and Tarzi 2008: 20-1), are in need of significant revision and
nuance.25 Some of Pstrusiskas fervent anti-Soviet rhetoric is echoed
in Bhattacharya (1984) regarding policy decisions in the Democratic
Republic of Afghanistan encouraging the promotion of minority lan-
guages and cultures, the implication being (see, e.g., page 133) that this
would be to the detriment of overall Pashtun hegemony. Earlier reports,
however, indicated that there was only token representation among
non-Pashtuns in the revolutionary government in Kabul, and the shift
in power that occurred with the Saur Revolution of 1978 involved the
displacement of the Durran Pashtun elite associated with the ancien
rgime with a rival group, a Ghilzai confederation (also comprised pri-
marily of Pashtuns) (Naby 1980: 245-6; Barfield 2007: 15). The Ghilzais
had stronger tribal backgrounds than did the old elite and were
native Pashto speakers (Barfield 2010: 226). Members of the royal
family, despite their Pashtun roots in the southern part of the coun-
try, mostly spoke Persian, and few were comfortable conversing exclu-
sively in Pashto (Edwards 2002: 63). Others have argued with empirical
25
Unfortunately, I am unable here to give a satisfactory account of this fascinating
period. Readers are advised to consult the works cited in this essay for a more com-
plete picture of the political situation during the 1980s and 1990s.
locating pashto in afghanistan 81
was well-known for his skills in Pashto oratory (Barfield 2010: 239).
Having renounced Marxism, the Najbullh government attempted
to rebrand itself as as the only remaining nationalist, Pashtun-led
politically effective force in the country (Rubin 1992: 95-6). This
experiment was to prove short lived, and when that government was
overthrown in 1992, Pashtun influence on the country as a whole was
limited, due in part to the disintegration of the central government and
military and the fragmentation of the country into separately adminis-
tered regions. The large number of Pashtun refugees residing beyond
Afghan borders had no doubt produced a profound demographic shift
in the country, one that favored the assertion of regional autonomy
by various non-Pashtun ethnic groups (Rubin 1993: 486). The emer-
gence of ethnically-organized regional governments under the aegis of
such figures as the Uzbek commander Abdul Rashd Dostam and the
Tajik leader Isml Khn, and groups like the independent Hazrah
organizations and the so-called Northern Alliance under the Tajik
commander Ahmad Shh Masd, relegated Pashtun-dominated
political organizations like the Taliban and Gulbuddn H ikmatyrs
H izb-i Islm to the southwest, south and east of the country (Ahady
1995, Barfield 2010: 249-60). Despite a number of factors that led to a
decline in the political fortunes of Pashtun-dominated groups in the
early 1990s, midway through the decade Ahady predicted (correctly, it
would seem) that these setbacks would prove to be temporary:
In an era when ethnic majorities everywhere are becoming dominant,
it is highly unrealistic that, on a long term basis, the Pashtuns can be
denied noninstitutionalized (de facto) dominance in Afghanistan. Fur-
ther, the Pashtuns are likely to rebound because the causes of their decline
are temporary; for instance, disunity among them played an important
role in their decline, but with the rise of the Taliban, Pashtun unity has
strengthened significantly (631).
With the collapse of the Afghan educational system and with it the
ideal of bilingual instruction in Dari and Pashto, the generation that
grew up in the aftermath of the Revolutionwhether in Afghanistan or
abroadare less likely to speak multiple Afghan languages (Edwards
2002: 301). Pashtun use of Persian as a prestige dialect (functioning
especially in the social domains of literature and statecraft) has for
centuries been closely indexed to higher social classes and connec-
tions with urban Afghan culture (especially that of Kabul ) (Rahman
1995). Dari Persian had been a second language for many Pashtuns,
locating pashto in afghanistan 83
26
For analysis of Baluch-Pashtun interactions, see Barth (1964 and 1969: 123-5).
84 walter hakala
While Barfield (2007: 16-7) believes that the recent Taliban efforts
to destabilize the Pashtun-majority south and east of the country
are doomed by a variety of historical, demographic, and topographic
factors, there is little doubt that decades of massive human displace-
ment will continue to have significant sociolinguistic effects for years
to come.
3.7. Conclusions
27
This same fear, however, was also expressed by ethnic Turkmens and Uzbeks to
Naby (1980: 243, 245), some of whom advocated for education in a common Turk
language.
locating pashto in afghanistan 85
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88 walter hakala
Brian Spooner
4.1. Introduction
1
Earlier, shorter versions of this article, with somewhat different emphases relating
more directly to curricular issues, have been published in Spooner 1992 and 1994.
persian, farsi, dari, tajiki 93
Persian and farsi are, of course, in origin not different names. They
both emerged from the same political situation some two thousand
five hundred years ago. Based on a summer capital in an area known
as Pars in what is now southern Iran, the Achaemenians established
an empire covering most of southwest Asia. As a result of their success
the toponym pars lives on in three related traditions:
After the Achaemenians, the Persian language evolved under the suc-
ceeding empires (Seleucids 312250, Parthians 250 bc226 ad, Sasa-
nians 226651), losing its inflections (as Hellenistic Greek did over
the same period), and reemerged in its modern form after the Arab
conquest, since when it has changed so slowly that texts from over
persian, farsi, dari, tajiki 95
For about the same length of time, since the beginning of the move-
ment of Turkic peoples into southwest Asia, Turkic has spread at the
96 brian spooner
2
In this connection it is interesting to remember that in the tug-of-war that has
emerged between Persian and Pashto in Afghanistan over the past hundred years the
Pashtuns raised their own language, Pashto, to official status, nominally equal to Per-
sian, when Afghans needed to distinguish themselves nationalistically from the Irani-
ans. Cf. Nawid, this volume.
100 brian spooner
national cultural equality than for linguistic form (if only because as
separate standards they are inadequately described and the amount of
scholarshipinternational as well as localrelating to them is of little
significance). Whatever the future may hold for Persian in Central
and Southwest Asia, Persian speakers today still identify with a single
language community. Beyond this cultural core Persian continues to
enjoy a high cultural value among the large number of people who
speak, read, and write it as a second or third language.
Outside Iran, Persia remained the Western name for the Iranian pol-
ity from the time of Herodotus until the Iranian government requested
the use of Iran in diplomatic correspondence in 1935. Shortly before
the 1979 revolution official usage was once again made optional (in
view perhaps of the public relations value not only of the connotations
of Persia in European languages but also of a more categorical dif-
ferentiation from Iraq). But the separation of the name of the country
(Iran) from the name of the language (Persian) for a full generation
had already had its effect in the popular mind and made easier the
introduction of farsi to English usage. Persian is now generally known
only as the national language of Iran and might therefore just as well
(it may be argued) be called by a distinctive name. Meanwhile, dari
and tojiki have easily acquired in the West the separate identity that
the Soviet and Afghan governments had sought for them.
Much else has changed that was beyond the control of governments,
as part of the general shift in relations between the countries in the
area and between these countries and the Western world. After the
severance of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States
in 1979, academic enrollments in Persian in American universities
decreased significantly (similar to the case of Chinese after 1949).
There is also a significant change in the objectives of students who
enroll. The establishment in America of a major branch of the Iranian
post-revolutionary diasporaone of the most highly educated of its
typehas generated a new type of student, pursuing cultural heritage
within the American liberal-arts frameworkan option not readily
available to immigrants from, for example, Vietnam or the Philip-
pinesof University programs that were designed to train students for
doctoral research in history and literature have more and more been
102 brian spooner
Partly for this reason introductory Persian classes are often relatively
large. However, few students progress far into the intermediate level
because of the increasing need to deal with vocabulary, syntax, and
usage that are culturally alien to English speakers as a result of the
high degree of convergence with the major non-Indo-European lan-
guages in the region, Arabic and Turkish, as well as the importance
of imported Arabic vocabulary. Enrollments in Persian (when taken
for essentially nonacademic, but now common, purposes) tend to fall
off sharply after the first year, further endangering its future in the
curriculum.
We are left with a dilemma. Persian has at best an uncertain future
in Western universities. If it is seen as the national language of Iran,
with little to distinguish it from other less-commonly-taught languages
in the eyes of the average university administration, its best chance
for survival is probably along the lines of Armenian, supported by an
expatriate community with ties to a home country. In the long term it
is unlikely to attract more than the occasional student of non-Iranian
background. But there is little evidence so far to suggest that the Ira-
nian expatriate community, despite its size and its resources, would
support Iranian studies as strongly as the Armenian community sup-
ports Armenian. This process will weaken the status of Persian outside
Iran.
Although not understood at the time, the events of this period had
the effect of changing the status of Iran and Persian in relation to
other Persianate successor states and their use of Persian. As a result
the modern issue of the relationship between language and ethnic or
national identity emerged and governments began to find the need
for policies relating to language use. The Ottoman Empire had already
switched from Persian to a highly Persianate form of Ottoman Turk-
ish, in a gradual process beginning as early as the 15th century. But if
the British Government in India had not replaced Persian with Urdu in
1835 (and subordinated Urdu to English). Persian could have become
the national language of Pakistan, in continuity with its heritage as the
successor state of the Mughal Empire (15261857) and the primacy in
its territory of the Mughal city of Lahore. For discussion of the change
from Persian to Urdu in north and south India see the articles by
Aslam Syed and Anwar Moazzam in Spooner and Hanaway (in press).
Afghanistan sought to separate itself from the hegemony of Iran by
raising the status of Pashto, and in 1964 changing its name for Persian
from farsi to dari. In the part of Central Asia north of Afghanistan
that came under Russian rule, emphasis shifted to the Turkic vernacu-
lars, with the exception of the late (1928) Soviet creation of Tajikistan
where Persian was continued as the national language (though 40% of
the population spoke Uzbek and a significant number of the remain-
der spoke other Iranian languages) but under a changed name, tojiki,
in the Cyrillic alphabet. The status of Persian in China changed as a
result of similar processes. The many other local languages and dialects
of Iran were now in conflict with the inclusiveness of modern concep-
tions of national identity, and their numbers have diminished at an
increasing rate since the 1950s.
Once Persian had become fully nationalized in Iran, the purity of its
identity became as important as the purity of Iranian national identity,
inclusive within and exclusive without its borders. Language became a
matter for government policy in the 1930s. Over the next few decades
five specific problems came to be addressed:
B. The modern tendency to adopt loan words from French, and later
from English.
C. The need to create new vocabulary for modern science and tech-
nology.
D. The rights of ethno-linguistic minorities to publication and educa-
tion in their own languages.
E. The need to accommodate the normal processes of language change
to issues of language policy.
3
Armenian and Assyrian Christians were allowed to publish in their own
languages.
112 brian spooner
Some readers may wonder why the term diglossia does not appear
in this chapter, given the space devoted to it in the Introduction,
and the use C.A. Ferguson made of Persian in his initial definition
of diglossia (1959: 325). In the formative period of modern language
studies, when the textual study of a small number of individual
persian, farsi, dari, tajiki 113
its literary function into the 20th century. It finally disappeared from
the school curriculum in India and Pakistan at roughly the same time
as Latin was dropped from the curriculum in England. But the cultural
value of its literature continues to support its international status to a
far greater extent than Latin in the West.
As the world continued to change in the 19th and early 20th centu-
ries, not only did the use of language change, but academic attitudes
toward the study of language also changed. Although the relationship
between Sanskrit and Greek had been noticed in the 16th century, it
was the work of Sir William Jones in the 18th century (17461794)
that spurred the first great expansion of language study to include the
textual records of all Indo-European languages. The next acceleration
in the process came with the rise of interest among anthropologists in
non-written languages in the late 19th century. Linguistics emerged as
a new field of study only in the 1940s, with a new focus on the scien-
tific study of language in general, whether written or not. It gradually
incorporated textual studies, as historical linguistics, the textual study
of written languages, which had been known as philology. While this
development led very quickly to spectacular advances in understand-
ing of language in general, it tended to orphan some types of historical
language study, in particular the historical sociology of literacy. Per-
sian is a very good, perhaps the best, example of such a victim. It has
been particularly unfortunate for Persian because (unlike, for example,
Latin) little work had been done on it earlier.
Persian has been one of the three most important written languages
in world history. Its vast corpus of literature continues to be highly
valued in the original as well as in translation in a number of countries
besides the three (Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan) which use it as official
languages, albeit under different names (dari, farsi, tajiki) in forms
which differ to a similar degree to the modern English of Australia,
England and the U.S.
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. (1959). Diglossia, Word, vol. 15, pp. 325-40.
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(18502000), Studia Iranica Upsaliensia, vol. 7, Uppsala University.
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Michael C. Hillmann, John R. Perry (ed.), Washington, D.C.: Mage Publishers.
Moazzam, Anwar. (2011). Urdu Insha: The Hyderabad experiment, 18601948, in
Spooner and Hanaway 2011.
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and Hanaway 2011.
Nawid, Senzil. (2011). Language Policy in Afghanistan: Linguistic Diversity and
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Paul, Ludwig. (2010). Iranian Language Reform in the Twentieth Century: Did the
First Farhangestan (19351940) Succeed? Journal of Persianate Societies, vol. 33
no. 1, pp. 78-10.
Perry, John R. (1985). Language reform in Turkey and Iran International Journal of
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guages of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics, How-
ard I. Aronson (ed.), University of Chicago, 1996, pp. 279-305.
. (1997). Script and Scripture: The Three Alphabets of Tajik Persian, 19271997,
Journal of Central Asian Studies, vol. II no. 1, pp. 2-18.
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Identity, Yasir Suleiman (ed.), London: Curzon, pp. 154-74.
Rahman, Tariq. The Learning of Persian in South Asia, unpublished manuscript.
Spooner, Brian. (1992). Do you speak Persian? or farsi? or dari? or tojiki? Penn
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175-90.
, and William L. Hanaway. (2011). Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and
the Social Order, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Yarshater, Ehsan. (1994). Pasdari-ye zaban-e farsi, in Marashi 1994, pp. 1-8.
SECTION II
William Fierman
1
A substantial part of the material in this article originally appeared in Russian in
. ,
No. 6, 2005, pp. 49-71 Research for this article was supported in part by a
fellowship from IREX (International Research & Exchanges Board) with funds pro-
vided by the United States Department of State through the Title VIII.
2
Joshua A. Fishman, Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foun-
dations of Assistance to Threatened Languages (Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters,
1991).
3
Angela Bartens, Review of Can Languages Be Saved? The Linguist List, http://
cf.linguistlist.org/cfdocs/new-website/LL-WorkingDirs/pubs/reviews/get-review
.cfm?SubID=3834.
4
Joshua A. Fishman, Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Reversing Language
Shift, Revisited: A 21st Century Perspective (Buffalo: Multilingual Matters, 2001).
122 william fierman
Irish or Catalan speakers are most likely to use these languages in the
home. However, in other domains, ranging from primary education to
mass media, commerce, public services, the legal system, and higher
education, it seems likely that on many days outside the home, certain
Irish or Catalan speakers would use at least some English or Spanish,
indeed, perhaps exclusively English or Spanish.
As discussed by Schiffman and Spooner in the introduction to this
volume, situations in which different languages are used in different
domains are referred to as diglossic. Diglossia may involve two very
different languages (such as Irish and English); however, it may also
involve two closely related languages such as Catalan and Spanish, or
even closer as in parts of Switzerland, where both High German and
local varieties of Swiss German are used.5
Regardless of the linguistic distance between languages, diglossia
may be quite stable as long as each language or language variety is
the one primarily or exclusively used in particular domains. However,
language shift is likely to occur in situations in which a stronger
language begins to displace the weaker one in spheres previously
reserved for the latter.6 Viewed from this perspective, RLS thus involves
the weaker language re-acquiring some of its functions. This is often
an uphill battle.
It should be kept in mind that, as Fishman demonstrates, today
even most of the worlds stronger languages are dominant only in
a relative sense. Thus, a dominant language in a medium-size Euro-
pean country (say, Greek in Greece) is in an unfavorable position vis-
-vis major world languages, such as English or French. This means
that even languages which gain ground through RLS are unlikely to
become the sole languages used by their speakers. In todays globalized
world, members of most speech communities will forever be bi- or
trilingual, with each of their languageseven the most powerful of
5
Much of the foundation for later work on diglossia was laid by Charles Fergu-
son in his 1959 article Diglossia in the journal Word, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 325-40.
Here Ferguson describes cases of diglossia involving societies where closely related
languages are used. Subsequently, Fishman extended the term to societies with lin-
guistically more distant or even remote languages (Bilingualism With and Without
Diglossia; Diglossia With and Without Bilingualism, Journal of Social Issues vol. 23,
no. 2 [1967], pp. 29-38).
6
Fishman (1967), p. 36.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 123
7
Joshua A. Fishman, From Theory to Practice (and Vice Versa): Review, Recon-
sideration and Reiteration, in Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Can Threatened Languages Be
Saved? (Buffalo: Multilingual Matters, 2001) p. 476.
8
Ibid.
9
Joshua A. Fishman, Why Is It So Hard to Save a Threatened Language? In
Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Can Threatened Languages Be Saved?, p. 1. The analogy of
a language to a sick human being has been the target of criticism by anthropolo-
gists, among them Joseph Errington. See Getting Language Rights: The Rhetorics of
Language Endangerment and Lost, American Anthropologist vol. 105, no. 4 (2003),
pp. 723-32.
10
Fishman 2001b, p. 17.
11
Fishman 2001a, pp. 468-9.
12
Fishman 2001a, pp. 475-6.
124 william fierman
13
Fishman 2001a, p. 465.
14
Stage 6 is actually the third of the eight stages, which begin with Stage 8; the
last stage is Stage 1.
15
Fishman 2001a, pp. 466-7.
16
Fishman 2001a, p. 471.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 125
17
Joshua A. Fishman, Jyotirindra Das Gupta, Bjrn H. Jernudd, and Joan Rubin,
Research Outline for Comparative Studies of Language Planning, Can Language Be
Planned? Joan Rubin and Bjrn H. Jernudd (eds.) (Honolulu: University of Hawaii,
1971), p. 293.
18
Ibid., p. 299.
19
For a list of some of the literature on this dimension, see Harold Schiffmans
Bibliography on Language Planning and Implementation at http://ccat.sas.upenn
.edu/plc/clpp/bibliogs/implementbiblio.html, accessed 12 March 2006.
20
See Harold Schiffman, review of Michael E. Brown and umit Ganguly (eds.),
Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in Asia, review published in
Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 63, no. 4 (2004), pp. 1069-71.
126 william fierman
21
Roman Szoporluk, The Ukraine and Russian in Robert Conquest (ed.), The Last
Empire: Nationality and the Soviet Future (Stanford, CA: Hoover, 1986), p. 168.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 127
22
See Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire. Nations and Nationalism in
the Soviet Union, 19231939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), Ch. 3; Wil-
liam Fierman, Language Planning and National Development. The Uzbek Experience
(Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), pp. 173-92; and Gerhard Simon, Nationalism and
Policy Toward the Nationalities of the Soviet Union (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991),
Ch. 2.
23
Not coincidentally, the mid-1930s also witnessed Stalins purges, and the Com-
munist Party became much more dominated by Russians. See Martin, Ch. 9; Fierman
(1991), Ch. 9; and Simon, Ch. 3.
24
At least in the case of Uzbek, another Central Asian language, the name of the
Shakespearean drama Hamlet (as it had been called in the early 1930s) became
Gamlet (reflecting the Russian pronunciation and transcription). I do not know for
sure that this same change was made in Kazakh in the 1930s. However, by the 1970s
the name of the play (in Cyrillic) was spelled with a G. (Gamlet, Qazaq sovet
entsiklopediyasy, vol. 3 [Almaty, 1973], pp. 145-6.)
128 william fierman
25
Soviet rhetoric, however, continued to use the word international, but the
meaning of the word in official Soviet lexicon changed radically in the early 1930s.
See Martin, p. 457. Russification remained a central element of Soviet linguistic policy
even after Stalins repudiation of Marrs theories in 1950.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 129
did not know Russian, or else knew it poorly. It therefore was obliged
to use the languages they understood. Russian could not be made to
serve overnight.
Another reason for allowing use of non-Russian languages, one
which became more important as the terror of the Stalin era subsided
after 1953, was that blatant discrimination against non-Russian lan-
guages could aggravate the Party leaderships relations with mem-
bers of society on whom Soviet rule depended. This is not to imply,
of course, that (for example) the Georgian or Estonian intelligentsia
could have overthrown Soviet power in their republics. However, by
the last decades of Soviet rule, the central leadership could not entirely
ignore issues affecting its own legitimacy. In this context it is worth
noting that in 1978 a proposal to remove reference to Georgian as
the sole official language of the Georgian SSR in that republics new
constitution led to large scale demonstrations. This outburst forced
the Soviet leadership to allow the new constitution to maintain the
reference to Georgian.26
Despite such concessions to non-Russian languages, in the 1970s
and 1980s, the Soviet leadership undertook major campaigns to pro-
mote Russian as non-Russians second mother tongue. These efforts
were especially prominent in educational policy. As a result, for exam-
ple, the number of hours devoted to Russian language instruction in
non-Russian schools was increased, pay bonuses were introduced for
Russian-language teachers in non-Russian schools, new language labo-
ratories were installed, and special journals devoted to the teaching of
Russian to non-Russian children were established. In some schools
with non-Russian medium of instruction, teachers and pupils alike
were exhorted to use only Russian at school one day a week.27
It would be misleading to imply that language shift to Russian was
a result solely of direct Party pressure to promote the second mother
tongue and limit the use of others. Indeed, because Russian offered
superior opportunities for educational and social mobility, many non-
Russian parents consciously chose to send their children to schools
26
Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington, IN: Indi-
ana University Press, 1988), p. 309.
27
See Isabelle Kreindler Forging a Soviet People: Ethnolinguistics in Central Asia,
in William Fierman (ed.), Soviet Central Asia: The Failed Transformation (Boulder,
CO: Westview, 1990), pp. 219-31, and William Fierman Language Development in
Soviet Uzbekistan, in Isabelle Kreindler (ed.), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet
National Languages (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1985), p. 221.
130 william fierman
28
For a description of the situation in Ukraine see Roman Solchanyk Catastrophic
Language Situation in Major Ukrainian Cities, Radio Liberty Research Bulletin RL
286/87, July 15, 1987. For Belarus, see Kathleen Mihalisko Language Revival: What
Would It Require in Belorussia? Report on the USSR, vol. 1, no 11 (March 17,
1989).
29
Current Kazakhstan official calculations based on the 1989 Soviet census show
a republic population of 16.2 million at the beginning of 1989. Unless otherwise
50 60 70 Iry 80 90
tsh
Ob RUS SIA
RUS SIA Petropavlovsk
lga
Qostanay
Vo
50 (Kostanay) Pavlodar Er 50
Oral ti s
(Uralsk) ASTANA
Semey skemen MONG.
Aqtbe (Semipalatinsk) (Ust
(Aktobe) Qaraghandy Kamenogorski)
(Karaganda)
Atyra 90
(Atyrau)
Lake
Balkhash
Baykonur
Cosmodrome
Aral
Sea
Aqta Sy
Qyzylorda (Kyzylorda) Khan
(Aktau) r Da Tngiri C H INA
ry Almaty Shyngy
a
Taraz
Am
u
Caspian Shymkent
D
KYRGYZSTAN
ar
40 AZER. Sea 40
ya
UZBEKISTAN Naryn
reversing language shift in kazakhstan
Map 1. Kazakhstan and adjacent areas. Source: CIA World Factbook, accessed at https://www.cia.gov/library
/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kz.html.
131
132 william fierman
indicated, census data cited here for 1989 and 1999 are taken from a volume contain-
ing the 1999 (sic) Kazakhstan census: Qazaqstan Respublikasynyng statistika zhonin-
degi agenttigi, Qazaqstan Respublikasy khalqynyng ulttyq quramy (Tom 1) (Almaty,
2000).
30
Ibid.
31
Podvedeny itogi Natsionalnoi perepisi naseleniia Respubliki Kazakhstan
2009 goda, 4 Feb. 2010, accessed 3 May 2010 at http://www.stat.kz/p_perepis
/Pages/n_04_02_10.aspx.
32
Published results of the 1959 All-Union Soviet census show Russians comprising
almost 43 percent of Kazakhstans population in January 1959 (Tsentralnoe statis-
ticheskoe upravlenie pri Sovete ministrov SSSR, Itogi Vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia
1959 goda [Moscow: Gosstatizdat, 1962], p. 206).
33
Podvedeny itogi . . .
34
Podvedeny itogi . . .
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 133
35
The Soviet census data for Kazakhstan in 1989 demonstrate the high level of Rus-
sification among non-Russian Slavs in KazSSR cities. Even though there was a general
tendency in the USSR for individuals to claim the language of their ethnic group as
their own native (rodnoi) language (even if they did not fact know it), in 1989, over
63 percent of the KazSSRs 584,824 urban Ukrainians, over 66 percent of the urban
Belorussians, and over 81 percent of the 27,113 urban Poles claimed to be native Rus-
sian speakers (and not native speakers of the language of their ethnic group). The
same was true for about half of the 469,803 urban Germans and 86,977 urban Koreans
(Gosudarstvennyi Komitet po Statistike SSSR [GosKomStat] Itogi Vsesoiuznoi perepisi
naseleniia 1989 goda. tom VII, chast 1 [Moscow, 19911993], p. 300).
36
Based on data from B. Khasanuly, Ana tiliata mura (Almaty: Zhazuwshi, 1992),
pp. 148-58. The number of oblasts (and consequently number of oblast centers) fluc-
tuated at the very end of the 1980s, in particular because of the liquidation and then
quick re-establishment of Mangyshlaq and Torghay Oblasts.
134 william fierman
Kazakhs 40 27 57 49 61 N.A. 58
All 60 73 43 51 39 N.A. 42
non-Kazakhs
All Slavs 44 58 31 41 27* N.A. 35*
Russians 37 51 27 37 24 N.A. 28
Other 7 8 4 4 3 N.A. 7
Slavs
Neither 16 14 12 10 12 N.A. 7
Kazakhs nor
Other Slavs
* 2010 data for Poles are not available and are therefore not included. However, they almost certainly constitute
less than 0.3 percent of Kazakhstans population. Source: (data for 1989) Qazaqstan Respublikasynyng statistika
zhonindegi agenttigi, Qazaqstan Respublikasy khalqynyng ulttyq quramy (Tom 1) (Almaty, 2000), pp. 21-4 and
(data for 2004), Qazaqstan Respublikasynyng statistika zhonindegi agenttigi, Qazaqstannyng demografiyalyq
zhylnamalyghy 2004 (Almaty 2005), p. 18.
37
Until the late 1980s, Western scholars had few opportunities to conduct archi-
val or on-site research on sensitive issues in Kazakhstan, and Soviet sources were
very selective in publishing information on linguistic processes. These factors severely
limited the scope and depth of research on the Kazakh language published in the
West prior to 1991. General information in English published prior to the collapse of
the USSR on Soviet language policy (including Kazakhstan) can be found in Stefan
Wurm, Turkic Peoples of the USSR: Their Historical Background, their Language, and
the Development of Soviet Linguistic Policy (Oxford, 1954); E. Glyn Lewis, Multilin-
gualism in the Soviet Union (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), and Bernard Comrie, The
Languages of the Soviet Union (NY: Cambridge University Press 1981). Some of the
best Soviet-era research on language policy in Central Asia (in short articles) was pub-
lished by Radio Libertys research division in research series which appeared under
the titles Radio Liberty Research Bulletin and Report on the USSR. Language policy
136 william fierman
Neither Kazakh
Neither Kazakh
nor Slav
nor Slav
16%
14% Kazakhs
27%
Other Slavs Other Slavs
Kazakhs
7% 8%
40%
Russians Russians
37% 51%
Neither Neither
Kazakh nor Kazakh nor Slav
Slav 12%
14% Kazakhs Other Slavs
23% 4%
Other Slavs
8%
Kazakhs
Russians 57%
27%
Russians
55%
Neither Kazakh
nor Slav
10% Neither Kazakh
nor Slav
Other Slavs
12%
4%
Other Slavs
3%
Kazakhs
49%
Russians Kazakhs
Russians 24% 61%
37%
Neither Kazakh
nor Slav
7%
Other Slavs
7%
Russians
28%
Kazakhs
58%
5.3.1. Workplace
The overwhelming majority of urban workplaces in the 1970s and
1980s in Kazakhstan were monoglossic, with Russian the language
of communication. Above all this was because few urban Kazakhs
worked in ethnically homogenous environments, and because in inte-
grated environments very few non-Kazakhs (who almost everywhere
constituted the large majority) knew Kazakh. On the other hand,
by the late Soviet era, most urban Kazakhs were fluent or had good
skills in Russian.38 The probability of using Kazakh on the job was
further decreased because in line with Party policy to make Russian
the lingua franca of all Soviet citizens, non-Russians were discouraged
from speaking in their ethnic groups titular language in the presence
of Russians or others who did not understand it. As described by a
Kazakh poet looking back from 1993 at the Soviet era, even when a
crowd of forty Kazakhs might gather, the presence of a single Russian-
speaker was enough for the Kazakhs to consider it their obligation
to speak Russian.39
5.3.2. Education
Both at the primary and general secondary levels, Russian was the
dominant language of education in cities of Kazakhstan. In 1990 (by
which time the share was almost certainly higher than half a decade
before) fewer than 17 percent of Kazakhstans urban children were
being educated in the Kazakh language. True, this represented about
half of the Kazakh children living at the time in urban areas. How-
ever, approximately 60 percent of the schools where these children
studied had parallel Russian and Kazakh streams, and Russian was
the main channel for communication among students from different
38
In 1989, only about 1 percent of Kazakhstans urban non-Kazakhs claimed
fluency in Kazakh. At the same time, almost 78 percent of Kazakhs in urban areas
claimed a mastery of Russian (Itogi 1989, vol. 7, chast I, pp. 296 and 300). Among the
employed population the share was undoubtedly even higher.
39
Sadybek Moldashuly, Tort ayaghyn teng basqan, Zhas Alash, 14 Jan. 1993, p. 2.
By Russian-speaker Moldashuly seems to be referring to members of Russian-
speaking ethnic groups, which would have included not just Russians, but Ukrai-
nians, Belorussians, Poles, as well as others such as Germans and Koreans. For a
discussion of the pressures on Kazakhs to speak Russian in Kazakhstans cities see
Dave (2007), Ch. 3.
140 william fierman
40
Unless otherwise noted, data on schools and pupils cited in this chapter for
academic years 2000/2001 and beyond are from Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po
statistike, Raspredelenie shkol i chislennosti uchashchikhsia v RK for years 2000/2001,
2001/2002, 2002/2003, 2003/2004, and 2004/2005; likewise, unless otherwise noted,
data for earlier years are calculated from material provided to the author by the
Kazakhstan Ministry of Education.
41
At the time, the city was known in English by the Russian name Alma-Ata.
42
One of the schools in Kazakhstan was a boarding school attended largely by
children from other parts of the republic. The Kazakh population of Almaty in 1979
was 147,000 (16.5 percent of the total ); by 1989 it was 251,000 (22.5 percent of the
total ) (Mikhail Guboglo, Demography and Language in the Capitals of the Union
Republics, Journal of Nationalities, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 28-9).
43
Khasanuly (1992), p. 185.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 141
44
Ramazan Saghymbekov, Almatydan soylep turmyz (Almaty: Qazaqstan baspasy,
1979), pp. 149-53 and information in e-mail communication from Asiya Baigozhina
(Almaty) dated 21 March 2005. According to another source that describes what
appears to refer to broadcasts of just the main program of Kazakh Radio, as of either
1989 or 1990, only 4.5 out of 19.5 hours were in Kazakh (Qazaq adebiyeti, 23 March
1990).
45
E-mail communication from Baigozhina, 21 March 2005 based on information
from Firuza Perzadaeva.
46
It should be noted that Soviet census data are of almost no help in assessing
how many Kazakhs actually spoke Kazakh. In the 1989 census, even among urban
Kazakhs, over 97 percent claimed Kazakh as their native language. (GosKomStat SSSR
Itogi . . . Tom 7, chast 1, p. 300). For a discussion of the dynamics of Kazakhs status
in schools, see William Fierman, Language and Education in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan:
Kazakh-Medium Instruction in Urban Schools, The Russian Review, vol. 65, no. 1
(2006), pp. 98-116.
142 william fierman
era, Dave notes that typically individuals older than about sixty were
primarily Kazakh-speakers, though well-versed in Russian. They still
do, or at least used to, read literature in the Kazakh language, and
can recite from memory poems, folk songs, and passages from the
Kazakh epics. By contrast, the population between twenty and sixty
years of age is overwhelmingly Russian speaking, their familiarity
with Kazakh depending primarily on the number of years spent in
Kazakh-dominated rural areas.47
In the last decades of Soviet power there appears to have been an
increasingly widespread attitude in urban areas that Kazakh skills
were superfluous. This is illustrated, for example, in a 1993 article
by a 34-year old Kazakh journalist who deals at length with various
issues of linguistic russification. In the middle of his essay he answers
a hypothetical question about how to judge those Kazakh parents who
sent their children to Russian schools in the Soviet era. He responds
to his own question saying,
One shouldnt blame the older generation for sending their children
to schools with Russian as the language of instruction if they exhibited
national honor by having the child speak in the native language in the
family and around elders. The degrading thing was not that their child
was being educated in Russian, but that their language and soul were
becoming Russian, [i.e.,] that the child would respond in Russian when
addressed in Kazakh.48
This negative attitude towards Kazakh was accompanied by scorn
towards Kazakhs who spoke anything but perfect Russian. This is
represented in an article by a Kazakh writer whose father was one of
Kazakhstans most famous twentieth century military heroes, Bauyr-
zhan Momyshuly. Writing in 1989, Baqytzhan Momyshuly (the son),
remembers his attitude in childhood to the opening of the Kazakh-
language boarding school in Almaty: he thought the institution was for
culturally backward children and those with disabilities. Momyshuly
reports that in the Soviet era many Kazakh parents who had them-
selves experienced difficulties due to poor Russian sent their offspring
to Russian schools because they saw no prospects for their native
tongue. The result was that We, their children, did not understand
our mother tongue, and even when we did understand it, we consid-
47
Bhavna Dave, (1996). National Revival in Kazakhstan: Language Shift and Iden-
tity Change. Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 12, no. 1, p. 66.
48
Kosemali Sattibayuly, Sana tazarmay, salt zhaqsarmaydy, Zhas Alash, 4 March
1993.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 143
49
Baqytzhan Momyshuly, Zhetimning qaytyp oraluwy, Leninshil zhas, 15 Sep.
1989.
50
See, for example, S.Z. Zimanov (Perestroika i ravnopravie iazykov, Kazakh-
stanskaia Pravda, 23 Mar. 1989) who states that 40 percent of Kazakhs either do
not know their mother tongue or know it poorly and that in Almaty 90 percent of
adolescents (podrostkov) do not speak Kazakh. A. Qaydarov, about the same time,
explained the 40 percent figure as the number who could not speak fluently, even
though they understood Kazakh (Memlekettik til zhane oghan baylanysty maseleler
turaly oy-tolghauw, Sotsialistik Qazaqstan, 3 Aug. 1989).
51
Baqqozha Muqayev, Arymyz da abyroyymyz da, Leninshil zhas, 1 March 1990.
52
Baqytzhan Khasanuly (1992, p. 198), for example, says that the figure of 40 per-
cent Kazakhs not knowing Kazakh can be accepted only in the sense that it refers to a
lack of knowledge of the written literary language; writing in 1992, Kazakh journalist
Kamal Smailov claimed that the share of Kazakhs not knowing Kazakh was at most
30 percent (Radi spravedlivosti Kazakhstanskaia Pravda, 8 Feb. 1992).
53
If 60 percent of all Kazakhs were fluent in Kazakh, and among rural Kazakhs
the proportion was 75 percent, this would imply that among urban Kazakhs (who at
the time constituted 38 percent of the population) the level of fluency was about
30 percent.
144 william fierman
54
Fariza Ongharsynova, Qaytip khalyq bop qalamyz?, Ana tili, 13 June 1991, p. 3.
55
Izbasar Shyrtanov, Otkenge orel, qalghangha salauat, Ana tili, 11 July 1991, p. 3.
Shyrtanov is identified as the chair of the Manghystau Oblast Kazakh Language Soci-
ety. His choice of words in Kazakh, tilimiz . . . zhoghyn zhoqtauw clearly brings to
mind the mourning of someone who has died.
146 william fierman
56
For views by Kazakh scholars on language planning in Kazakhstan, see E.D.
Suleimenova and Zh. S. Smagulova Iazykovaia situatsiia i iazykovoe planirovanie v
Kazakhstane (Almaty: Qazaq universiteti, 2005) and Bakhytzhan Khasanuly Iazyki
narodov Kazakhstana. Ot molchaniia k strategii razvitiia (Almaty: Arda, 2007).
The volume by Suleimenova and Smagulova is particularly valuable in its nuanced
judgments and the reference to the broader sociolinguistic and language planning
literature. For documents relevant to language planning in Kazakhstan, see (for the
Soviet period) E.D. Suleimenova (ed.), Iazykovaia politika v Kazakhstane (19211990
gody). Sbornik dokumentov (Almaty: Qazaq Universiteti, 1997) and (for 19951998,
with documents provided both in Russian and Kazakh) see Qazaqstan Respublikasyn-
daghy til sayasaty. Quzhattar zhinaghyIazykovaia politika v Respublike Kazakhstan.
Sbornik dokumentov (Astana: Elorda, 1999).
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 147
57
Postanovlenie Tsentralnogo Komiteta Kompartii Kazakhstana i Soveta Minis-
trov KazSSR no. 98 Ob uluchshenii izucheniia kazakhskogo iazyka v respublike,
reprinted in Iazykovaia politika v Kazakhstane (19211990 gody): Sbornik dokumentov
(Almaty: Qazaq universiteti, 1997), pp. 251-5.
58
Reference to Kazakhs as the indigenous nationality implies that no other eth-
nic groups are indigenous. Many Russian or Uzbek authors, however, would
dispute such a position, claiming that in certain parts of Kazakhstan, they are also
indigenous.
59
Constitutions of the south Caucasus republics that were adopted in 1978, con-
tinuing established practice, stipulated the titular nationality language as the state
language; these republics did not adopt language laws parallel to those adopted in all
other union republics in 19891990.
148 william fierman
60
Several individuals who participated in writing Kazakhstans language law told
me that in 1989 they followed laws being adopted in other republics very closely.
61
According to its Russian title, the legislation adopted by the Kazakhstan Supreme
Soviet in 1989 was a Law on Languages [Zakon o iazykakh], i.e., explicitly dealing
with more than one language. However, thanks to the nature of the Kazakh unmarked
singular noun, the Kazakh title of the law [Til turaly zang] left it unclear whether the
law concerned one language or more than one. (It would have been possible to make
the plural nature explicit by calling the document Tilder turaly zang in Kazakh.)
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 149
in the mass media and culture (Art. 21). In terms of language instruc-
tion, the law makes both Kazakh and Russian obligatory school sub-
jects from primary through higher education, and mandates that both
be included in the list of subjects completed by every graduate of sec-
ondary school or higher education (Art. 20). The law was originally
planned to take effect on July 1, 1990, although some key provisions
were to be introduced gradually, e.g., some that concerned govern-
ment offices over five years, and some others that concerned educa-
tion over ten years.62
It quickly became clear thatregardless of what might be achieved
in such regions as the Baltic republicsplans for implementing LL89
were far too ambitious for Kazakhstan. This is reflected in the fate
of The State Program on the Development of the Kazakh Language
and Other National [natsionalnye] languages in the Kazakh SSR in
the Period Up Until 2000 (henceforth SP90), the creation of which
had been presaged in LL89. This program was accompanied by two
addenda, both of which were quickly and greatly softened. The first,
which consisted of the names of raions (districts) and cities, provided a
deadline by which office work [deloproizvodstvo] should be conducted
in the state language in each. All administrative units were to have
reached this stage by January 1, 1995. The force of the addendum,
however, was undercut by a September 1990 Kazakhstan Council of
Ministers amendment that delayed introduction of the state language
into office work into the indefinite future, leaving it to the discretion
of the local administration executive committees to do this, taking
into account the specific social-economic conditions and demographic
situation in each region.63
The other change was to the second addendum to SP90 that, unlike
the first, was apparently not published.64 The September amendment
annuls a key feature of the unpublished addendum, which apparently
mandates an oral Kazakh test for all students entering non-Kazakh
62
O poriadke vvedeniia v deistvie Zakona Kazakhskoi SSR O iazykakh v Kazakh-
skoi SSR, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 28 Sep. 1989.
63
O nekotorykh izmeneniiakh i dopolneniiakh k Gosudarstvennoi programme
razvitiia kazakhskogo iazyka i drugikh natsionalnykh iazykov v Kazakhskoi SSR na
period do 2000 goda, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 29 Sep. 1990.
64
In fact, to the best of my knowledge, this addendum has never been published.
I became aware of it only because of the amendment to it.
150 william fierman
65
This unpublished amendment had called for a conversation [sobesedovanie] on
Kazakh language and literature (the form of the conversation to be selected by the
rectors office) to be gradually introduced for secondary school graduates prior to
entrance exams for non-Kazak fakultety of higher educational institutions.
66
The respective Russian- and Kazakh-language titles of the 1997 law reflected the
titles of the 1989 law. That is, as in 1989, the Russian title in 1997 refers again to a law
on languages (o iazykakh), whereas the Kazakh title refers to a law on language
(til turaly) (Suleimenova [ed.], 1997, pp. 5, 109).
67
See William Fierman, Language and Identity in Kazakhstan: Formulations in
Policy Documents, 19871997, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 30, no. 2
(1998), 171-86. The term language of cross-ethnic communication has fallen out of
the official lexicon in Kazakhstan. The 1995 Constitution also provides that the state
look after the creation of conditions for the development and study of languages of
the people [sic] of Kazakhstan.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 151
tioning of the state and other languages in publications and the mass
media, mandates that at least half of all radio and television broadcasts
be in Kazakh (Art. 18).
In most ways, however, LL97s departures from LL89 were much
more modest or vague. Thus, although LL97 did not repeat the earlier
laws wording about the use of Russian, it did adopt the inexact word-
ing from Article VII of the 1995 constitutionthat in state organiza-
tions and organs of local self government Russian is officially used on
a par with Kazakh.
Among the modest gains for Kazakh introduced in LL97 are the
changes defining its status in state organs, which, however, leave large
loopholes that continue to allow for Russians de facto domination.
Whereas LL89 states that Acts of republic organs of state power and
administration are adopted in Kazakh and Russian (Art. 9), LL97
mandates that Acts of state organs are worked out and adopted in
the state language, and when necessary, they may be worked out in
Russian with translation being provided into other languages (Art. 9).
Like LL89, the new law keeps both Russian and Kazakh as manda-
tory subjects in all educational institutions and mandates that they be
included in the list of classes completed by every graduate of second-
ary and higher educational institutions (LL97, Art. 16).
The broad outlines for implementing LL97 were laid out in two
state programs on the functioning and development of languages,
one adopted in October 1998 (covering the period through the end of
2000), and the other adopted in February 2001 (covering the period
through 2010).68 In terms of promoting use of the Kazakh language,
both the 1998 and 2001 programs focus on higher level functions for
Kazakh, those which Fishman suggests will not be successful if RLS
efforts do not also address lower level functions. The closest that
the 1998 program comes to promoting language in the home is in its
broad declaration about assuring implementation of LL97s very gen-
eral statement on the mass media and in calling for a program to cre-
ate illustrated books for preschoolers as well as cartoons. Even these,
however, are buried in a long list of about fifty other tasks, including
five that focus on conducting office work in Kazakh.
68
Gosudarstvennaia programma funktsionirovaniia i razvitiia iazykov [1998], in
Iazykovaia politika v Respublike Kazakhstan (Sbornik dokumentov) (Astana: Elorda,
1999), pp. 161-75 and Gosudarstvennaia programma funktsionirovaniia i razvitiia
iazykov na 20012010 gody, Kazakhstanskaia pravda 17 Feb. 2001, p. 3.
152 william fierman
69
Fishman stresses that RLS movements need to organize such courses as how to
be parentsand even how to be grandparents. Indeed, Fishman says, How to do
RLS in your home is a course that one can and should be enrolled in repeatedly in
every RLS setting and that should be sponsored by every RLS movement and team-
taught by the most experienced, inventive, and dedicated advocates that are available
(Fishman [2001a] From Theory . . . p. 479). True, for years Kazakh television has
broadcast Kazakh lessons, but the quality and nature of these programs are such that
they do not provide much guidance for parents trying to introduce Kazakh into the
home.
70
Ukaz Prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan O vnesenii dopolnenii v Ukaz Prezi-
denta Respubliki Kazakhstan ot 7 fevralia 2001 goda No. 550, 30 May 2006 accessed
7 May 2009 through http://www.zakon.kz/engine/print.php?newsid=72542.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 153
71
Kontseptsiia rasshireniia sfery funktsionirovaniia gosudarstvennogo iazyka,
povysheniia ego konkurentosposobnosti na 20072010 gody, 21 Nov. 2007, accessed
7 May 2010 through http://www.zakon.kz/98548-postanovlenie-pravitelstva-respubliki
.html.
72
V gosprogramme po razvitiiu iazykov do 2020 g. prioritetnym dolzhno stat raz-
vitie gosudarstvennogo iazyka, Kazinform, 25 Jan. 2010, accessed 7 May 2010 through
http://www.zakon.kz/engine/print.php?newsid=160512. A year earlier Kazakhstans
Minister of Culture and Information had noted the need to begin work on this (V
etom godu nuzhno razrabotat novuiu dolgosrochnuiu Gosudarstvennuiu programmu
funktskonirovaniia i razvitiia iazykov- M. Kul-Mukhamedov,Kazinform, 24 Jan. 2009,
accessed through http://www.zakon.kz/engine/print.php?newsid=131636.
73
Interview with Muhit Nurtazin, Men Til turaly zhanga zang zhobasyn zhazyp
shyqtym, Ayqyn, 8 June 2007, p. 3. From the interview with Nurtazin it appears that
his proposal was broader than a proposed law just on the state language. However,
just a few months later a working group reportedly met to discuss proposals for a new
law On the State Language of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The timing suggests that
perhaps Nurtazins proposal might have dealt only with Kazakh. (Sostoialos zase-
danie rabochei gruppy po razrabotke proekta Zakona RK O gosudarstvennom iazyke
Respubliki Kazakhstan, Kazinform, 19 Aug. 2007, accessed 7 May 2010 through
http://www.zakon.kz/92297-sostojalos-zasedanie-rabochejj-gruppy.html. Among oth-
ers, B. Khasanuly (2007) has advocated adoption of a law On the Kazakh Language
as the State Language of the Republic of Kazakhstan (p. 209).
74
During meetings I held in Kazakhstan spring and summer 2010, a number of
Kazakh interlocutors cited the need to adopt a law specifically dealing with the Kazakh
language. In discussing the shortcomings of the draft language program for 2011
2020, Dos Qoshim explicitly criticizes the drafts failure to mention the need for such
a law (Dinara Myngzhasarqyzy, Til turaly baghdarlamagha talap kushti, Turkistan,
21 Aug. 2010 accessed through http://www.kazakh-tili.ru/?show=news&id=1547).
75
Initially the organization was simply called Ana tili (The Mother Tongue [Soci-
ety]), with the purview of all languages in Kazakhstan (Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 4 June
154 william fierman
group in the era of glasnost and perestroika, the leaders showed every
indication of intending to continue their activity as a kind of inter-
est group lobbying government for bolder measures to promote the
Kazakh language. At the same time, however, its leaders seem to have
expected that, in accordance with traditional Soviet practice for pub-
lic organizations, they would directly or indirectly enjoy generous
state funding. This aspiration was not without foundation, since ini-
tially the relations between Qtq and the state were very close.76
Beyond this, though, from the very beginning, Qtq manifested pre-
tensions to power of decision-making and control. For example, in
1990, the local Qtq in Qyzylorda took the chairman of the oblast exec-
utive committee and the oblast first party secretary to task for their
indifference to promoting the Kazakh language.77 At about the same
time, the Qtqs president, A. Qaydarov, suggested that the Council of
Ministers empower Qtq to review whether state funds allocated for
implementing the language program were being spent effectively by
relevant organizations.78
Kazakhstans sudden independence at the end of 1991 seems to
have stimulated even greater hopes for a rapid rise in Kazakh language
status as well as greater demands from Qtq to enjoy the power and
wealth accruing to an organization entitled to direct this important
process in a newly independent country. Almost immediately upon
independence, a prominent literary scholar active in Qtq proposed
transforming it into a state committee; in the same breath he proposed
requiring a knowledge of Kazakh for all personnel hired into positions
of leadership!79 Aspirations for power were also evident in the resolu-
tion of the Qtqs first post-independence (and second ever) qurultay
(congress), which called for Qtq to be given rights to investigate, check
on implementation and take action on language issues, and for organi-
zation of a state language committee to work very closely with Qtq.
1989). Reflecting the fact that it was primarily concerned with the Kazakh language
(and not other mother tongues spoken in Kazakhstan), within months the organiza-
tion was renamed Qazaq tili (Leninshil zhas, 24 Oct. 1989).
76
For a more detailed treatment of Qtq, see U. (sic) Fierman Elity i alfavity. Pov-
orot iazykovogo sdviga v Kazakhstane, Etnograficheskoe obozrenie no. 6, 2005, pp.
49-71.
77
Qiya betkeydegi kosh, Ana tili, 16 Aug. 1990, p. 3.
78
Ana tili, 16 Aug. 1990, p. 1.
79
Ana tili, 6 Feb. 1992, p. 2.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 155
It is clear that Qtqs bold proposals were not in step with the thinking
of President Nazarbayev, who spoke at the qurultay. Instead of elabo-
rate praise for the organizations activitiessomething his audience
would no doubt have greatly appreciated and maybe expectedthe
president criticized Qtqs regional branches that had begun to politi-
cize their work too much, thus threatening to disrupt civil peace.80
Although it continued to operate, the power and influence of the
Qtq waned over the 1990s. As noted in an article in Qtqs publication
in 2000, the number of Qtq branches had sharply declined in recent
years, and Qtq had become exhausted and suffocated. What was left
were just occasional thin lines shining like the water remaining in
ravines after a flood.81 A year and a half later another picture of an
ineffective Qtq appeared in the form of a cartoon depicting the organi-
zation as a sleeping man with his head on a pillow and lying by a lock
that is holding closed a book called Kazakh Language. The key to the
lock lies on top of the book, and sitting on top of it are three other
figures reading another book with the words English and money
in English, and butter (maslo), cheese (syr), sausage (kolbasa),
and the first three letters of patty (kotleta) in Russian.82
Eventually, in about 2005, a new organization appeared, seemingly
with much the same mission and outlook as Qtq. This new body,
referred to as both Memlekettik til qozghalysy [State Language Move-
ment] and Memlekettik qoghamdyq til qozghalysy [State Language
Public Movement], has been led by a Kazakh writer and politician
Mukhtar Shakhanov; Shakhanov has been openly critical of Qtq for
its meager achievements. Shakhanov and his organization have also
repeatedly challenged President Nazarbayevs moderation in language
policy and, more broadly, nation building.83
By the time of meetings I held in Kazakhstan in 2010 with repre-
sentatives of state and public institutions involved in language policy,
many could not even recall an organization named Memlekettik til
80
Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 28 Nov. 1992, p. 1.
81
Qaydasyngdar, Qazaq tili qoghamdary? Ana tili, 17 Feb. 2000, p. 7.
82
Turkistan, 14 July 2001, p. 5.
83
Indeed, at the end of 2009, Shakhanov even threatened a hunger strike to protest
the draft of a new doctrine of national unity (Serik Maleev, Aktsenty rasstavleny,
Liter 16 Dec. 2009, accessed 6 May 2010 at http://www.liter.kz/index.php?option=com
_content&task=view&id=872&Itemid=2). For an early reference to Shakhanovs
movement see Asylkhan Barlybayuly Ordaly oylaryn bolisti, Dala men qala, 21 Oct.
2005, accessed at http://dmk.kz/arhiv/?act=readarticle&id=141.
156 william fierman
Figur 1. Cartoon from the Kazakh newspaper Turkistan (14 July 2001, p. 5): mocks
the (sleeping) Kazakh Language Society (Qazaq tili qoghamy) for its inactivity in pro-
moting the Kazakh language and the Societys insensitivity to the danger of popular
material interests favoring Russian and English.
5.6.1. Workplace
Even today, in most major cities of Kazakhstan, Russian is still used
more than Kazakh. Some communications, including a large share of
those with the government in the capital, continue in Russian. How-
ever, for a number of reasons discussed below, Kazakhs status in the
workplace has improved. The effect of legislation promoting Kazakh
has been most pronounced in government offices. In late 2001 or early
2002, Qyzylorda Oblast (where Kazakhs comprise about 95 percent
of the population) became the first oblast officially to shift all office
work (deloproizvodstvo) to Kazakh. By January 2005, at least four
other oblasts had officially followed Qyzylordas lead, 84 and by spring
2006 it was announced that the shift to the state language had taken
place in seven oblasts.85 In addition, the shift to Kazakh reportedly was
also proceeding in the first years of the decade in certain demographi-
cally Kazakh raions (districts) of oblasts which overall did not have a
Kazakh majority.86 As of 2005, plans called for all government internal
office work throughout the country to be shifted to Kazakh by 2008.87
This goal, however, was not met.
Even in areas of the country where the shift has supposedly taken
place, work has often proceeded in Russian: Kazakh translations
are frequently produced just in order to demonstrate that goals to
84
The other four oblasts are Atyrau, Manghystau, Zhambyl, and South Kazakhstan
(Oralbay Abdikarimov Memlekettik til zhyly bolmaydy, biraq . . ., Ana tili, 27 Jan.
2005).
85
Iazykovaia politika Kazakhstana budet priobretat vse bolshuiu politicheskuiu
i ideologicheskuiu znachimostE. Ertysbayev, Kazinform, 12 May 2006, accessed
7 May 2010 through http://www.zakon.kz/engine/print.php?newsid=71915.
86
For an example of such raions in Pavlodar Oblast see Nurlybek Samatuly,
Memlekettik tilding taghdyry memlekettik qyzmetkerlerding qolynda, Ana tili,
10 Oct. 2002.
87
Oralbay Abdikarimov Memlekettik til zhyly bolmaydy, biraq . . ., Ana tili, 27
Jan. 2005.
158 william fierman
5.6.2. Schools
Kazakh today is in a much stronger position in urban education than
twenty years ago. In primary and secondary education, the share of eth-
nic Kazakh urban pupils who attend Kazakh-medium classes reached
somewhere between 70 and 75 percent in the first years of the new
millenium.92 In Almaty, the former capital, the share increased from a
few percent in the 1980s to over 60 percent. Many of the children in
Almatys Kazakh-medium classes are offspring of Kazakh parents who
88
Commenting on this situation, Director of Kazakhstans Institute of Linguistics
Sheruwbay Qurmanbayuly stated that if government organizations actually conducted
their meetings in Kazakh, then the situation with written documentation would be
entirely different (Til tughyrdan tuspesin! Ayqyn, 22 Jan. 2010, accessed 4 May 2010
at http://www.aikyn.kz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=959).
89
Mazhlis: Gosudarstvennyi iazykfaktor edinstva stranykonferentsiia,
Zakon.kz, 19 March 2010, accessed 7 May 2010 through http://www.zakon.kz/166739-
mazhilis-gosudarstvennyjj-jazyk-faktor.html.
90
Changing targets for the shift to Kazakh have reflected the growing official rec-
ognition that the shift to Kazakh in government institutions has been lagging. The
strategic plan of the Ministry of Culture and Information (which oversees the Lan-
guage Committee) changed the target for shift of office work for 2009 downward from
70 percent to 60 percent (Minkultury Kazakhstana peresmotrelo sroki perevoda
deloproizvodstva na gosiazyk, Novosti-Kazakhstan, 3 Sep. 2009, accessed 7 May 2010
through http://www.zakon.kz/146385-minkultury-kazakhstana-peresmotrelo.html).
91
For a report on problems of introducing Kazakh even in an oblast with a large
Kazakh population (South Kazakhstan) see Shadiyar Moldabek, Til uyrenuwdi bala-
baqshadan bastauw kerek, Zaman Qazaqstan, 30 July 2004.
92
For information on how this was calculated, see William Fierman (2006), Lan-
guage and Education . . . pp. 106-7.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 159
93
See A. Zabirova, Selsko-gorodskaia i mezhgorodskaia migratsiia v sovremen-
nom Kazakhstane: motivy i rezultaty, Tsentralnaia Aziia i Kavkaz, no. 3, 2004.
94
Among the two percent there is only a miniscule number of Russians. The
majority are likely members of other Turkic-speaking nationalities (Natalia Vdovina,
Russkii iazyk v Kazakhstane, Informatsionno-analiticheskii portal Evraziiskii dom,
2008, accessed 7 May 2008 through http://www.perspektivy.info/oykumena/krug
/russkiy_yazik_v_kazakhstane.htm).
95
The figure of 60 percent was cited by President Nazarbayev in a speech given
October 2008 (Vystuplenie Prezidenta RK N.A. Nazarbayeva na XIV sessii Assamblei
naroda Kazakhstana, Zakon.kz, 24 Oct. 2008, accessed 7 May 2010 through http://
www.zakon.kz/124086-vystuplenie-prezidenta-rk-n.a.html). The proposed draft of the
Doctrine of National Unity published at the end of 2009 cited a figure of 61 per-
cent (Proekt Doktriny natsionalnogo edinstva Kazakhstana, 26 Oct. 2009, accessed
7 May 2010 through http://www.vkgu.kz/ru/project-doktrini-nacionalnogo-edinstva
.htm). A much higher figure of 67 percent, cited shortly thereafter by Minister of Cul-
ture and Information M. Qul-Mukhammed, is almost certainly in error (Til tughyr-
dan tuspesin, Ayqyn, 22 Jan. 2010 accessed 7 May 2010 through http://www.aikyn
.kz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=959). For urban and rural ethnic
Kazakh children combined, Khasanuly (2007) says the share studying in the Kazakh
medium was 80.4 percent.
96
Khasanuly (1992), p. 185.
97
Vdovina (2008). According to Vdovina, the share in individual years for Kazakh-
medium was 20012002: 31.5 percent; 20022003: 36.2 percent; 20032004: 38.6 per-
cent; 20042005: 40.0 percent; and 20052006: 42.6 percent.
160 william fierman
5.6.3. Media
Today the law requires all electronic media channels and stations to
broadcast at least half of their transmissions in Kazakh. This law was
not universally observed,100 especially in the early years. To achieve
compliance, many broadcasters ignored the spirit of the law by
scheduling Kazakh-language programs at inconvenient times such as
the middle of the night; today the selection of Kazakh television and
radio programs is much richer than five years ago, not to mention two
decades ago. They include game shows, talk shows devoted to con-
troversial topics, and music clips reminiscent of those on American
MTV. Some programs, such as news broadcasts, are transmitted in
much the same form in Russian and Kazakh. Others, however, are
unique in one language or the other. Today, films broadcast in Russian
are frequently accompanied by Kazakh subtitles.
The mere presence of programs does not, of course, mean that a
particular share of the potential audience is viewing or listening to
them. Indeed, as in the Soviet era, many programs from Moscow
98
ENT is the abbreviation of the Russian name for the exam Edinoe natsionalnoe
testirovanie (Common national testing) that most university-bound students take at
the end of their secondary education.
99
For reference to plans to introduce the exam, see MON RK planiruet vvesti
vtoroi etap ENT dlia abiturientov vuzov, pretenduiushchikh na granty i kredity,
Kazakhstan segodnia, 23 Nov. 2007, accessed 8 May 2010 through www.zakon.kz
/engine/print.php?newsid=98343. For information that in 2010 the score on the
Kazakh language exam for graduates of Russian-medium schools is not to be counted
see ENT-2010: Kak eto budet? accessed 8 May 2010 at http://www.uchi.kz/ent/ent-
2010-kak-eto-budet.
100
A 2002 analysis of ten TV channels available in Almaty showed that just over
30 percent of their total broadcast time was in Kazakh (Zhas Alash, 4 April 2002).
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 161
101
See Amirkhan Mendeke, Bul qay arna? BulElarna, Qazaq adebiyeti, 15
March 2002; Esengul Kopqyzy, Ala-qula arnalar, Turkistan, 14 Feb. 2002; and
50 50 degendi kim shygharghan, Zhas Alash, 4 April 2002. As Mendeke notes, a
state-funded national TV channel was launched with programming entirely in Kazakh.
However, today that stations programming is partially in Russian.
162 william fierman
102
Authors of a number of articles published since the 1990s have attempted to
measure attitudes towards Kazakh and use of the language. One study, by M.M.
Arenov and S.K. Kalmykov, for example, reports that 76.38 percent of Kazakhs sur-
veyed claimed to watch Kazakh-language television programs, and that 95.5 percent
of Kazakhs can express themselves in Kazakh (The Present Language Situation in
Kazakhstan, Russian Social Science Review, May/June, 1997, vol. 38, no. 3. [Accessed
through EBSCO HOST, 3 April 2005]). A survey of students conducted in 1999 by
William Rivers asked students Na kakom iazyke Vy by khoteli vospityvat detei v
budushchem? [In what language would you like to raise children in the future?]
(Attitudes towards Incipient Mankurtism among Kazakhstani College Students,
Language Policy, No. 1, 2003, pp. 159-74). Rivers data provides a wide variety of
responses, including Kazakh, Russian, Several, English and Russian, English
and Kazakh, and Kazakh, Russian, and English. It is very difficult to determine
the significance of the data reported by these researchers. In the case of Rivers, for
example, interpretation of results would require an attempt to ascertain what respon-
dents understood by the term vospitanie (upbringing). A much better sense of the
Kazakhs rising status is provided by I.S. Savin, Realizatsiia i rezultaty kulturno-
iazykovoi i obrazovatelnoi politiki v Kazakhstane v 1990-e gg., accessed 20 Feb. 2005
at http://chimkent.by.ru/Savin2.html.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 163
5.7. Conclusion
103
For examples of attempts to promote Kazakh in such fields as finance, medicine,
and the military, see respectively Finansisty obediniaiut usiliia dlia unifikatsii ter-
minologii na kazakhskom iazyke, Panorama, 26 March 2004; Sandughash Serikqali,
Qazaq tilimeditsinada, Zhas Alash, 24 Dec. 1998 and Darigerler qazaqshagha bet
bursyn, Egemen Qazaqstan, 5 May 1998; and Gh. Qozhaghulova, Qazaqtildi sard-
arlar sap tuzeuwde, Ana tili, 30 Aug. 2001. For arguments on the need to introduce
Kazakh broadly into technical and scientific higher education, see Ghabdolla Nisan-
bay, Tilge ghylymi-tekhnikalyq oris qazhet, Egemen Qazaqstan, 20 Aug., 1998. On
the creation of a 31-volume set of terminology dictionaries see Aqseleuw Seydimbek
and Sherali Bilal, Rukhani qazina, Egemen Qazaqstan, 2 June 2001.
164 william fierman
104
The fact that this is so rare is noted by Fishman (2001b) Why Is It So Hard . . .
p. 19.
105
Stalins treatise Marksizm i natsionalnyi vopros (Marxism and the National
Question) originally appeared in Prosveshchenie Nos. 3-5 (MarchMay), 1913; among
other editions, it was translated and reprinted in the sixteen volume collection Works
(Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House), vol. 2, pp. 300-81, now available at
http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/MNQ12.html.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 165
position upon his accession as party first secretary; it was only a few
months later that LL89 was adopted.106
Nazarbayevs support for Kazakh has likely been critical in coun-
tering bureaucratic resistance to measures related to RLS. Many
of Kazakhstans politicians and much of Kazakhstans administra-
tive apparatusincluding many Kazakhsare products of Russian-
medium education, and prefer to use Russian in their work. As Fish-
man points out, most threatened languages have no outside support
of any operational significance to fall back upon.107 This is not the case
for Kazakh. Nazarbayevs public support makes it harder for bureau-
crats to resist, even those who are lukewarm or oppose the shift from
Russian to Kazakh.
Despite calls from some quarters in his country for a federal system,
Nazarbayev has insisted that Kazakhstan maintain a unitary political
structure. On balance, this also has probably played a positive role
in promoting RLS, at least in areas of Kazakhstan with large Slavic
majorities. Though RLS progress has been slow in these areas, the uni-
tary state structure has likely facilitated measures that have benefited
Kazakh.
Combined with the above, the demographic dynamic in Kazakh-
stan is a very powerful force supporting Kazakh RLS. Both natural and
mechanical demographic factors have been working to its advantage:
the absolute number and share of Kazakhs is rising, while the number
of Slavs and Germans is declining. Besides low birthrates, this is due
to emigration: over the period 19931997 alone the number of Slavs
and Germans leaving Kazakhstan exceeded those arriving by about
1.5 million. In the same period, there was a slight positive balance of
Kazakh immigration into Kazakhstan: arriving Kazakhs exceeded those
who leaving by 46,700.108 Immigration to Kazakhstan by Kazakhs in
subsequent years increased: according to President Nazarbayev, in the
decade leading up to 2009, a total of 650,000 Kazakhs arrived in their
106
As suggested above, however, this was not merely Nazarbayevs doing, but rep-
resented a trend sweeping the entire USSR.
107
Fishman (2001b) Why Is It so Hard . . . p. 13.
108
Azimbay Ghali, OrysymQara ormanym, Zhas Alash, 11 March 2000, p. 2.
The largest share of Kazakh immigrants has come from Mongolia and Uzbekistan
(E. Iu. Sadovskaia, Migratisiia v Kazakhstane na rubezhe XXI veka: osnovnye tendentsii
i perspektivy [Almaty: Ghalym, 2001], p. 109).
166 william fierman
109
Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan na otkrytii III sessii Parlamenta
RK chetvertogo sozyva 1 sentiabria 2009, accessed at http://www.parlam.kz/DocSp
Prezident.aspx?lan=ru-RU&idpr=23. According to Nazarbayev, a total of over one
million Kazakhs had arrived since independence.
110
Nedavnie izmeneniia tendentsii vneshnei migratsii Kazakhstana: Vzaimosviaz
s urovnem obrazovaniia, vozrastom i etnicheskoi prinadlezhnosti migrantov, Obzory
literatuy i statistiki (Rakurs Center for Economic Analysis), no. 6.1, pp. 4-5, accessed
at http://www.cear.kz/cont/RAKURS_Literature%20&%20Statistical%20Surveys_6.1
_rus.pdf.
111
Azimbay Ghali, Qazaq qaytse kobeydi. Nemese optimistik demografiia, Ege-
men Qazaqstan, 1 Jan. 2000, p. 3.
112
Over this same period, the Russian share of births dropped from about 18 per-
cent to under 14 percent. This means that whereas in 1999 there were approximately
3.6 Kazakhs born in Kazakhstan for every Russian, by 2008 the number was almost
5.2 (Qazaqstannyng demografiyalyq zhylnamalyghy, 2008 [Qazaqstan Respublikasy
Statistika agenttigi, 2009]), p. 178.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 167
113
Gulzeynep Sadirqyzy, Karaoke qazaqsha shyrqaydy, Egemen Qazaqstan, 5 April
2003, p. 6.
reversing language shift in kazakhstan 169
Kazakhstan today are generally far less than were the benefits of know-
ing Russian in the Soviet days, it must be recognized that even limited
improvement of Kazakh in the last two decades in public spheres and
mass media have also reduced the steep incline of the road of Kazakh
RLS in the urban home.
The bottom line, then, on the Kazakh case seems to be that thanks
to a rare and auspicious constellation of factors, RLS-ers could afford
to be inefficient and wasteful in their treatment of the disease, but still
contribute to restoring the patient to health. If Qtq efforts had focused
on the intimate community stressed by Fishman, they would likely
have been more productive in providing a base for future language
development. A low-function approach would also have seemed less
threatening to Kazakhstans non-Kazakh population as well as ethnic
Kazakhs who did not know their own language. It is impossible to
quantify the costs of the psychological discomfort among those who
are supposed to know Kazakh simply because of the recorded eth-
nicity in their passports; however, these costs should not be ignored
in a calculation of the effect of RLS on the populations welfare. In any
case, right now it is still too early to predict if there will be any long-
term disability resulting from the fact that those attending to the
Kazakh patient did not select the optimal course of treatment.
In their volume on the language situation and language planning in
Kazakhstan, Eleonora Suleimenova and Zhuldyz Smagulova stress that
government efforts to change language environments affect them, but
are not always decisive. They observe that over time people in Kazakh-
stan have come to recognize that . . . no changes in the functions of
languages are [merely] decreed, nor do they occur on their own and
in periods that are strictly indicated; rather, the inertia of linguistic
processes is an objective factor that must be considered in language
planning.114
In conclusion, it is worth noting that the achievements of Kazakh
RLS to date and prospects for the future appear more significant if seen
in the context of todays globalized world, where increasing numbers
of people regularly communicate with others from different cultures.
In this environment it seems inconceivable that Kazakh will acquire all
the functions that are currently fulfilled by Russian. More likely than
114
E.D. Suleimenova and Zh. S. Smagulova, Iazokovaia situatsiia i iazykovoe
planirovanie v Kazakhstane (Almaty: Qazaq universiteti, 2005).
170 william fierman
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174 william fierman
Birgit Schlyter
1
Studies and investigations for this work were conducted within the framework of
a research program funded by Stockholm University with an additional grant from
the The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher
Education, during a stay from September to December 2005 as Visiting Professor at
the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan,
Tashkent. Scholars at academic institutes in Tashkent and Nukus to be acknowledged
for much help during my work on this report are Nemat Maxqamov, Ergash Umarov,
Baxtiyor Karimov, Aziz Dzhuraev, Shahnoza Madaeva, Mirzohid Raximov, Sarygul
Baxadirova, Tabysqan Qanaatov, Makset Karlybaev, and Zliha Tileuova. I would also
like to thank Dilorom Alimova, Director, and Valeriy Khan, Deputy Director, of the
aforementioned Institute of History for inviting me and providing me with a stimu-
lating environment for scholarly meetings and discussions at their Institute. An ear-
lier version of this paper was published as a research report at Stockholm University
(Schlyter 2007).
language policy and development in uzbekistan 177
2
Schlyter 1998, p. 144.
3
The following definition was provided in Schlyter 1998 (pp. 144f.) for a distinc-
tion between language policy and language planning, which have often been used
synonymously in the linguistic literature, and in order to distinguish both of these two
notions from that of language reform: A concrete manifestation of language policy is
language planning that involves decisions on what measures are to be taken and their
implementation. Together, language policy and language planning constitute the main
promotive stages of language reform and they are one of the forces that [. . .] spark
off changes in language practice and possibly also changes in linguistic structures.
For further discussions of issues and notions central to theories of language policy
and language planning, see, e.g., Appel and Muysken 1987, Schiffman 1996, Kaplan
and Baldauf 1997, Ager 2001, Schlyter 1998, 2003, and Wright 2004. For comments
on language policy and language planning at different societal levels, see e.g. Spolsky
2004, Shohamy 2006, and Baldauf 2008.
4
Dua 2008 (p. 191) writes: The theoretical and historical perspectives in the evo-
lution of language policy and language planning, and policy analysis and its evalua-
tion in different sociolinguistic contexts have clearly brought out that language policy
and planning are intricately involved with relations of power. Cf. articles in Ricento
2006.
178 birgit schlyter
6.1.1. Turki/Uzbek
The term Uzbek for a particular language (not dialect) did not come
into frequent use until the period leading up to the national delimita-
tion of Turkestan and the establishment of the Republic of Uzbekistan
in 1924. Until then there had been no real uniformity as to the naming
of that language variety which would later be permanently referred to
as Uzbek.6 A term appearing in publications as late as the early 1920s
was Turk tili/Turki, which was then often used to refer to an envisaged
common literary language for the Turkic-speaking peoples of Central
Asia.7 However, this denomination has mostly been associated with
what has generally been called Chaghatay8 in Western linguistics
a Middle Turkic, now extinct, literary language of the south-eastern
5
This was referred to as language-reform awareness in Schlyter 1998 (pp.
161ff.).
6
The etymology of this word has not been determined with absolute certainty.
However, it has often been traced back to the name of a leader of the Golden Horde
in the 14th century, Ozbek Khan, a greatgrandson of Chingis Khan, and interpreted
as consisting of the two Turkic words oz, free/independent (here spelt in accordance
with the new Uzbek Latin alphabet adopted in 1995 (see below), where o // may be
pronounced as a rounded central-to-back mid vowel [~o]), and bek, lord/leader.
7
Borovkov 1940, pp. 6-24; cf. Fierman 1991, pp. 69-74.
8
This name originates from Chingis Khans second son. After the death of
Chaghatay in 12411242, his name was used in expressions referring to the people in
his former realm (Chaghatay ulus (nation), Chaghatay el (people), etc.) and even-
tually also the Turkic literary language of the Timurid Empire (Chaghatay tili (lan-
guage). Chaghatay lafz (word/language), etc.); see Eckmann 1966.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 179
9
The name sart (Skr. srtha, caravan; cf. srthavha, leader of a caravan/traveling
merchant) was once the designation of a specific social class of sedentary urban peo-
ple living and in many cases traveling for business in the southern parts of Turkestan.
The Sarts spoke in dialects of either Iranian or Turkic origin or mixed Iranian-Turkic
idioms. As a linguistic term, Sart was eventually used for late, strongly Iranicised
Chaghatay and, finally, for the major Turkic dialect of the majority Uzbek popula-
tion of Western Turkestan. A number of language manuals and grammars in Russian
for the study of the Sart language were published around the turn of the century
1800/1900, whereas Uzbek was used less frequently for similar titles (one example
is S.V. Lapin, Kamennyy russko-uzbekskiy slovar, Samarkand 1895).
10
The most detailed account of Soviet language policy up to the time period when
it was published is Lewis 1972. Recent updates of a more summarizing and evaluating
character are among others Smith 1998 and Grenoble 2003.
180 birgit schlyter
The Arabic script that had been used for Chaghatay, as well as in early
attempts at writing Uzbek literature, was revised on several occa-
sions between the end of the 19th century and the early 1920s.12 A
problem that was foregrounded as reformers started considering the
representation of vowels was what dialect base should be chosen as
standard. Furthermore, linguistically but also ideologically, this was
a question of how important it was to retain the Turkic character
of literary Uzbek. A typical Turkic language variety has a vowel sys-
tem bifurcated into two subsets of front and back vowels, respectively,
where the oppositional feature defining these subsets has no seman-
tic significance in vowel-harmonic morphemes. Due to long-standing
influence from non-Turkic, in particular Iranian languages, the pro-
nunciation of vowels in a large number of Uzbek dialects has changed
to such a degree that the front-back distinction has been blurred, as
a further consequence of which vowel harmonic variation based on
this feature has been distorted. Uzbek dialects in politically domi-
nant urban environments, such as the Tashkent region, belonged to
this group and were thus non-typical Turkic language varieties. Long
and ardent debates were held about the choice of dialect for standard
Uzbek. They were accompanied by another discussion concerning the
very type of script to be used for Uzbek. Along with these debates and
11
Fierman 1991, Smith 1998, Schlyter 2004.
12
Qari-Nijazij 1940, Ibragimov 1972, Fierman 1991.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 181
controversies, and before any decision had been taken, new school-
books were produced within the framework of all-union campaigns
to combat illiteracy. For example, one of the most prominent repre-
sentatives of the early 20th-century Turkestanian reform movement
( jadidlar, the Jadids), Abdurrauf Fitrat, was an active grammarian
and published two important works in this field: Sarf (Morphology,
1925) and Nhv (Syntax, 1930). In these works, the author was deeply
concerned about the deterioration of the literary Turkic language of
his day and the need for grammatical and orthographic norms. In his
own theory of Turkic/Uzbek syntax he argued that the predicate be
regarded as the primary node of the sentence structure.13 Fitrat and
others also took an active part in discussions concerning a switch to a
Latin alphabet for Uzbek.
At the all-Turkic Congress in Baku in FebruaryMarch 1926, a deci-
sion was taken on the Latinization of Turkic languages.14 The ques-
tion of dialect base and the representation of vowels was as crucial in
this context as it had been in connection with the revisions of Arabic
characters. In the first phase of the Uzbek Latinization process at the
end of the 1920s, vowel harmonic alteration was taken into consider-
ation. That is, a typically Turkic dialect was chosen for the formation
of standard Uzbek orthography, viz. Uzbek as it was spoken in the
vicinity of the city of Trkistan, situated on the Syr Darya in present-
day Kazakhstan, and all vowel signs proposed for the first Latinized
Turkic alphabet were adopted.15
Revisions of this alphabet were carried out on various occasions
later on in the 1930s. Most importantly, the number of vowel signs
13
Today Fitrat is remembered first and foremost through his literary works, but
he is still considered by some Uzbek linguists to be the founder of Uzbek grammar;
personal communication from Prof. Ergash Umarov, November 2005.
14
A report by Ashurali Zohiriy, one of the Uzbek delegates at the Congress, was
reviewed by Madamin Ibrahimov in Farghona gazetasi (The Ferghana Gazette, No.
384, 1 April 1926 (Turkiston qurultoyi tghrisida maruza [A report concerning
the Turkestanian Congress] available to the present author in Cyrillic script). For a
comprehensive report on the Latinization of Turkic languages, see Baldauf 1993.
15
Peculiarities in this alphabet were the Cyrillic for //, a back high unrounded
vowel, for //, a velar, fricative voiced consonant, and the use of in large and small
size (Bb) for capital B and non-capital b, respectively (this latter solution was probably
chosen in order to avoid the risk of confusing lower case b with the aforementioned
Cyrillic ). The letter // was the same as in the Turkey Turkish new alphabet from
1928, whereas c /t/ and //, confusingly enough, corresponded to Turkey Turkish
and c, respectively. A Western grammar of Uzbek where this version of a Turkic Latin
alphabet was employed is Gabain 1945.
182 birgit schlyter
was reduced16 and the script was adjusted to urban dialects in which
the opposition between front and back vowels had been distorted.17 By
this time, however, attempts at the centralization of language reforms
and the Russification of Uzbek and other Union languages were
already discernible. Not only were there great quantities of so-called
Soviet-international and Russian terms entering the Uzbek language,
but grammatical analysis, too, was to be carried out in compliance
with Russian grammatical tradition. For example, a new schoolbook
of Uzbek was published in 1939 with a preface explicitly stating that
this work had been composed on the pattern of Russian grammar.18 As
such it was in sharp contrast to the ideas that had been put forward by
the Turkestanian intellectual Fitrat in 1930 (above).
6.3. Russification
16
The three vowel letters //, y /y/, // were removed from the alphabet and
// was henceforth often replaced by a.
17
In a report in connection with the decision on the adoption of Cyrillic script for
Uzbek, Qari-Nijazij 1940 (p. 14) commented that the 1929 Uzbek Latin alphabet had
been the result of a bourgeoisie view of Uzbek not as a language in its own right but
merely as one of a number of Turkic dialects, without any recognition of Uzbek as an
independent literary language as it was used in leading industrial cities. Cf. Fierman
1991, pp. 129ff.
18
Grammatika uzbekskogo yazyka (Tashkent 1939), O. Usmanov and B. Avezov
(eds.), quoted in Umarov 2002, pp. 304f.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 183
19
Orfografiya qoidalariga kiritilgan zgartishlar haqida, in Qizil zbekiston (Red
Uzbekistan), no. 87, 12 April 1956, p. 3.
20
zbek orfografiyasining asosiy qoidalari, in Qizil zbekiston, no. 87, 12 April
1956, pp. 2-3.
21
It should be noted here that, whereas -di and -dir are one and the same ending
with the shorter form occurring after the elision of the final consonant of the longer
variant, the enclitics -ki and -kim have different sources; the former originates from
Persian ke (relative pronoun and conjunction with a number of different meanings)
and the latter from Turkic kim, an interrogative pronoun, who.
184 birgit schlyter
22
Qoriniyozov 1956 gives these values for contemporary Qizil zbekiston.
23
See Schlyter 2004, pp. 823-6, for a comment on The Aim of Soviet Language
Policy: Bilingualism or Language Shift? Cf. Grenoble 2003, who states that, especially
in the Brezhnev era, there flourished much Soviet party rhetoric about building com-
munism and a common language and the creation of a united Soviet people (ibid.,
p. 59). For Central Asia, however, the same author notes that, possibly due to Muslim
traditions, a Russian-based identity failed in the region (ibid., p. 138).
language policy and development in uzbekistan 185
24
zbekiston Sovet Sotsialistik Respublikasining Qonuni: zbekiston SSRning davlat
tili haqida (Law of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan: Concerning the State
Language of the Uzbek SSR). Tashkent 1989.
25
See Schlyter 1998 for a detailed report on Uzbek language debate in the years
from 1989, when a number of drafts of the aforementioned State Language Law were
launched before the final parliamentary decision, to 1997, when this report was com-
pleted and first published.
26
zbekiston Respublikasining Qonuni: Lotin yozuviga asoslangan zbek alifbosini
joriy etish tghrisida (Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan: Concerning the Introduc-
tion of an Uzbek Alphabet Based on the Latin Script). Tashkent 1993.
27
Personal communication from Prof. Baxtiyor Karimov, who was a member of
the commission, November 2005.
28
See Schlyter 1998, pp. 164-5, and Schlyter 2003, pp. 174-7.
186 birgit schlyter
29
Ozbekiston Respublikasining Qonuni: Ozbekiston Respublikasining Lotin yozu-
viga asoslangan ozbek alifbosini joriy etish togrisida gi Qonuniga ozgartishlar kiritish
haqida (Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan: Concerning Changes to the Law on the
Introduction of an Uzbek Alphabet Based on the Latin Script of the Republic of
Uzbekistan). Tashkent 1995.
30
For example, the Sharq (East) Publishing House in Tashkent has introduced
a series of Classics (Asr oshgan asarlar), where so far a small number of novels have
appeared in the new Uzbek Latin alphabet, such as Kecha va kunduz (Night and Day,
2004) by Cholpon, from 1936, originally printed in the Uzbek Latin alphabet of the
1930s and later in Cyrillic, and Yulduzli tunlar: Bobur (Stary Nights: Babur, 2004) by
Pirimqul Qodirov from 1978.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 187
a gradual ten-year transition from Cyrillic to the new script had been
envisaged. Through an additional law on 30 April 2004, this transi-
tional period was extended till 2010. However, this deadline now seems
to have been consigned to oblivion.
As for the vocabulary of the Uzbek State Language, the first main
official measure taken after the passage of the State Language Law in
1989 was the inauguration of a committee for research and reform
work on terminology, generally referred to by the abbreviation
Atamaqm.31 No great activity can be discerned in this field at present
and public debates on lexical issues are not as frequent as they were
during the first few years of independence. Guidelines from the mid-
1990s regarding the choice of new terms seem still to be in force (see
below). The Atamaqm was dissolved in 2003. In its place, there is
now a commission subordinated to the Senate of the bi-cameral Uzbek
Parliament. From the year 2006 onwards, a new five-volume edition of
the Uzbek-Uzbek Ozbek tilining izohli lugati (An Explanatory Dic-
tionary of the Uzbek Language) was to be published with a corpus
of about 100,000 words. For this edition, five universities in different
parts of the country have collected dialect material and, furthermore,
Uzbek fiction published throughout the Soviet era has been processed
for the selection of words and phrases.32
31
zbekiston Respublikasi vazirlar mahkamasi huzuridagi atamashunoslik qmitasi
(The Lexical Research Committee at the Council of Ministers of the Republic of
Uzbekistan); cf. Schlyter 1998, p. 159.
32
Personal communication from Prof. Nemat Maxqamov, one of the linguists in
charge of this project at the Institute of Language and Literature, Tashkent, December
2005. The previous 1981 edition of the dictionary consists of c. 60,000 entries.
188 birgit schlyter
33
See Schlyter 1998, pp. 169-71, on Uzbek Language Policy and Nationhood.
In B. Karimov 2003, a work by an Uzbek scholar actively taking part in the cur-
rent Uzbek language debate, sociopolitical and intellectual-spiritual development is
being discussed against a background of nation, man, and language, where national
language turns into a more or less inalienable component of the nation-state and
becomes synonymous with state language.
34
Article no. 12.
35
Quoted in Abdullaev 2005, pp. 274f., from I.A. Karimov, Pravovaya garantiya
nashego velikogo budushchego, Tashkent 1993, p. 13.
36
Cf. a statement by Stalin concerning the definition of nation and nationality,
quoted in English translation by Fierman 1991 (p. 70): [a] historically evolved stable
community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up . . .; see
also Smith 1998, p. 3.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 189
Soviet era, and current rhetoric on this topic builds on former Soviet
patterns.37
The same Soviet-style methods are also used for launching the post-
Soviet Uzbek state ideology of national independence as a more or
less undisputable mindset. The Presidents works are obligatory read-
ing in pre-graduate education as well as in graduate studies and post-
graduate training. Old societal structures are being imposed, first and
foremost of which are local communities of the mahalla type, where
the wisdom of elders is praised and the inhabitants are expected to
constitute a self-governing (ozini ozi boshqarish) neighborhood.38
The post-Soviet trend in domestic politics has had its effects on peoples
linguistic behavior and attitudes towards language planning and lan-
guage reform. Those who would like to resuscitate pre-Soviet vocab-
ulary feel encouraged to do so under the prevailing circumstances.
Consequently, a large number of early 20th-century lexemes, often of
Arabic or Persian origin from the previous literary Turkic language
Chaghatay, have found their way back into Uzbek language practice.
In contrast to popular sentiments, however, Uzbek linguists and
other officials in charge of Uzbek vocabulary reform have tried to
take a much more moderate stance on this issue. The principles for
the treatment of Russian loans have so far been most clearly elabo-
rated in Hojiev 1996. This pamphlet is still valid and Uzbek linguists
refer to it when consulted in this matter.39 According to the recom-
mendations given, Russian words and expressions that have become
frequent in spoken and written Uzbek should be retained as well as
foreign (mostly Russian) words that are intelligible in international
37
For example, in a book on Til va el (Language and Nation; Qodirov 2005). the
former Soviet-Uzbek Peoples Writer (xalq yozuvchisi) and scholar of Uzbek history,
Pirimqul Qodirov (b. 1928) writes about the importance of the Timurid era for the
development of literary Uzbek. A previous work on the same topic, Til va dil (Lan-
guage and Soul) was published by this author during the Soviet period.
38
See, e.g., Sievers 2002; cf. Schlyter 2005a, pp. 88f. The status of national language
is discussed from the point of view of a specified set of linguistic, cultural, and politi-
cal dimensions and with regard to the Central Asian state languages in Schlyter 2010
and Schlyter, forthcoming a.
39
The principles advocated by Hojiev were summarized in detail in Schlyter 1998,
pp. 167-9.
190 birgit schlyter
circles. What was stressed in particular when this issue was discussed
during my stay in Tashkent during the fall of 2005 was that scientific
and technical notions should be maintained in an international shape
or, for new coinages, given such a shape.40
The current situation as regards vocabulary issues is thus character-
ized by caution and moderation on the part of responsible language
planners, perhaps with a certain amount of tolerance towards lexical
creativeness among the general public. This could, however, be inter-
preted as indecisiveness as to the choice between, on the one hand, tra-
ditional, or archaic vocabulary, at times accomplished by adding new
Turkic-language derivations, and, on the other hand, status-quo Rus-
sified and internationalizing vocabulary. In the absence of any definite
norm, great variation may be found in public textsscientific as well
as other types of non-fiction texts. Russian loan words of a permitted
international pattern may be used side-by-side with newly coined syn-
onymous or nearly synonymous derivations from Turkic roots (e.g.,
provintsializm/chekkalilik < chekka, border, edge, + -li (adj.) + -lik
(nominal ), i.e. marginality, unitar < Ru. unitarnyy/bolinmas < bolin-,
be divided, + -mas (neg. ptcl ), i.e. indivisible) or archaic Chaghatay
lexemes (for example, kommunikatsiya/aloqa < Arabic connection,
global < Ru. globalnyy/umumjahon = umum+jahon < Arabic all +
Persian world).
The political reorientation in Uzbekistan after the Andijan events in
May 2005 may in the long term have an effect on the language situa-
tion and language usage in the countrya development that shows the
sensitivity, or even lability, of the issue. Uzbekistans strained relations
with the US government after suspicion and accusations from both
sides due to the inaccessibility of information and uncertainty about
who and what instigated the demonstrations and military actions in
Andijan led to a more or less complete break with the West for many
years and a strong rapprochement with Russia. The status of Russian
in Uzbekistan will be commented on in a later section. It may suffice
40
One argument articulated in the course of these discussions was that there is
no Uzbek science, that all science is international and, consequently, that scientific
terms should as much as possible be international. For language development and
globalization in different parts of the world, including Central Asia, see Maurais and
Morris 2003, and from less specified geographical but broader cultural perspectives,
Coupland 2010.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 191
6.6. Karakalpak
41
Qaraqalpaqstan Respublikasynyng Konstitutsiyasy (The Constitution of the
Republic of Karakalpakistan), 9 April 1993, Paragraph 4; Mamleketlik til haqqynda
(On [the Issue of ] State Language), a resolution passed by the Karakalpak Parliament
on 18 September 1996; cf. Schlyter 2005a. The Constitution of Uzbekistan has a spe-
cial chapter (XVII) on Karakalpakistan, however, without any mention of Karakalpak
or any second state language. It is stated, though, that Karakalpakistan has its own
constitution.
192 birgit schlyter
42
See, e.g., Kamalov et al. 1994.
43
Nazyrov 1972.
44
Chernyavskaya 2005.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 193
45
Qaraqalpaqstan ASSRynyng mmleketlik tili haqqynda: Qaraqalpaqstan Avto-
nomiyaly Sovet Sotsialistik Republikasynyng nyzamy (On the State Language of the
Karakalpak ASSR: Law of the Autonomous Soviet Socialistic Republic of Karakal-
pakistan), 1990, Nukus: Qaraqalpaqstan.
46
Due to the different phonological systems of Uzbek and Karakalpak, their 1995
alphabets differ on a number of points. In addition to a few letters (a, u, w) not found
in Uzbek, Karakalpak has letter signs for both palatal i (i) and velar i (I) in the
same fashion as Turkey Turkish does. The 1995 Karakalpak alphabet thus contains two
letter signs that do not appear on a standard Latin keyboard. For / / the same alpha-
bet employs, not the digraph ng like Uzbek, but n, which is placed after non-nasal
n, and not at the end of the alphabet, as is the case in both of the 1993/1995 Uzbek
alphabets. In contrast to Uzbek, Karakalpak apparently does not make any functional
distinction between right- and left-facing apostrophes. For further comments on
Karakalpak and other minority languages in Uzbekistan, see Schlyter 2005a.
194 birgit schlyter
6.7. Russian
47
Personal communication from Dr. Mirzohid Raximov at the Institute of History,
Tashkent, December 2005. Within the previous three years, 3 out of 5 dissertations
from his own Department of International Relations had been written in Uzbek and
the remaining two in Russian.
48
Schlyter 2004, p. 822.
49
According to Bolshevik rhetoric, all languages in the Soviet Union were of equal
value and, therefore, the status of official language (offitsialnyy yazyk) or state lan-
guage (gosudarstvennyy yazyk) was not attributed to any language, when the Union
was established after the October Revolution in 1917. Not until April 1990, i.e., the
very last moment of Soviet existence, was Russian proclaimed the official language of
the USSR (Schlyter 2005b, p. 87, the second footnote).
196 birgit schlyter
50
According to calculations made on the basis of data from Chernyavskaya 2005.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 197
51
Arutyunyan 2003; cf. Ilxamov 2002.
52
Adolat (Justice), 11 November 2005, p. 2.
198 birgit schlyter
6.8.1. Multilingualism
The non-Uzbek minorities constitute around 20 percent of Uzbeki-
stans population. Half of these are immigrants or deportees to Central
Asia from the Soviet era and their descendents. The rest are people
who have lived in the region as long as and in some cases even longer
than ethnic Uzbeks, such as various small communities of Iranian and
Arabic stock.
There are more than 130 nationalities living in the country at present
and almost as many languages are spoken there. Seven languages serve
as media of instruction in Uzbek public schools. Besides the three lan-
guages already reviewedUzbek, Karakalpak, and Russianthe four
so-called brother languages (qardosh tillar)Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turk-
men, and Tajikare used for teaching in 4-5 percent of all schools.53
All of these languages are represented in the mass media (newspapers,
magazines and/or television and radio broadcasting), together with
a small number of other languages, such as Uighur, Tatar, Crimean
Tatar, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Korean. A still greater number of lan-
guages, including some of the aforementioned ones, are sustained by
means of native-language courses at National Cultural Centers operat-
ing in different parts of the country.
In the Uzbek Constitution of December 1992 there is no reference
to any other official language besides the State Language nor is any
other language mentioned by name.54 However, in both the Language
Law of 1989 and the 1992 Constitution, provisions are made for the
non-discriminatory use and development of all nationality languages
spoken within the territory of Uzbekistan. This position is in accord
with traditional attitudes towards multilingualism in this part of the
world. In a region like Central Asia, characterized by multilingualism
since time immemorial, there is generally great tolerance and respect
53
According to calculations made on the basis of data from Chernyavskaya 2005.
54
As for Karakalpak, see footnote 41.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 199
for languages other than ones own, and many people are used to hear-
ing and even communicating in different tongues.
55
Schlyter 1998, p. 170; cf. Schlyter 2004.
56
Lewis 1972, p. 171, has a brief comment on the co-existence of a general stan-
dard (written) and a more regional standard [Uzbek]. . . .
200 birgit schlyter
57
For broader definitions of the notion of diglossia including functional splits
between more than one language, see e.g. Fishman 1972 and Fasold 1984.
58
As to foreign language teaching during the first few decades of Soviet rule, see
Ornstein 1958; cf. Lewis 1972, pp. 203-8.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 201
academics, have had in adopting and learning the new Latin alphabet
introduced for Uzbek in 19931995 (see above). Due to their isolation
during the Soviet period, Uzbeks and Central Asians in general had
very little contact with Westerners. At present, however, the availabil-
ity of these languages as well as peoples interest in getting in contact
with Westerners is very strong.
59
For several years the British Council and the Public Affairs Section of the US
Embassy in Tashkent have been very active in supporting English language teaching
in the country; see articles in Coleman et al. 2005. These activities may have taken on a
different character as a consequence of the strained relations between Uzbekistan and
the West after the Andijan events in May 2005. On the other hand, peoples attitudes
towards English as the most important world language do not seem to have been
much influenced by this development. For further comments on international com-
munication, world language, and related concepts, cf. Ammon 2010 and Ricento
2010, as well as other articles in Coupland 2010.
202 birgit schlyter
60
Ozbekiston Ovozi (Voice of Uzbekistan), 11 October 2005, p. 2: Xitoydagi
eng katta treyder sifatida . . . (in Cyrillic script). As the biggest trading partner in
China. . . .
61
Ornstein 1958, p. 388.
62
This school was established in honor of the Indian Prime Minister Shastri, who
died of a heart attack during an official visit to Tashkent in 1966.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 203
63
For extensive comments on the notion of linguistic culture, see Schiffman
1996.
204 birgit schlyter
64
For Soviet language policy, recall works referred to earlier in this article. For
comments on the Turkish language reform from the point of view of state- and
nation-building, see e.g. Doanay-Aktuna 1995 and Schlyter 2006.
65
For a broader survey of the language situation and language policies in all of the
ex-Soviet Central Asian states, see Landau and Kellner-Heinkele 2001; cf. Schlyter
2003, 2004, and forthcoming b.
language policy and development in uzbekistan 205
References
Qodirov, Pirimqul. (2005). Til va el [Language and Nation], Tashkent: Ghafur Ghulom
nomidagi nashriyot.
Qoriniyozov (= Qari-Nijazij, T.N.). (1956). Sovet zbekistoni madaniyati tarixidan
ocherklar [Essays on Soviet-Uzbek Cultural History], Tashkent: zbekiston SSR
Fanlar Akademiyasi nashriyoti.
Ricento, Thomas. (ed.). (2006). An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and
Method, Oxford: Blackwell.
Ricento, Thomas. (2010). Language Policy and Globalization, in Coupland 2010,
pp. 123-41.
Schiffman, Harold F. (1996). Linguistic Culture and Language Policy, London/New
York: Routledge.
Schlyter, Birgit N. (1998). New Language Laws in Uzbekistan, in Language Problems
and Language Planning, vol. 22, no. 2 (1998), pp. 143-81.
. (2003). Sociolinguistic Changes in Transformed Central Asian Societies, in
Maurais and Morris 2003, pp. 157-87.
. (2004). Changing Language Loyalties in Central Asia, in Tej K. Bhatia and
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Publishing, pp. 808-34.
. (2005a). The Karakalpaks and Other Language Minorities under Central Asian
State Rule, in Birgit N. Schlyter. (ed.). Prospects for Democracy in Central Asia,
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pp. 81-94.
. (2005b). Sprk och politik i Centralasien, in YMER, vol. 125, Svenska Sllskapet
fr Antropologi och Geografi, pp. 77-94.
. (2006). Turkey, in Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of
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Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien, Stockholm, pp. 153-68.
. (forthcoming a). The Status of Uzbek as National Language, in Mirja Juntunen,
Uday Narayan Singh, and Birgit Schlyter. (eds.). Competing Language Loyalties in
South and Central Asia: Theories versus Case Studies. Proceedings from a workshop
held at Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, India, jointly organized by
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Asia, in Tej K. Bhatia and William C. Ritchie. (eds.). The Handbook of Bilingualism
and Multilingualism, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Shohamy, Elana. (2006). Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches,
London/New York: Routledge.
Sievers, Eric W. (2002). Uzbekistans Mahalla: From Soviet to Absolutist Residential
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Chicago-Kent, vol. 2, pp. 91-158, http://www.kentlaw.edu/jicl/articles/spring2002
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Smith, Michael G. (1998). Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917
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Wright, Sue. (2004). Language Policy and Language Planning: From Nationalism to
Globalisation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
CHAPTER SEVEN
William Fierman
Prior to the collapse of the USSR, the population of Soviet Central Asia
had been ruled by a regime that for decades had attempted to con-
vince them, and other citizens of the USSR, that their most meaningful
links with other human beings were not ethnic, linguistic, religious, or
racial; rather, such links, though important in certain contexts, were
supposed to be secondary to common Soviet citizenship. Although this
most important bond of shared Soviet citizenship lost its political
meaning with the establishment of independent countries on former
Soviet territory, the fundamental problem of establishing a basis for
patriotismthis time in newly independent statesremained. In the
changed world, the new states that emerged from the USSR faced the
complex problem of determining the nature of the glue that would
hold together the population and territory that they inherited.
In the Soviet era, the Communist Party had promoted the Russian
language as one of the primary bonds shared by the countrys popula-
tion. Indeed, Russian was referred to as the second mother tongue
of the Soviet Unions non-Russians. According to Soviet ideology, the
links among the USSRs population were constantly increasing, and
although individual cultures and languages were enjoying a period of
flourishing (rastsvet), the process of sblizhenie (rapprochement) was
proceeding, and somewhere on the distant horizon was the prospect of
sliianie (merger). Although Soviet ideologists disagreed on some fine
points, the writing between the lines in some works clearly implied
that the non-Russian languages of the USSR were doomed to ever
smaller domains or even disappearance.
A tension always existed in Soviet policy between maintaining or at
least tolerating the non-Russian languages and cultures of the peoples
inhabiting the USSR, and the promotion of Russian language and cul-
ture as the foundation of the Soviet people. The balance of policies
promoting rastsvet and sblizhenie varied both over time and from
region to region. Furthermore, contradictory policies were often at play
the fate of uzbek language 209
Samarkand
TURKMENISTAN Bukhara Panjikent
Turkmenabad Dushanbe TAJIKISTAN
Karshi Kulab
Tursunzoda
the fate of uzbek language
Kurgantepa
Map 1. Along with the very largest cities of Uzbekistan, this map contains names of certain cities in surrounding
former Soviet republics; substantial numbers of Uzbeks live in or nearby these cities. A large number of
Uzbeks also lives in northern Afghanistan, but the cities are not shown because this chapter concerns only
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. (See also the map of the Ferghana Valley on the next
211
page, which contains names of additional cities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.) Names of cities with common
English spellings have been rendered in that form. Because this chapter is about Uzbek language, the spelling
of cities in neighboring countries reflects Uzbek pronunciation (thus Tashavuz rather than Dashoguz).
Bishkek
212
Chimkent KYRGYZST
Sayram
Samarkand
Panjikent
Dushanbe TAJIKISTAN
Tursunzoda
Map 2. Along with the very largest cities in Uzbekistans part of the Ferghana Valley, this map
contains only names of the capitals of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, plus those cities in surrounding
countries with large Uzbek populations inside them or in their environs. Names of cities with
common English spellings have been rendered in that form. Because this chapter is about Uzbek
language, the spelling of cities in neighboring countries reflects Uzbek pronunciation (thus
Jalalabad rather than Jalalabat).
the fate of uzbek language 213
7.1 Factors
1
In the 1970s, Aeroflot had flights from Tashkent to Delhi, but in order to fly to
Delhi, inhabitants of Uzbekistan would have to travel to Moscow to get on this flight,
which would make a stop in Tashkent on its way to Delhi.
2
This was true, for example, with the roads between Tashkent and Samarkand
(Uzbekistan) or Frunze (later named Bishkek) and Osh.
214 william fierman
in most of the Soviet era. Today it is far easier than in the Soviet era
for inhabitants of Turkmenistans border areas to go to Iran. Mean-
while, citizens of Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan wishing to visit each
others country must receive visas, a complex and time consuming
process that is not always even successful. The same is true for Tajiki-
stan residents wishing to go to Uzbekistan. Yet in the Soviet era there
was very tight integration of the economies and transportation grids
of the Uzbek SSR and Tajik SSR.
towards communism. From the 1920s onward, the lines created by the
delimitation brought the establishment of distinct literary languages,
each assigned to a particular population. Those individuals classified
as ethnic Turkmen, for exampledespite significant differences in
the form of Turkic they usedwere exposed to a uniform standard
of Turkmen language that was determined by an officially sanctioned
body, and was promoted by the state, most importantly through mass
media and schools. In this way, language played a central role in con-
tributing to what Brubaker and Cooper have termed commonality
and to some extent even groupness.3
Although language policies for X-ish were of most immediate
importance for the population of the X-istan republic, the norms
established for X-ish also applied to Y-istan and Z-istan repub-
lics where X-men irridenta or diaspora populations lived.4 This was
because language policy was directed through the centralized Soviet
governmental apparatus. There could thus not be one set of Uzbek
norms created by and for Uzbek speakers in Uzbekistan and another
set for those, say, in Kyrgyzstan or Kazkhstan. As a consequence,
Uzbek-medium schools in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, or
Kyrgyzstan used the same textbooks with the same language as those
in Uzbekistan; the form of Turkic used in these books was at least offi-
cially determined in Tashkent, though always in accordance with cer-
tain principles determined in Moscow, and often with input from local
Russian scholars. It goes without saying that the policy of promoting
Russian as second mother tongue was also directed from Moscow,
though implemented through the party and state in each republic.
Independence for the Central Asian countries meant the end of
Moscows central direction of policies related to creating identities.
Each new regime that inherited power faced the task of developing a
sense of common belonging in the independent state that it governed.
All of the new states policies emphasized that the titular nationality
3
Brubaker and Cooper, who eschew the term identity, prefer the term com-
monality to refer to shared common attributes and groupness to describe indi-
viduals sense of belonging to a single, distinctive solidarity group (Rogers Brubaker
and Frederick Cooper, Beyond identity, Theory and Society vol. 29, [Feb. 2000],
p. 31).
4
I use an adapted form of the notation adopted by Joshua Fishman to refer to any
language as X-ish, and X-men as the speakers of that language. By analogy, I use
X-istan to refer to any republic (Joshua Fishman, Reversing Language Shift: Theoreti-
cal and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Philadelphia:
Multilingual Matters, 1991, Chapter 4).
216 william fierman
was in some way first among equals. However, the way in which
this principle has been applied has varied greatly across the region.
Thus, for example, Turkmen culture has been promoted almost to the
exclusion of all others in Turkmenistan, whereas in Kazakhstan, and
to some extent Kyrgyzstan, the leadership has frequently emphasized
the multi-ethnic nature of the state and the rights of minorities living
on its territory.
5
DOSAAF was a paramilitary society in the Soviet Union with many activities for
young people. The initials stood for Voluntary Society of Assistance to the Army, the
Air Force and the Navy.
6
As a result of such processes, Kazakhstans population, which had been about 57
percent Kazakh in 1926, was only 30 percent Kazakh in 1959. At that time, less than
9 percent of the population of capital city, Alma-Ata, was Kazakh (Data for 1926 from
Robert J. Kaiser The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR [Princeton:
Princeton U. Press, 1994], p. 116; data for 1959 from William Fierman, Language
Vitality and Paths to Revival: Contrasting Cases of Azerbaijani and Kazakh, Interna-
tional Journal of the Sociology of Language vol. 198 2009, pp. 82-6).
the fate of uzbek language 217
structure, including the military and police structures, and which had
special responsibility for personnel appointments.
CPSU language policy affected not only the choice of language for
particular domains, but the corpus of language as well. The most obvi-
ous example of this is the shifts of alphabets, but the Party also imple-
mented policies which affected terminology and other vocabulary, the
dialect norm used in radio and television, and other fields. The abil-
ity to affect the corpus is clear from the massive russification of the
vocabulary beginning in the 1930s. The Central Asian languages as
represented in the mass media and in educational materials reflected
the decision that Russian words borrowed by the Central Asian lan-
guages were to be written and pronounced the same as in Russian;
this was true even if the Russian pronunciation of such words violated
phonetic rules otherwise generally observed in the Turkic and Iranian
languages. The enormous volume of translation into the Central Asian
languages from Russian meant that not only Russian vocabulary, but
Russian syntactic patterns as well, permeated the language of mass
media. More indirectly, but perhaps of greatest importance, the educa-
tion of a large share of the Central Asian elite was through the Russian
language.
This is not to say that the CPSUs control of the language used by
Soviet citizens was limitless. One reason is that Soviet borders, though
tight, were not impermeable. In the post-World War II era, a small
number of citizens had access to foreign radio broadcasts which in
subtle ways challenged Soviet linguistic policy. For example, the Radio
Liberty services broadcasting to Central Asia used language at variance
from established norms.7 Even inside Soviet borders, however, control
was far from complete. The Party regulation over language in schools
and economic enterprises was likely much less effective in remote vil-
lages than in major urban areas. Probably with very rare exceptions,
schools used only approved textbooks written in Russian or the official
standard languages. Nevertheless, the Party had relatively little control
over the use of non-standard dialects or the wrong language used
by teachers in remote schools, let alone by pupils. Thus, for example,
it is highly likely that, despite a Party a policy promoting Russian
7
The very tall barriers that stood between Central Asians and those abroad who
used language that was at variance from established norms did not exist everywhere.
For example, the population of the Moldavian SSR had relatively easy access to the
Romanian spoken in Romania.
218 william fierman
8
As will be explained below, Turkmenistan no longer has Uzbek schools or print
media. The added difficulty caused by different alphabets does not mean that text-
books from other countriesespecially on such a subject as historywould be accept-
able if the same writing system were used in all countries.
220 william fierman
better off than others in the same republic, the magnitude of differ-
ence was relatively small. This was partly a result of state ownership
and control of the means of production and of a kind of social safety
net provided by the state to all Soviet citizens.
Some of the most impressive achievements of Soviet power in Cen-
tral Asia relate to education and culture. Among other things, the
Soviet regime developed an extensive network of educational institu-
tions. The guidelines for the education they provided, of course, were
determined in Russia rather than in the republics. Nevertheless, even
if one discounts the Soviet claims of practically 100 percent literacy
in the region, it remains true that the vast majority of Soviet Central
Asian adults could read and write in a standardized language. Fur-
thermore, these were languages which at the beginning of the Soviet
era had not been standardized, which lacked authoritative dictionaries,
and for which vocabulary required to represent many political, social,
and economic concepts were lacking. Furthermore, the speakers of
these forms of Turkic and Persian had been mostly illiterate.
Maintaining control over what was printed or broadcast, the Soviet
government provided a vast array of subsidies to cultural products
in Russian as well as in other languages of the USSR, especially those
of Union republics. Subsidies supported publication and distribution
of periodicals on a wide range of subjects, including oblast and raion
newspapers. In Central Asia, besides publishing newspapers in Rus-
sian and the republic titular language, a number of oblasts and raions
produced some in minority languages. The regime also subsidized
schools even when small numbers of pupils lived nearby; others were
sent to boarding schools.
Thanks to such subsidies, Soviet citizens had access to free textbooks
and other inexpensive publications, theatre and cinema at low prices,
and television and radio without commercial interruptions. Although
the greatest accessibility to cultural and educational activities for every
language were in the titular republic, the access of irredenta groups
in neighboring republics of Central Asia was enhanced through such
practices as exchanges of films and theatre troops, and republic tele-
vision stations occasionally showing broadcasts (especially cultural
performances) from neighboring republics. The curricula and text-
books for schools in the Central Asian languages of irridenta popula-
tions were the same as in the home republic and, critically, there were
no significant barriers to continuing education in the titular republic.
Thus, for example, it was very common for Uzbeks from neighboring
the fate of uzbek language 221
9
Uzbekistan produces much of its own energy, but does not export much.
222 william fierman
10
Igor Savin, Etnichnost kak faktor povsednevnoi zhizni v selskikh raionakh
Iuzhnogo Kazakhstana, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, no. 4 (66), 2009, accessed through
http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1258925460 28 Nov. 2009.
the fate of uzbek language 223
(in the south of Kyrgyzstan) differs from the standard Kyrgyz based
on dialects of the north; some of the distinguishing elements of this
southern Kyrgyz are shared with Uzbek. Thus, for example, an initial
voiced labial ([b]) in the literary standard (which is based on northern
dialects) is pronounced voiceless ([p]) in southern dialects, as is also
the case in Uzbek. Likewise, many words used by Kyrgyz in the south
of Kyrgyzstan but not used in the north are also used in Uzbek: Kyr-
gyz in the north use the word jumurtka for egg, but in the south the
word tukhum is used, which is also the Uzbek word.
Such phenomena, along with contact between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz
that facilitates a high level of bilingualism, means that southern Kyr-
gyz and local Uzbeks who speak to each other in their own respec-
tive languages have a high level of mutual intelligibility. Likewise, the
variety of Uzbek spoken in the Khorezm region of Uzbekistan bor-
dering on Turkmenistan shares many phonetic and other elements
with dialects of the Turkmen language that it does not share with the
standard literary Uzbek based on the dialects of the Ferghana Valley.
For such reasons, in the discussion of minority languages below, it is
important to keep in mind that the story is really much more compli-
cated than suggested by the use of a single term for each of the literary
languages and the juxtaposing of their names; furthermore, we must
recognize that the use of names of ethnic groups is convenient, but
only a kind of shorthand also hiding as much as it reveals.11
In this context, it is worth pointing out that the status of Uzbek
in Turkmenistan likely differs from that in the other Central Asian
countries where, for the most part, most of the Uzbek-speaking popu-
lation speaks a language fairly close to standard Uzbek. Indeed, in the
case of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, many of the Uzbeks are neigh-
bors living in close proximity in the Ferghana Valley. The majority of
Uzbeks of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan are also fairly close
to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Although Tashkents dialect
also differs markedly from the Ferghana Valley-based standard, as the
capital it is the center for production of much of the literary and other
cultural Uzbek-language output. By contrast, Turkmenistans Uzbek
speakers are geographically remote both from the Ferghana Valley and
11
This kind of transition from one language to the next has been described by Harold
Schiffman in the case of German to Dutch, (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540
/langdial/limburg.html ).
224 william fierman
Tashkent, and their culture and language are far removed both from
the standard Uzbek norm and from the dialect of the capital.
Before proceeding to look at the status of Uzbek in other republics
after 1991, it will be useful to give a brief overview of easily acces-
sible evidence about the presence of Uzbek-medium schools and mass
media in the late Soviet era. In general, Uzbek-medium education was
widely available throughout the areas of Central Asia where Uzbeks
lived, and a high proportion of Uzbek pupils in the neighboring Cen-
tral Asian republics studied in Uzbek schools or classes. According to
the data below, the Uzbek school enrollment in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz-
stan, and Tajikistan was approximately proportional to the share of
Uzbeks in each of those republics population. In Turkmenistan, how-
ever, the share of Uzbek-medium pupils was substantially less than
the share of Uzbeks in the Turkmen SSR population, which were 6.2
and 9.0 percent, respectively. These figures are particularly interesting
in light of the fact that in Kyrgyzstan and (especially) Kazakhstan, the
share of the titular nationality in the republic far exceeded the share of
pupils in the titular language medium.12
12
Data for population taken from John Dunlop, Marc Rubin, Lee Schwartz, David
Zaslow Profiles of Newly Independent States Joint Economic Committee, US Govt
Printing Office Washington 1993, pp. 1094-103. Data for share of pupils are taken from
Novaia informatsiia Goskomstata SSSR, Vestnik statistiki, no. 12, 1991, pp. 47-9. It
should be kept in mind that, given the high Uzbek birthrate, and the much lower rate
among the large Slavic population in the Kirgiz SSR and Kazakh SSR, it is likely that
the share of Uzbeks among the school-age population was substantially larger than
among each republics total population. It should also be kept in mind that some
non-Uzbeks may have studied in Uzbek-medium schools; however, I am unaware of
any reason to believe that the number was very large.
the fate of uzbek language 225
13
For a description of trends see Roman Szporluk, The Press and Soviet Nationali-
ties: The Party Resolution of 1975 and its Implementation, Nationalities Papers vol.
14 (1986), pp. 47-64.
14
Data I have are from the second half of the 1970s, but it is likely that these
publications continued to be published during the next decade. Uzbekistan, in turn,
published a republic Tajik-language newspaper called Haqiqati Ozbekiston; several
raion newspapers were published in Kazakh. Kazakh-language papers I have identified
were from Bukhara, Jizzakh, and Tashkent oblasts. (Vsesoiuznaia knizhnaia palata.
Letopis periodicheskikh i prodolzhaiuishchikhsia izdanii 19711975. Chast II. Gazety
[items 3043, 3058, 3062, 3136]).
226 william fierman
7.4.1. Turkmenistan
Before looking at Uzbek-language schools or mass media in Turkmen-
istan, it is necessary to say a few words about the size of that coun-
trys Uzbek population. As noted above, according to the 1989 Soviet
census, Uzbeks comprised approximately 9 percent of Turkmenistans
population. More recent reports, however, suggest that this has shrunk
to only 5 percent.16 Some of Turkmenistans Uzbek population has
certainly left for Uzbekistan. Some others, however, recognizing their
Uzbek ethnicity as a liability, have changed their official registration
to Turkmen.17
In any case, all available information suggests that the status of the
Uzbek language in education and media in Turkmenistan is much
worse than in the other three countries discussed here. Although in
the first years after the Soviet collapse, Uzbek-medium schools con-
tinued to operate in Turkmenistan, by the mid-1990s, as part of
turkmenization, schools or streams of students with Uzbek as the lan-
guage of instruction were coming under heavy pressure. Thus, for exam-
ple, an elite specialized school with enriched mathematics and physics
15
From Vsesoiuznaia knizhnaia palata . . . Letopis. It is not clear whether any of the
newspapers referred to here were issued entirely in Uzbek, or individual issues mixed
languages, or whether perhaps the language of publication varied.
16
The confusion about the size is evident from the CIA Factbook, which indicates
that 5 percent of Turkmenistans population is Uzbek, but also shows that 9 percent
of the population speaks Uzbek as a native language. Given that few non-Uzbeks in
Turkmenistan would likely claim to speak Uzbek, it is highly implausible that both
of these figures would be correct. Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, Turk-
menistan, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tx.html,
accessed 24 Nov. 2009.
17
Twilight Existence for Uzbek Illegals, Institute for War Peace Reporting, (RCA
No. 530), 7 Feb. 2008, accessed at http://iwpr.net/?p=rcas=fo=342550apc_state=henh
on 24 Nov. 2009. As will be illustrated below, this practice of changing ones nation-
ality is not unique to Turkmenistan.
the fate of uzbek language 227
18
N. Mitrokhin, V. Ponomarev, Turkmenistan: Gosudarstvennaia politika i prava
cheloveka 19951998. (Moscow, 1999). accessed through http://www.centrasia.ru
/newsA.php?st=1105368360.
19
Uzbekskie shkoly, Khronika Turkmenistana, 3 Aug. 2006, http://www.chrono-
tm.org/?id=682, accessed 4 Nov. 2009.
20
Sotrudnichestvo mezhdu Respublikoi Kazakhstan i Turkmenistanom v oblasti
obrazovaniia i nauki, no date, accessed at http://www.edu.gov.kz/index.php?id=rk
_and_turkmenistanL=1, accessed 24 Nov. 2009. The undated report from Kazakh-
stan appears to have been written in 2003. Unconfirmed reports from Uzbek areas of
Turkmenistan suggest that if there were Uzbek lessons six years ago, they may have
nevertheless ceased in the interim.
21
Personal communication from American observer in a Turkmen school.
22
N. Mitrokhin, V. Ponomarev, Turkmenistan: Gosudarstvennaia politika i prava che-
loveka 19951998. (Moscow, 1999), accessed through http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA
.php?st=1105368360.
228 william fierman
23
Najot: etnicheskie uzbeki v Turkmenistane reguliarno podvergaiutsia diskrim-
inatsii, Independent News Agency Harakat, 11 Sep. 2009, accessed at http://harakat
.net/el_news.php?id=3216, accessed 4 Nov. 2009.
24
Uzbekskoe radio zagovorilo na turkmenskom, Khronika Turkmenistan, 29 July
2006, http://www.chrono-tm.org/?id=846 accessed 4 Nov. 2009.
25
Nazar Saparov, Vizit zavershen, problemy ostalis, Khronika Turkmenistana
23 March 2008, http://www.chrono-tm.org/?id=894, accessed 4 Nov. 2009.
26
Institut media polisi v Kyrgyzskoi Respublike, Ob uzbekskikh i turkmenskikkh
SMI, 22 Aug. 2007, accessed www.media.kg?pid-3cid=8nid=211, 4 Nov. 2009.
27
Information on Turkmenistan collected from e-mail communications to author
in October 2009.
the fate of uzbek language 229
28
Uzbekskie shkoly, Khronika Turkmenistana, 3 Aug. 2006, http://www.chrono-
tm.org/?id=682, accessed 4 Nov. 2009. The lack of such institutions is, however,
disputed on a blog post. See http://www.turkmeniya.info/index.php?option=com
_contenttask=viewid=664Itemid=1.
29
Alty, Pustite uzbekov k uzbekam, 10 Oct. 2009, http://www.turkmeniya.info
/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=664Itemid=1.
30
According to one report, even when Russian-medium schools are available,
Uzbeks have been refused permission because such schools were said to be avail-
able only to Ukrainians and Koreans (sic) (V. Volkov, D. Nazarov and O. Saryev,
Pritesneniia natsionalnykh menshinstv, Uzbeki protestuiut, Nemetskaia volna 9 Jan.
2005, http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1105368360).
31
V. Volkov, D. Nazarov and O. Saryev, Pritesneniia natsionalnykh menshinstv,
Uzbeki protestuiut, Nemetskaia volna 9 Jan. 2005, http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA
.php?st=1105368360.
32
Najot: etnicheskie uzbeki v Turkmenistane reguliarno podvergaiutsia diskrim-
inatsii, Independent News Agency Harakat, 11 Sep. 2009, accessed at http://harakat
.net/el_news.php?id=3216, accessed 4 Nov. 2009.
230 william fierman
7.4.2. Tajikistan
Before proceeding to examine its condition, however, it is appro-
priate to note two issues concerning the Tajikistan context. First of
all, as in the case of Turkmenistan, it is impossible to determine the
size of Tajikistans Uzbek population. The 1989 Soviet census data
purport that Uzbeks comprised approximately 23.5 percent of the
total.34 This is far higher than the figure of over 15 percent in the
2000 census. The census data show not only a decline in percentage,
but an absolute decline as well, from almost 1.2 million to less than
950,000. Some of the loss is due to changes in the scheme of classifica-
tion (i.e., some tribal groups counted as Uzbeks in 1989 were listed
as separate categories in 2000); another part of the drop is attributable
to the departure of some Uzbeks from Tajikistan. In addition, however,
an unknown number of individuals who in 1989 had claimed to be
Uzbeks, finding themselves in an independent country named Tajiki-
stan, undoubtedly reported themselves as Tajiks.35 In discussing any
33
Press-konferentsiia Prezidentov Kazakhstana N. Nazarbaeva i Turkmenistana
Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedova, 28 May 2007, accessed through http://www
.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1180429080, 28 Nov. 2009.
34
Mikhail Tulskii, Itogi perepisi naseleniia Tadzhikistana 2000 goda: natsionalnyi,
vozrastnoi, polovoi, semeinyi i obrazovatelnyi sostavy, Demoskop Weekly, Nos. 191-
192, 21 Feb.-6 Mar. 2005.
35
Richard Rowland, National and Regional Population Trends in Tajikistan:
Results from the Recent Census, Eurasian Geography and Economics, vol. 46 no. 3
the fate of uzbek language 231
(2005 ), pp. 202-23. As noted above, analogous phenomena have been reported in
Turkmenistan.
36
Soghd oblast was the home of 31.3 percent of the total number of Uzbeks liv-
ing in Tajikistan.
232 william fierman
37
My thanks to Nasiba Mirpochoeva of Khojand for providing this information.
38
Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Tadzhikistan Emomali Rahmona na tser-
emonii otkrytiia novoi obshcheobrazovatelnoi shkoly v gorode Tursunzade, 11
Sep. 2007, accessed at www.president.tj/rus/vistupleniy110907.htm#. The website of
this university indicates that in addition to philology, three of the other ten fakultety
(biology, physics, and foreign languages) also offer instruction to Uzbek groups.
(Tadzhikskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii universitet im S. Ayni, http://www
.tgpu.tj/, accessed 7 Nov. 2009.)
39
Tadzhikskii agrarnyi universitet, http://tau.freenet.tj/enter.html accessed 7 Nov.
2009.
40
Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Tadzhikistan Emomali Rahmona na tser-
emonii otkrytiia novoi obshcheobrazovatelnoi shkoly v gorode Tursunzade, 11 Sep.
2007, accessed at www.president.tj/rus/vistupleniy110907.htm#.
41
He also emphasized that Tajiks and Uzbeks were neighbors, sharing friendship
and kinship. Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Tadzhikistan Emomali Rahmona
na tseremonii otkrytiia novoi obshcheobrazovatelnoi shkoly v gorode Tursunzade,
11 Sep. 2007, accessed at www.president.tj/rus/vistupleniy110907.htm#.
the fate of uzbek language 233
42
A. Zununii, Spasenie repressiruemykhdelo ruk samikh repressirovannykh?
14 June 2007 www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1181817420.
43
Chingiz Boy, Siz qayerda yashayotganingizni bilasizmi? . . . Blog on BBCUzbek
.com, 14 Oct. 2009, accessed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/uzbek/news/story/2009/10
/091014_small_nations.shtml, accessed 4 Dec. 2009.
44
Olivier Ferrando, The Education of Minorities: Between State Policy, Ethnic
Framing and Individual Strategy, paper presented at Central Eurasian Studies Society
annual conference, Seattle, Oct. 2007.
234 william fierman
45
E-mail communication from Nasiba Mirpochoeva 1 Nov. 2009.
46
Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Tadzhikistan Emomali Rahmona na tser-
emonii otkrytiia novoi obshcheobrazovatelnoi shkoly v gorode Tursunzade,
11 Sep. 2007, accessed at www.president.tj/rus/vistupleniy110907.htm#. According to
an e-mail communication from Nasiba Mirpochoyeva, a new Uzbek-language math
textbook was published for 2009 (e-mail of 1 Nov. 2009).
47
See Christopher Whitsel, Growing Inequality: Post-Soviet Transition and Edu-
cational Participation in Tajikistan, unpublished PhD dissertation, Indiana Univer-
sity, 2009.
48
Whitsel, p. 44.
49
Olivier Ferrando, The Education of Minorities: Between State Policy, Ethnic
Framing and Individual Strategy, paper presented at Central Eurasian Studies Society
annual conference, Seattle, Oct. 2007.
the fate of uzbek language 235
50
Farhodi Milod, Oghozi barrasii tarhi navi Qonuni zabon, 15 Sep. 2009, accessed
at http://www.ozodi.org/content/article/1823221.html, 8 November 2009.
51
Nosirjoni Mamurzoda, Tojikiston dar oyinai matbuoti kishvar, Radioi Ozodi,
6 March 2008, accessed http://www.ozodi.org/content/Tajikistan_press_review/1046413
.html, accessed 8 Nov. 2009.
52
The edition size for Soghd Haqiqati listed on the official Soghd Oblast website
is 2200. Other publications listed on the site with names that suggest they are also in
Uzbek are Tong (edition between 700 and 1500), Proletar tongi (1710), and Qishloq
hayoti (20002100). Two other publications which may be in Uzbek have names which
make it impossible to determine the language of publication, Mehnat and Zarbdor
(Rasonahoi khabariii chopii violoyat, website of the Sogd oblast executive committee,
http://www.sugd.tj/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=256:2009-02-24-
09-38-30catid=15:2008-11-19-04-39-51Itemid=10, accessed 9 Nov. 2009).
53
A recording of this program is repeated, thus providing fourteen hours of broad-
cast time in Uzbek. Special thanks for obtaining this information to Abdulfattoh
Shafiev.
54
Thanks to A. Shafiev for this information.
236 william fierman
55
Untitled report under rubric Aktualno, 31 May 2007, originally provided by
regnum.ru, accessed through Obzor tsentralnoi Azii, http://www.c-asia.org/akt/index
.php?cont=longid=2748year=2007today=31month=05. The official cited in this report,
an employee of the oblast organization or Tojikmatbuot (Tajik Press) stated that in
the future, those supplying and selling the publications would need to receive per-
mission after providing information required by the Tajikistan Ministry of Culture
(Natsionalnaia Assotsiatsiia nezavisimykh SMI Tadzhikistana, Monitoring narushenii
svobody slova v Tadzhikistane v mae 2007 goda, accessed at http://www.nansmit.tj
/monitoring/?id=49).
56
S. Khikmatov, Polnyi khaos, ili absoliutnaia tadzhikizatsiia Tadzhikistana,
Obzor tsentralnoi Azii 25 Sep. 2007, accessed at http://www.c-asia.org/post/index
.php?cont=longid=9938year=2. Although Khikmatov implies the regulations on the
press from Uzbekistan affected the entire country, another source refers to the restric-
tions only in the context of Soghd Oblast (Natsionalnaia Assotsiatsiia nezavisimykh
SMI Tadzhikistana, Monitoring narushenii svobody slova v Tadzhikistane v mae 2007
goda, accessed at http://www.nansmit.tj/monitoring/?id=49).
57
S. Sanginov, Chakmok chakar: V Tadzhikistane zapretili pesni na uzbekskom
iazyke, 14 Aug. 2007 accessed on 8 Nov. 2009 at http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA
.php?st=1187950860.
the fate of uzbek language 237
7.4.3. Kyrgyzstan
Although Kyrgyzstan did not suffer a civil war, in some important ways
the context affecting the Uzbek language in Kyrgyzstan is similar to
that in Tajikistan. One important reason may be the approximate share
of the two states respective Uzbek population. According to official
58
I thank Farruh Yusupov for providing the information on reception of Uzbeki-
stan-based television.
59
Khurshedi Hamdam, Nigaronii az amniyati fazoi ittilooti Radioi Ozodi 25 Sep.
2009, http://www.ozodi.org/content/article/1836431.html, accessed on 9 Nov. 2009.
60
See Khurshedi Hamdam, Nigaronii az amniyati fazoi ittilooti Radioi Ozodi
25 Sep. 2009, http://www.ozodi.org/content/article/1836431.html, accessed on 9 Nov.
2009.
238 william fierman
61
Alisher Khamidov, Kak vosstanovit uzy doveriia: uzbekskaia obshchina i vlast
v Kyrgyzstane, accessed at www.ipp.kg/ru/analysis/294/. This chapter was written
before the spring 2010 inter-ethnic violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern
Kyrgyzstan. Conditions for the Uzbek language in Kyrgyzstan have greatly deterio-
rated since then.
the fate of uzbek language 239
62
F.I. Ryskulueva and E.V. Kazarinova, O sostoianiii i putiakh razvitiia
Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki, Obrazovanie v SNG. Problemy i perspektivy, no. 1 (Jan.) 2005,
accessed Nov. 11, 2009 through http://cis.bsu.by/second.aspx?uid=50type=Article.
63
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Voprosy obrazovaniiapredmet dlia obsuzhdeniia,
no ne dlia spekuliatsii, 4 Sep. 2009, http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6128.
64
Personal e-mail communication from Ilhomjon Abdullaev, 25 Nov. 2009. The
situation appears to have changed since 2002 when, according to Ferrando, only the
pedagogical faculty offered education in Uzbek.
65
Personal e-mail communication from Jyldyz Aknazarova 25 Nov. 2009.
66
Ferrando, The Education of Minorities . . ..
240 william fierman
67
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Uzbekskaia obshchestvennost Kirgizii pytaetsia
samostoiatelno reshit problemy shkolnogo obrazovaniia, http://www.ferghana.ru
/article.php?id=4983.
68
Data are from a website of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek University. It is not possible to
ascertain the date when this was written, but it appears to be no earlier than 2005.
(http://www.kuu.kg/struktura-universiteta/Obschie_svedeniya). In any case, it appears
that original plans for publication had to be scaled back. A report which appears to
have been written in 2003 stated that the center was to have published 150 titles of
textbooks by 2005.
69
OshKUU: Uchebniki dlia shkol . . . Vsiak sushchii v nei iazyk, Ekho Osha May,
2004, accessed on 12 Nov. 2009 through www.echoosha.narod.ru/May04/uchebnik
.htm.
70
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Uzbekskaia obshchestvennost Kirgizii pytaetsia
samostoiatelno reshit problemy shkolnogo obrazovaniia, http://www.ferghana.ru
/article.php?id=4983, 16 March 2007.
71
Ferrando, The Education of Minorities . . .
72
Personal visit to center, June 2008.
the fate of uzbek language 241
73
F.I. Ryskulueva and E.V. Kazarinova, O sostoianiii i putiakh razvitiia Kyrgyzskoi
Respubliki, Obrazovanie v SNG. Problemy i perspektivy No. 1 (Jan) 2005, accessed
Nov. 11, 2009 through http://cis.bsu.by/second.aspx?uid=50type=Article.
74
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Uzbekskaia obshchestvennost Kirgizii pytaetsia
samostoiatelno reshit problemy shkolnogo obrazovaniia, http://www.ferghana.ru
/article.php?id=4983.
75
Pri Ministerstve obrazovaniia i nauki budet sozdan tsentr po sozdaniiu
uchebnikov, Novosti Kyrgyzstana, 7 April 2008, accessed http://www.for.kg/goid
.php?id=62098print.
76
A school director, responding to the member of parliament, stated that impor-
tation of textbooks from Uzbekistan had ceased a few years earlier. Abdumomun
Mamaraimov, Uzbekskaia obshchestvennost Kirgizii pytaetsia samostoiatelno reshit
problemy shkolnogo obrazovaniia, http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=4983,
16 March 2007.
77
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Uzbekskaia obshchestvennost Kirgizii pytaetsia
samostoiatelno reshit problemy shkolnogo obrazovaniia, http://www.ferghana.ru
/article.php?id=4983, 16 March 2007.
242 william fierman
78
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Voprosy obrazovaniiapredmet dlia obsuzhdeniia,
no ne dlia spekuliatsii, 4 Sep. 2009, http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6128.
79
Abdumomun Mamaraimov, Voprosy obrazovaniiapredmet dlia obsuzhdeniia,
no ne dlia spekuliatsii, 4 Sep. 2009, http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=6128.
80
Pozitsiia ozbekcha chiqa boshladi, Ozodlik radiosi 7 May 2009, http://www
.ozodlik.org/content/article/1623436.html. For a list of newspapers published in Osh
as of March 2008, including Uzbek ones, see Pechatnye izdaniia, http://osh.kg/index
.php?Itemid=316&id=59&option=com_content&task=view.
81
Uzbekskii iazyk v Kirgizii: Faktor riska, Report.kg, 20 May 2009, http://www
.report.kg/analitic/269-uzbekskijj-jazyk-v-kirgizii-faktor-riska.html, accessed 11 Nov
2009.
the fate of uzbek language 243
82
This may, however, just reflect a greater popularity of electronic than print media.
83
A. Mamaraimov, V Kirgizii nabliudaetsia ekspansiia uzbekskoi kultury.
Chto predprimut vlasti? Ferghana.ru, 24 July 2007 http://www.ferghana.ru/article
.php?id=5247, accessed 13 Nov. 2009.
84
O novykh resheniiakh prezidenta Kirgizii, DW-World.de, 3 June 2008, accessed
at http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=5247 on 13 Nov. 2009.
85
Kyrgyz Authorities to Cut Uzbek Language Programs, Ferghana.ru, 13 Aug.
2008, http://enews.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=2446 accessed, 14 Nov. 2009.
86
Despite its Russian name, Ekho doliny broadcasts not only in Russian, but
Uzbek as well (A. Mamaraimov, V Kirgizii nabliudaetsia ekspansiia uzbekskoi
kultury. Chto predprimut vlasti? Ferghana.ru 24 July 2007 http://www.ferghana.ru
/article.php?id=5247, accessed 13 Nov. 2009).
244 william fierman
Diydor and others than they are with the Kyrgyzstan stations, whose
broadcasts are mainly in Russian.87
Uzbek DVDs and CDs are said to enjoy unprecedented popularity
in the south of Kyrgyzstan, and are sold and rented throughout Kyr-
gyzstan, even in the north. According to one report, even in Bishkek,
where Russian language dominates, the kiosks that rent or sell films
dont offer customers new Uzbek films to buy as a last choice. [These
films] are increasingly squeezing western hits and Russian films out of
the market, which come to the region in smaller numbers than the pro-
duction of Uzbekfilm. In the words of the compact disks sellers on
every corner of large and mid-sized towns . . . Kyrgyz people buy Uzbek
films as much as Uzbeks do. This is even though all the films from
Uzbekistan come in Uzbek [postupaiut na uzbekskom iazyke].88
This would suggest that even if a significantly larger share of Uzbeks
begins to attend schools in Russian, the Uzbek language may be hold-
ing its own or expanding its domains in the south of Kyrgyzstan. In
the opinion of an ethnic Bashkir journalist in Osh, the Uzbek and
Kyrgyz languages are so mixed up in Kyrgyzstans south that local
Kyrgyz simply cannot get by without a knowledge of the everyday
Uzbek language.89 It appears that electronic media are playing an
important role in the growing knowledge of Uzbek among Kyrgyz,
who are said to speak better Uzbek today than five years ago and be
more tolerant towards Uzbek, less often insisting that Uzbeks speak
in Kyrgyz.90
Despite this reported tolerance, many of my own informal conversa-
tions with Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan have revealed a sense of alarm about
expansion of Uzbek culture and language. Many Kyrgyz are extremely
worried by repeated demands that Uzbek be made a state language,
87
A. Mamaraimov, V Kirgizii nabliudaetsia ekspansiia uzbekskoi kultury.
Chto predprimut vlasti? Ferghana.ru 24 July 2007 http://www.ferghana.ru/article
.php?id=5247, accessed 13 Nov. 2009.
88
One of the signs of these films popularity is said to be the posters with pictures
of Uzbek stars in any kiosk or office supply shop. (A. Mamaraimov, V Kirgizii
nabliudaetsia ekspansiia uzbekskoi kultury. Chto predprimut vlasti? Ferghana.ru
24 July 2007 http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=5247, accessed 13 Nov. 2009).
89
Uzbekskii iazyk v Kirgizii: Faktor riska, Report.kg, 20 May 2009, http://www
.report.kg/analitic/269-uzbekskijj-jazyk-v-kirgizii-faktor-riska.html, accessed 11 Nov.
2009.
90
A. Mamaraimov, V Kirgizii nabliudaetsia ekspansiia uzbekskoi kultury.
Chto predprimut vlasti? (Ferghana.ru 24 July 2007 http://www.ferghana.ru/article
.php?id=5247, accessed 13 Nov. 2009).
the fate of uzbek language 245
7.4.4. Kazakhstan
Like Uzbeks in Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks of
Kazakhstan for the most part inhabit areas of their country imme-
diately contiguous to Uzbekistan. However, the situation of Uzbeks
in Kazakhstan is very different from those in the other three coun-
tries. One of the reasons is that Kazakhstans economy has performed
much better than those of other Central Asian states. Another impor-
tant reason is that in Kazakhstan, Uzbeks constitute a small though
growing minority of the countrys total population. In 1989 Uzbeks
comprised about 2 percent of Kazakhstans population, by 1999 almost
2.5 percent, and in 2008, 2.9 percent.95 Related to this is the fact that
another of Kazakhstans ethnic minoritiesthe Russiansfar outnum-
ber Kazakhs. Around 90 percent of Kazakhstans Uzbeks live in South
Kazakhstan Oblast (SKO); most of the rest are in Zhambyl Oblast
91
Vlasti Kirgizii sozdali karmannoe obshchestvo uzbekov v protivoves Uzbekskomu
natsionalno-kulturnomu tsentry, Ferghana.ru, 6 Sept. 2006 http://www.ferghana
.ru/article.php?id=4578, accessed 14 Nov. 2009. For a discussion of demands see
Mononatsionalnoe upravlenie ne opravdalo sebia . . . (k voprosu o meste uzbekskogo
iazyka v Kyrgyzstane), http://www.analitika.org/article.php?story=20060613004734479,
accessed 14 Nov. 2009.
92
Eugene Huskey, The Politics of Language in Kyrgyzstan, Nationalities Papers
vol. 23, no. 3 (Sep. 1995), pp. 558-9.
93
Matteo Fumagalli, Framing Ethnic Minority Mobilisation in Central Asia: The
Case of Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Europe-Asia Studies vol. 59, no. 4 (June
2007), pp. 582-4.
94
Fumagalli Framing . . ., p. 588. This indeed occurred in spring 2010.
95
Qazaqstan Respublikasynyng statistika zhonindegi agenttigi, Qazaqstan Res-
publikasy khalqynyng ulttyq quramy (Tom 1). Almaty, 2008, pp. 6-8 and Qazaqstan
Respublikasynyng statistika zhonindegi agenttigi, Qazaqstannyng demografiyalyq zhyl-
namalygy, Astana 2008, p. 26. These figures are cited for the beginning of 2008.
246 william fierman
96
Sayram audany Qazaqstan ulttyq entsiklopediya, vol. 7, p. 521 (2005).
97
Nurtai Mustafaev, Osobennosti etnicheskogo sostava naseleniia Kazakhstana,
Demoskop Weekly, nos. 235-236, 20 Feb.5 March 2006, accessed 3 December 2009
at http://demoscope.ru/weekly/2006/0235/analit09.php. Savin places the share of
Uzbeks in the oblast population at 20 percent; however, the 1999 census shows under
17 percent, a figure cited by Uzbeki Kazakhstana . . . (Igor Savin, Etnichnost kak
faktor povsednevnoi zhizni v selskikh raionakh Iuzhnogo Kazakhstana, Neprikos-
novennyi zapas, no. 4 (66), 2009, accessed through http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA
.php?st=1258925460; Uzbeki Kazakhstana i kazakhi Uzbekistana. Diasporyeto
khorosho, no topornyi podkhod Tashkenta k granitsamplokho, Kontinent, 18
Oct. 2002 accessed at www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1034910480).
98
Data provided by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science.
99
Nauka i obrazovanie, Ofitsialnyi sayt Prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan,
http://www.akorda.kz/www/www_akorda_kz.nsf/sections?OpenFormid_doc=0E6CE6
88C288B389462572340019E827lang=ru.
100
Savin qualifies his data saying this refers to secondary schools supported by the
state budget. Because the number of private schools is very small, we can assume that
the figure of 3.1 is close to that for all schools (Etnichnost kak faktor . . .).
101
Price list for Mektep Publishers at mektep.kz. The numbers vary slightly between
the respective tracks for humanities and math/science, each of which has some unique
books of its own.
the fate of uzbek language 247
102
A report at the beginning of 2007 referred to an apparently recent meeting
between representatives of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan where the sides reached agree-
ment on the exchange of textbooks for Uzbek schools in Kazakhstan and Kazakh
schools in Uzbekistan. (Den nezavisimosti Respubliki Kazakhstan, Official Site of
the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the Republic of Uzbekistan, 31 Jan.
2007, accessed at http://kazembassy.uz/press-show-19.html 18 Nov. 2009. If true, this
is a very strange development, given that textbooks for Uzbekistans Uzbek-medium
schools are in a different alphabet from those in Kazakhstan.
103
Personal communication from Shakhnoza Yakubova.
104
A survey referred to in a 2007 report suggests that few Uzbeks or Uyghurs would
be likely to take the Kazakh or Russian version of the exam even if permitted, since
they recognize their skills in the language of the exam are inferior. (Liubov Dobrota,
Tolko trinadtsat protsentov vypusknikov uzbekskikh shkol Shymkenta vyskazalis za
uchastie v edinnom natsionalnom testirovanii, Kazakhstanskaia pravda, 13 March
2007, reproduced http://www.assembly.kz/idea_lang_stat.shtml?f=showtype=31id=14
3763869873). On the other hand, some spokesmen who were calling for the change
in regulation said that minority parents and pupils were not demanding privileges
and were not afraid to take the exam in Kazakh or Russian, despite the fact that
they received their education in their native language (A. Tilivaldi, Vypuskniki
uigurskikh shkol v Kazakhstane lisheny prava uchastiia v edinom natsionalnom tes-
tirovanii, 1 April 2008, Voice of Freedom, accessed through http://www.centrasia.ru
/newsA.php?st=1207077540).
105
N. Oka, Transnationalism As a Threat to State Security? Case Studies on
Uighurs and Uzbeks in Kazakhstan, in Empire, Islam, and Politics in Central Eurasia
(Sapporo, Japan: Slavic Research Center, 2007) accessed 18 Nov. 2009 through http://
src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/coe21/publish/no14_ses/14_oka.pdf. p. 354. As Oka also
points out, even before this Uzbek-language local papers were printed in Turkestan
and in Sairam raion.
248 william fierman
106
On this, see Oka Natsuko, Transnationalism . . .
107
Mehribon, Qozogiston ozbeklari qanday yashayapti? Ozodlik Radiosi, 3 Oct.
2005, accessed through http://www.ozodlik.org/content/article/1311358.html on 18
Nov. 2009.
108
V IuKO poiavilas novaia gazeta na uzbekskom iazyke, Kazakhstan Today,
10 May 2001, accessed 18 Nov. 2009 through http://newspaper.kz/art.asp?aid=1105.
109
Data taken from Gazetter, accessed at http://ontustik.kz/files-kz/ataposting
/222/gazet kaz.doc). Another source provides somewhat different figures on size
of editions, i.e., 8,000 for Janubiy Qozogiston and 7,000 for Sayram sadosi (SMI
Kazakhstana, http://www.adilsoz.kz/smi/ accessed 18 Nov. 2009). There are also dis-
crepancies between the sources on frequency of publication, but the data in Gazetter
seem more plausible, namely that these papers are respectively issued twice and once
weekly.
110
Mehribon Bekieva, Janubiy Qozoghistonda ananaviy Nazm yulduzlari
anjumani bolib otdi, Ferghana.ru, 24 Nov. 2006. http://uzbek.ferghana.ru/article
.php?id=671, accessed 18 Nov. 2009.
111
V IuKO proshel respublikanskii kurultai uzbekkov, Kazakhstan segodnia, 12
June 2008, accessed through http://www.nomad.su/?a=19-200806130516, 18 Nov.
2009.
the fate of uzbek language 249
7.5.1. Tajikistan
Besides being the poorest former Soviet country in the region, Tajiki-
stan has the most difficult job in disentangling its history and culture
from that of Uzbekistan, which in turn seeks to minimize the role of
Iranian-speaking peoples historical contribution to development in
the region. The debates between the two countries based in the regions
history aggravate other disagreements on current political, economic,
112
Indeed, in some villages of Kazakhstan near the border, the only television pro-
gramming available without a special antenna or other device is from Uzbekistan
(V aulakh, kuda ne dokhodit kazakhskoe televidenie, populiarny uzbekskie tele-
kanaly, Radio Azattyq, 15 Oct. 2009, accessed at http://rus.azattyq.org/content
/Zhinishke_village_TV/1851097.html 19 Nov. 2009.
113
It is unlikely that there is much interest in the publications that carry official
news, but publications about music, fashion, and health are likely much more popular.
(Local sources reporting by e-mail from Shymkent.)
250 william fierman
114
On some of the challenges of Tajikistans relations with Uzbekistan and other
neighbors see Saodat Olimova, Sobir Kurbonov, Grigory Petrov and Zebo Kahhorova,
Regional Cooperation in Central Asia. A View from Tajikistan, Problems of Eco-
nomic Transition, vol. 48, no. 9 (Jan. 2006), pp. 6-86.
115
According to Tajikistan census figures, over 30 percent of Uzbeks in Tajikistan
claimed to have a good command of Tajik (Richard Rowland, National and Regional
Population Trends in Tajikistan: Results from the Recent Census, Eurasian Geogra-
phy and Economics, vol. 46 no. 3 [2005], p. 217).
the fate of uzbek language 251
to the social and economic mobility offered to those who went a long
way to become Soviet men and Soviet women, including linguistic
russification. An analogous scenario for language shift seems unlikely
in Tajikistan. It would be plausible only over a very long period, in a
new economic and political environment, and perhaps accelerated by
intermarriage. The benefits to those Uzbeks willing to tajikify today
are likely of a much smaller magnitude than the benefits of linguistic
russification in the USSR. A large share of Tajikistans Uzbeks live in
areas where their ethnic group is the largest one or a large minor-
ity. Consequently, even if Uzbek is excluded from functions which fall
under state purview, the language seems likely to maintain a strong
position in many informal and even business settings.
7.5.2. Kyrgyzstan
Most of the above factors concerning Tajikistans Uzbeks also apply
to those in Kyrgyzstan. One difference may be that the prestige of the
state language is even weaker among Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan than in
Tajikistan, and (not unrelated) its geographic and thematic domains
smaller. One of the reasons for the lower prestige is that the literary
language Farsi, which Tajiks claim as their own, was widely used as a
written language in the region for centuries. Although Kyrgyz claim
that ancient Turkic monuments are part of their heritage, prior to the
twentieth century, their culture was transmitted almost exclusively in
oral fashion. The territorial spread of Farsi, the literary form of Tajik
(i.e., including Iran and Afghanistan) is also much larger than that
of Kyrgyz.116 Furthermore, Kyrgyz linguists have been much slower
in addressing questions of terminology development than their col-
leagues in Tajikistan; this may be partly because they do not have the
option of wholesale importation of vocabulary from a very closely
related language, i.e., the Farsi of Iran.117
116
See for comparison the article by Spooner on Persian, this volume.
117
Kazakh, as a language closely related to Kyrgyz with a somewhat more devel-
oped set of terminology, could serve as a source of Kyrgyz words. However, Kazakh
vocabulary itself is currently in a state of flux, and it is doubtful that many Kyrgyz
language planners would welcome this approach. Although Turkey has been very
active on the educational scene in Central Asia, there is a sense of resentment among
some Central Asians (including in Kyrgyzstan) about Turks who have come to the
region and assumed that they are the new elder brother for other Turkic speak-
ers. Although theoretically Kyrgyz could borrow vocabulary, for this reason it seems
252 william fierman
unlikely that Kyrgyz language planners would look to modern Turkish as a model or
primary source for vocabulary.
the fate of uzbek language 253
the airwaves and through CDs and DVDs, enjoys a large audience.
Kyrgyzstans mass media are hard pressed to comply with new laws
mandating that half of broadcast time be in the state language. In this
domain Kyrgyz electronic mass media are in a much weaker position
than their counterparts in Tajikistan, where the state language domi-
nates the airwaves. Until and unless the quality of Kyrgyz-language
radio and television programming greatly improves, it will not be in a
position to compete with Uzbek-language media, especially that com-
ing from Uzbekistan.
7.5.3. Kazakhstan
Paradoxically, even though opportunities for Uzbek-medium higher
education in Kazakhstan are more limited than in Kyrgyzstan or Tajik-
istan, it appears that the best Uzbek primary and secondary education
outside Uzbekistan is in Kazakhstan. This is almost certainly related to
the fact that Kazakhstan is blessed with resources that allow it to invest
much more in education than Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. Although per-
haps only a consequence of the sources I have consulted, it is sugges-
tive that I found no reports of demands for expanded Uzbek-medium
higher educational opportunities in Kazakhstan; rather, it appears that
the goal for many is not higher education in Uzbek, but the chance to
take entrance exams in Russian or Kazakh, and improved pedagogy
for teaching Russian and Kazakh languages so as to raise chances for
success in university entrance.118 A lack of demand for Uzbek-medium
education may also be related to the high status and widespread use
of Russian in Kazakhstan. Even today, the majority of Kazakhstans
students in higher education are in Russian tracks.119
Kazakhstans relatively strong economic development has pro-
foundly affected the dynamics of movement between Tashkent and
Shymkent, the district capital of the oblast where most Kazakhstani
Uzbeks reside. In the early 1990s, when economic reform was producing
a lower standard of living for people in Kazakhstan than Uzbekistan,
citizens of Kazakhstan would frequently speak of how much better
118
As noted above, until 2009 it was not possible for graduates of schools that were
not Russian- or Kazakh-medium to take the ENT.
119
William Fierman, Language Vitality and Paths to Revival: Contrasting Cases
of Azerbaijani and Kazakh, International Journal of the Sociology of Language,
vol. 198 (2009), p. 95.
254 william fierman
7.5.4. Turkmenistan
In some sense, the Turkmenistan case is the easiest of all to assess. As
described above, there are no Uzbek-medium classes and no domesti-
cally produced Uzbek mass media. The accessibility of Russian-medium
education has improved in Turkmenistan in recent years, but this does
not seem to imply a shift in the policy towards Uzbek schools. Russian,
after all, is a subject officially taught in all schools in Turkmenistan, and
is a bridge, among other things, to scientific and technical knowledge
and economic opportunities. The same does not apply to Uzbek.
the fate of uzbek language 255
120
Joshua Fishman, Bilingualism With or Without Diglossia: Diglossia With or
Without Bilingualism, Journal of Social Issues, vol. 23 (1967).
256 william fierman
7.6. Conclusion
players, antennas, and dishes might be effective in the short run, but
such measures would be extremely unpopular (not only with Uzbeks)
and costly. Even in a state like Turkmenistan, the digital revolution
has given individual citizens the opportunity to select media that
the powerful leadership would prefer they avoid. Moreover, both in
Turkmenistan and the other Central Asian states, even where Uzbek
might lose ground in the educational domain, technology seems to
support its maintenance in certain other areas, including the home.
References
Twilight Existence for Uzbek Illegals, Institute for War Peace Reporting, (RCA No.
530), 7 Feb. 2008, accessed at http://iwpr.net/?p=rcas=fo=342550apc_state=henh on
24 Nov. 2009.
Uzbeki Kazakhstana i kazakhi Uzbekistana. Diasporyeto khorosho, no topornyi
podkhod Tashkenta k granitsamplokho, Kontinent, 18 Oct. 2002 accessed at
www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1034910480.
Uzbekskie shkoly, Khronika Turkmenistana, 3 Aug. 2006, accessed at http://www
.chrono-tm.org/?id=682.
Uzbekskii iazyk v Kirgizii: Faktor riska, Report.kg, 20 May 2009, accessed at http://
www.report.kg/analitic/269-uzbekskijj-jazyk-v-kirgizii-faktor-riska.html.
Uzbekskoe radio zagovorilo na turkmenskom, Khronika Turkmenistan, 29 July
2006, accessed at http://www.chrono-tm.org/?id=846 accessed 4 Nov. 2009.
V aulakh, kuda ne dokhodit kazakhskoe televidenie, populiarny uzbekskie tele-
kanaly, Radio Azattyq 15 Oct. 2009, accessed at http://rus.azattyq.org/content
/Zhinishke_village_TV/1851097.html.
V IuKO poiavilas novaia gazeta na uzbekskom iazyke, Kazakhstan Today, 10 May
2001, accessed at http://newspaper.kz/art.asp?aid=1105.
V IuKO proshel respublikanskii kurultai uzbekkov, Kazakhstan segodnia, 12 June
2008, accessed at http://www.nomad.su/?a=19-200806130516.
Vlasti Kirgizii sozdali karmannoe obshchestvo uzbekov v protivoves Uzbekskomu
natsionalno-kulturnomu tsentry, Ferghana.ru, 6 Sep. 2006, accessed at http://
www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=4578.
Volkov, V. and D. Nazarov, O. Saryev. Pritesneniia natsionalnykh menshinstv, Uzbekii
protestuiut, Nemetskaia volna, 9 Jan. 2005, accessed at http://www.centrasia.ru
/newsA.php?st=1105368360.
Vsesoiuznaia knizhnaia palata. Letopis periodicheskikh i prodolzhaiuishchikhsia izdanii
19711975. Chast II. Gazety. (items 3043, 3058, 3062, 3136).
Vystuplenie Prezidenta Respubliki Tadzhikistan Emomali Rahmona na tseremonii
otkrytiia novoi obshcheobrazovatelnoi shkoly v gorode Tursunzade, 11 Sep. 2007,
accessed at www.president.tj/rus/vistupleniy110907.htm#.
Whitsel, Christopher. (2009). Growing Inequality: Post-Soviet Transition and Edu-
cational Participation in Tajikistan, unpublished PhD dissertation, Indiana Uni-
versity.
Zununii, A. Spasenie repressiruemykhdelo ruk samikh repressirovannykh?
14 June 2007, accessed at www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1181817420.
SECTION III
Robert Nichols
1
There are only unofficial estimates for the current (c. 2004) population of Afghan-
istan, with the Pashtun ethnic population estimated at 38-44% of 28.7 million Afghans
by the U.S. State Department. Many non-Pashtun Afghans also speak Pashto. Esti-
mates for Pakistan in the NWFP and FATA (about 16-17 million people) are from
Tariq Rahman, Language, Education, and Culture, (Karachi: Oxford University Press,
1999), p. 284. Swat State was a small princely state located just north of the NWFP
and east of Afghanistan.
2
In Afghanistan, Dari (Afghan Persian) is the second major language, among
many other languages.
3
Harold F. Schiffman, Linguistic Culture and Language Policy, Routledge, 1996,
p. 3.
264 robert nichols
4
See Bibliography for Raverty references.
5
See full discussion and definitions in Schiffman, 1996, especially Chapter 1,
Introduction and Chapter 2, Typologies of multilingualism and typologies of lan-
guage policy.
pashto language policy and practice 265
6
See discussion of the Fishman extended diglossia development of the earlier
concept of diglossia in Fishman, 1967 and references in Schiffman, 1996, pp. 13,
15, 28.
7
Swat State was fully incorporated into Pakistan in 1969. See F. Barth and Miangul
Jahanzeb (1988).
8
Peshawar city was and is the leading urban area of the NWFP. See the Introduc-
tory Remarks, Raverty (1860: x).
266 robert nichols
9
Italics found in the original.
10
For discussion of the Pashtunistan issue, see Dupree (1980: pp. 538-54) and
Roberts (2004).
268 robert nichols
11
For further discussion of the problem, see Mansoor (2004).
pashto language policy and practice 269
12
Tariq Rahman notes in Pakistan in 2002, there were perhaps 10,000 madrasas
having 1.7 million students. Dawn, July 20, 2004, Pakistan Review section, p. XVII.
13
Mansoor (2004: 62). Zobeida Jalal, Federal Minister for Education, claimed the
literacy rate had risen to 55% in July 2004. News, July 30, 2004, p. 11.
14
Polarized education was the title of Rahmans July 20, 2004 Dawn newspaper
article.
15
Ten grades led to the Matric. Two more years earned an Intermediate, FA or
FSc degree. A four-year BA Graduation program might follow, leading to Masters
and PhD possibilities.
270 robert nichols
16
The News, July 26, 2004, p. 15.
pashto language policy and practice 271
17
1998 census numbers, The News, July 22, 2004, p. 12.
18
Dawn, July 20, 2004, Pakistan Review, p. XVII.
19
Statistics and quotation are from the News, August 1, 2004, Special Report, p. 25.
The quotation is from Dr. Nasim Ashraf, National Commission on Human Develop-
ment, Pakistan.
20
The tension between NWFP administrative traditions of English use and pres-
sures from populist politicians and perhaps allied lower status government workers
with greater Urdu skills (Rahmans Urdu proto-elite) resulted in a memo that cir-
culated through NWFP offices in summer 2004. It announced that official correspon-
dence was now to be written in Urdu. The memo was written in English.
272 robert nichols
21
Certainly multiple press runs of lower numbers might occur and upset any
simple correspondence of press runs and enrollments, but the dramatic differences
discussed seem to offer fair evidence.
22
These were the titles and press runs of the books available in Peshawars Chowk
Yadgar bookstores in summer 2004. Pakhto is the eastern/northeastern version
of the Pashto language (the sh letter/sound becomes kh, etc.). My transcriptions in
Pashto and English are not meant to be anything more than simple transcriptions
from the actual Pashto script from the volumes themselves.
pashto language policy and practice 273
23
My colleague Khudadad first translated this index. Changes and the final list are
my responsibility.
pashto language policy and practice 277
Contents Page
1 Prayer (dua, by Rahman Baba) 5
2 You will reap what you sow 6
3 Caring for parents 8
4 Guidance 11
5 Birth of the Prophet (nazm) verse 13
6 How Pakistan came into being 14
7 The Badshahi mosque (of Lahore) 17
8 Maulana Muhammad Ali Gohar 19
9 Time and Money verse 22
10 Hakeem Al Razi (Dr. Abu Bakr ibn Zikria Razi) 24
11 Buddhism (On a temple in Swat) 26
12 Chitral 28
13 Oh Muslim! verse 30
14 Pakistans Wealth (Forests) 31
15 Medicine and Surgery in Islamic Andalus 33
16 A true Mujahid (Abdullah ibn Zubair, Prophets companion) 35
17 Dont be big. . . . verse 38
18 Loving the country made 40
19 Syed Ahmad Shahid Barelvi 43
20 Ghazis Song verse 46
21 Dysentery 48
22 Gabir ibn Hayan (father of chemistry) 50
23 Electricity Plants (kar khani) 52
24 The war for independence of Kashmir 55
25 A clever judge 58
26 A kind King of China 62
27 The song of ants (sandarah) verse 64
28 Jihad 66
29 Salahuddin Ayubi 69
30 Mohenjodaro 71
31 Khyber Gate verse 73
32 Our Baluchi brothers 75
33 Dr. Fleming (penicillin) 77
34 Real Life verse 79
35 Pakistans Wealth (industrial) 80
36 The Atom 82
37 Working oneself is a tradition (of the Prophet) 84
38 Manly Boy 86
39 Who is stupid? verse 88
40 Cleanliness of streets and footpaths 89
41 The Force of Faith 91
42 Our Sindhi Brothers 94
43 Conduct (adab) verse 96
44 Parachinar (FATA region) 97
45 Datta Ganj Bakhsh (religious saint) 99
278 robert nichols
(cont.)
Contents Page
46 Ghazis Song (tarana) verse 101
47 The natural resources of Pakistan 103
48 The Conqueror of Iran (Saad ibn Abi Waqas) 105
49 Flowers in the Earth verse 107
50 Rocket 108
51 I am a Ghazi verse 110
52 Climber of a volcanic mount, Part One 113
53 Climber of a volcanic mount, Part Two 115
54 Pakistan verse
References
Aziz, K.K. (1993). The Murder of History, A critique of history textbooks used in Paki-
stan. Lahore: Vanguard.
Barth, F. & Jahanzeb, Miangul. (1988). The Last Wali of Swat: An Autobiography. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Cohn, Bernard. (1996). The Command of Languages and the Language of Com-
mand, in Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, pp. 16-56.
Dupree, Louis. (1980). Afghanistan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fishman, Joshua. (1967). Bilingualism With and Without Diglossia: Diglossia With
and Without Bilingualism, in Journal of Social Issues, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 29-38.
. (1971). Societal bilingualism: stable and transitional, in Sociolinguistics: A Brief
Introduction, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, second printing, pp. 73-89.
Leitner, G.W. (1882). History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab Since Annexation
and in 1882. Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Press.
Mansoor, Sabiha. (2004). The Medium of Instruction Dilemma: Implications for Lan-
guage Planning in Higher Education, in S. Mansoor, S. Meraj, and A. Tahir (eds).
Language Policy, Planning, and Practice. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
Malik, Jamal. (1996). Colonization of Islam. Lahore: Vanguard Books.
Morgenstierne, Georg. (1932). Report on a Linguistic Mission to North-Western India.
Norway: Instituttet For Sammenlignende Kulturforskning. Reprint Karachi: Indus
Publication, n.d.
24
See Fishman (1971: 75) for discussion of Speech Communities Characterized By
Both Diglossia and Bilingualism.
pashto language policy and practice 281
Rahman, Tariq. (1998). Language and Politics in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University
Press.
. (1999). Language, Education, and Culture. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
. (2002). Language, Ideology and Power: Language-learning among the Muslims of
Pakistan and North India. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
Raverty, H.G. (1860). A Dictionary of the Pukkhto or Pukshto Language. Peshawar:
Saeed Book Bank, 1982 reprint.
. (1860). A Dictionary of the Pukkhto or Pukshto Language. Peshawar: Saeed Book
Bank, 1982 reprint.
. (1855). A Grammar of the Pukhto, Pushto or Language of the Afghans. New Delhi:
Asian Educational Services, 1987 reprint.
. (1860). The Gulshan-i-roh: being selections, prose and poetical, in the Pushto or
Afghan language. London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.
. (1878). Notes on Afghanistan and Baluchistan. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications,
reprint 2001.
Roberts, Jeffrey. (2004). The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan. London: Praeger.
Schiffman, Harold F. (1996). Linguistic Culture and Language Policy. London: Routledge.
CHAPTER NINE
Jeffrey M. Diamond
1
For a review about the use of Persian during Mughal rule, see, Muzaffar Alam.
The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 32,
no. 2, May 1998, pp. 317-49.
a vernacular for a new generation? 283
2
This definition does not include language planning. This paper uses the term ver-
nacularoften part of British discoursein reference to several Indian languages. The
use of the term vernacular does not imply the language is less significant.
3
The formation of official policy is the focus of this paper. Although difficult to
ascertain, in practice, one could argue the de facto language policy in colonial Punjab
was more amenable to local languages as colonial institutions had to adapt as well
(discussed below). For further discussion about centrist and de facto language policy,
see the Introduction to this volume as well as Harold F. Schiffman Linguistic Culture
and Language Policy. London: Routledge, 1996.
284 jeffrey m. diamond
4
For an examination about the development of Urdu in relation to social and reli-
gious reform in later nineteenth century Punjab, see Jeffrey M. Diamond. Negotiating
Muslim Identity: Education, Print and Intellectuals in Nineteenth Century Colonial
North India. Cambria, (forthcoming).
5
Bernard Spolsky argues that language policy consists of three components
language practices, beliefs, and efforts to modify these practices. This article will exam-
ine language policy in northwest India through a similar method. Bernard Spolsky.
Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 5.
6
For a definition of linguistic culture, see, Schiffman 1996, p. 5.
a vernacular for a new generation? 285
7
See Griersons study of Punjabi for a brief discussion on the other languages and
their influences in the region. George A. Grierson. Linguistic Survey of India. Vol. IX,
Indo-Aryan Family Central Group. Specimens of Western Hindi and Panjabi. Calcutta:
Superintendent of Government Printing, 1916, especially pp. 607-19.
286 jeffrey m. diamond
8
The catalogues of these records provide some insight into the workings of the
Sikh administration. See, for instance, Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry. Punjab Government
Record Office Publications. A Guide to the Punjab Secretariat Record Office, Lahore.
Lahore: Punjab Government, n.d., pp. 8-13.
9
For a listing of the Persian records of the Sikh court, see, Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry.
Punjab Government Record Office Publications. Calendar of Persian Correspondence:
Collection of Treaties, Sanads, Letters, Etc., Passed Between the East India Company,
Sikhs, Afghans, and other Notables. vol. 1. Lahore: Superintendent, Government Print-
ing, 1972.
10
The administration of justice is an important source for these records. For an
overview of the administration during Sikh rule with associated Persian documents,
see, J.S. Grewal. In the By-Lanes of History: Some Persian Documents from a Punjab
Town. Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1975, pp. 25-32.
11
These texts were popularly used in schools throughout the Punjab. For a study
of maktab education, see Diamond, (forthcoming).
12
Kayasth scribes gained prominence during the late eighteenth century. See, Aziz
Ahmad. Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment. Delhi: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1999 (reprint of 1966 edition) pp. 234-6.
a vernacular for a new generation? 287
13
For a discussion on the literacy aware society of north India, see C.A. Bayly.
Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India,
17801870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 38-40.
14
The Mahabharata and Ramayana were two important epics that also had ver-
nacular language translations by the nineteenth century. This allowed these texts to be
read and accessed by a more diverse group than the few familiar with Sanskrit.
15
For instance, few Muslims understood Arabic beyond the recitation of texts such
as the Quran. See, Muhammad Qasim Zaman. Commentaries, Print and Patronage:
Hadith and the Madrasas in Modern South Asia. Bulletin of the School of Oriental
and African Studies, vol. 62, no. 1, 1999, pp. 60-3. A similar argument has been made
about Brahmins and higher caste Hindus, who developed an exclusive system for
maintaining their superior status. See Poromesh Acharya. Indigenous Education
and Brahminical Hegemony in Bengal. in Nigel Crook (ed.), The Transmission of
Knowledge in South Asia: Essays on Education, Religion, History, and Politics. Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1996, especially p. 116.
16
Any traveler can recognize that this folk religious practice has retained currency
to this day. Other Islamic phrases include the ubiquitous Inshallah (God willing).
17
This includes various dialects classified by the British colonial officials. In the 1881
census, approximately 95% of people in the Punjab proper spoke a dialect of Punjabi. For
detailed information by district, see the Gazetteer series, such as Gazetteer of the Lahore
District, 18834. Lahore: Punjab Government, 1884.
18
There has been much writing on Sufism in Punjab and North India that details the
important role Sufism has played in transferring Muslim religious ideals through oral
culture. One interesting article that relates Sufi practice to religious and political culture
288 jeffrey m. diamond
is Richard M. Eaton. The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid,
in Metcalf, Barbara, ed., Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian
Islam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984, pp. 333-56.
19
Persian Sufi mysticism influenced Sufi practices throughout North India. The
Persian influence is discussed in Aziz, Studies in Islamic Culture, p. 233.
20
G.W. Leitner also argued that the various forms of commercial writing were
all related to Lande, and were modifications of Nagri. For his comments and exam-
ples of lande, see G.W. Leitner. History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab Since
Annexation and in 1882. Lahore: Republican Books, 1991 (reprint of 1882 original),
p. iii, Appendix VII. Gurmukhi is said to be an adapted from lande and devanagri. See
Grierson, Linguistic Survey, p. 624.
21
The Adi Granth and related literature forms the core of Sikh literature in gur-
mukhi at the India Office Library. See, C. Shackle. Catalogue of the Panjabi and Sindhi
Manuscripts in the India Office Library. London: Indian Office Library and Records,
1977, Introduction and pp. 1-20.
22
The Persian Masnavi influenced Punjabi narrative poetry. Christopher Shackle,
Some Observations on the Evolution of Modern Standard Punjabi, in Joseph
OConnell, Milton Israel, and Willard Oxtoby (eds.), Sikh History and Religion in the
Twentieth Century. Toronto: South Asian Studies, Univ. of Toronto, 1988, pp. 105-7.
23
Christopher Shackle, Between Scripture and Romance: The Yusuf-Zulaikha Story
in Panjabi. South Asia Research, vol. 15, no. 2, Autumn 1995, pp. 164-6.
a vernacular for a new generation? 289
24
Shackle, 1988, pp. 105-6. Grierson even argued that a very small portion of
the Adi Granth was in Punjabi, as it was a mixture of different languages. Grierson,
Linguistic Survey, p. 618.
25
For instance, one nineteenth century manuscript listed in Takkars Descriptive
Catalogue of Panjabi Manuscripts contains words that Takkar believes were mis-spelt
or written in an unconventional way. Amrit Lal Takkar, Descriptive Catalogue of Pan-
jabi Manuscripts in the Vrindaban Research Institute. Vrindaban: Vrindaban Research
Institute, 1996, p. 29.
26
This concept is explored by a discussion about Bhudev Mukhopadhyays view of
Hindustani as the most common-intelligible language for people in all areas of India,
not the most common-spoken, in Sudipta Kaviraj. The Two Histories of Literary Cul-
ture in Bengal in Sheldon Pollock (ed.), Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions
from South Asia. Berkeley: University of California, Press, 2003, pp. 510-2.
27
An important Muslim Punjabi poet from the southern Punjab princely state of
Bahawalpur in the later nineteenth century knew Urdu, Siraiki, Sindhi, Braj along with
Arabic and Persian; he also wrote in various scripts. See Christopher Shackle, Urdu as
a sideline: the poetry of Khwaja Ghulam Farid, in Christopher Shackle (ed.), Urdu and
Muslim South Asia: Studies in Honour of Ralph Russell. London: SOAS, 1989, pp. 78-9.
290 jeffrey m. diamond
28
This idea is developed in Javed Majeeds analysis of the expansion of British rule
in North India and the early nineteenth century Urdu writer, Sayyid Inhsa Allah Khan
from Delhi. Javed Majeed, The Jargon of Indostan: An Exploration of Jargon in Urdu
and East India Company English in Peter Burke and Roy Porter (eds.), Languages and
Jargons: Contributions to a Social History of Language. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press,
1995, pp. 191-6.
29
For a general discussion about the usage of Urdu for administration, see, Chris-
topher Shackle and Rupert Snell. Hindi and Urdu since 1800: A Common Reader.
London: SOAS, 1990, pp. 1-8.
30
Jack Goody. The Interface Between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1987, pp. 125-38.
a vernacular for a new generation? 291
A similar argument can be made for the Muslim Middle East, where
a long Arab intellectual tradition existed as part of an overwhelmingly
oral society.31 Indeed, Muslim religious knowledge has been widely
accessible in oral societies, and the Quran has had a long history of
oral usage and significance.32
Therefore, early colonial Punjab offered a diverse linguistic frontier,
where several oral and literate languages operated by 1849. This diverse
usage must have presented a daunting task for colonial officials. In
order to order and evaluate these languages, an entire series of studies
was commissioned that helped to formulate colonial knowledge about
languages and cultures the region. These studies became central to the
later beliefs and attitudes that influenced the development of language
policy in the region.
31
For example, see, Albert Hourani. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1991.
32
Orality is important to Muslims as the Quran was revealed to Muhammad orally.
It was written down only after the death of Muhammad. However, the Quran is still
learned orally and it is common for many Muslims to memorize the entire Quran in
order to orally recite aiyas (verses) for prayer and folk religious purposes.
292 jeffrey m. diamond
33
This discussion provides a background for the linguistic studies that are exam-
ined in the ensuing section; thus, it is meant to be an illustrative (and not exhaustive)
account of early colonial studies and perspectives of the Punjab.
34
John Malcolm. Sketch of the Sikhs; A Singular Nation, Who Inhabit the Provinces
of the Penjab, Situated Between the Rivers Jumna and Indus. London: John Murray,
1812, pp. 1-2. Malcolm was born to a large family in Scotland in 1769. He left for
India in 1782, and spent considerable time in Persia. The Sketch of the Sikhs was
one of several historical writings that also included the Sketch of the Political His-
tory of India, 17841806, written in 1810. For details of Malcolms life, see, Rodney
Pasley, Send Malcolm! The Life of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, 17691933.
London: Bacsa, 1982.
35
Henry T. Prinsep. The Origin of the Sikh Power in the Punjab and Political Life of
Maharaja Ranjit Singh with an Account of the Religion, Laws and Customs of the Sikhs.
Patiala: Languages Department, Punjab, 1970 (reprint of 1834 edition).
a vernacular for a new generation? 293
36
For example, see, R.H. Davies, R.E. Egerton, R. Temple, and J.H. Morris. Report
of the Revised Settlement of the Lahore District in the Lahore Division. Lahore: Punjab
Government, 1860.
37
Munshi Charanjit Lal. Tarikh-e Zillah Dera Ismail Khan. Lahore: Central Jail
Press, 1878.
38
For example, see, Gazetteer of the Lahore District, 18834.
39
I use the term literate only to indicate a language that has significant use in both
oral and written forms.
40
The language(s) these people could write was not clear, but it may refer to the
literate elite who utilized Urdu, Persian, and other textual languages. Report on the
Census of the Punjab, Taken on 10th January 1868. Lahore: Indian Public Opinion
Press, 1870, p. 35.
294 jeffrey m. diamond
The previous studies helped to illustrate, for the British, that Punjabi
was mainly an oral language. In addition, further attitudes and beliefs
about Punjabi were developed by the expanding missionary linguis-
tic studies of the region. These philological efforts indicate a concern
about Punjabi, as Punjabi was the most widely known language
even according to colonial studies. Yet, while such studies could have
helped to improve colonial perceptions of Punjabi, the result of these
efforts was the opposite; they helped to foster further negative atti-
tudes toward Punjabi on the part of the colonial administration.
The linguistic studies about the Punjab were part of larger programs
undertaken by colonial administrations and missionaries in India that
had a profound effect upon all Indian languages, including Urdu and
Punjabi. Many Indian languages lacked a standard grammar or diction-
ary during early colonial encounters, yet they were thought to have a
41
Gazetteer of the Rawalpindi District, 18831884. Lahore: Civil and Military
Gazette, 1884, p. 55.
42
Grierson argued this in 1916, well into colonial rule. Grierson, Linguistic Survey,
p. 618.
a vernacular for a new generation? 295
43
David Washbrook, To Each a Language of His Own: Language, Culture, and
Society in Colonial India, in Penelope J. Corfield (ed.), Language, History, and Class.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991, pp. 180-1.
44
Sudipto Kaviraj, Writing, Speaking, Being: Language and the Historical Formation
of Identities in India, in Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanayagam and Dietmar Rothermund
(eds.), Nationalstaat und Sprachkonflikte in Sd- und Sdostasien. Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner Verlag, 1992, pp. 25-68.
45
It is important to note that grammars and dictionaries were part of the processes
of standardization. The complex reforms also involved the spread of printed works
that incorporated such standards, and the use of Punjabi by missionaries.
46
This does not imply that Punjabi was a less important or less advanced lan-
guage, but rather that colonial and missionary attempts to standardize the language
had not significantly begun by 1849.
296 jeffrey m. diamond
47
Carey located the station in Serampore, A Danish territory near Calcutta, because
of the objections of the East India Company to his missionary activities. He was born
in 1761, and developed a fondness for learning languages, and became an impor-
tant missionary and linguist in India. For information about William Carey and his
missionary activities, see M. Siddiq Khan, William Carey and the Serampore Books
(18001834). Copenhagen: Monksgaard, 1961, pp. 204-36; George Smith, The Life of
William Carey, D.D.: Shoemaker and Missionary. London: John Murray, 1885.
48
William Carey. A Grammar of the Punjabee Language. Serampur: Mission Press,
1812, Preface. Grierson argued that Careys work was the first to describe the Panjabi
language. Grierson, Linguistic Survey, p. 618.
49
For example, Carey inspired pandits and munshis at Fort William College
to write Bengali texts. See, Kanti Prasanna SenGupta. The Christian Missionaries in
Bengal, 17931833. Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1971, pp. 124-7.
a vernacular for a new generation? 297
origin . . . derived from the Sungskrit . . . and . . . from the Arabic, Persian,
Pushtu, and other languages spoken in the vicinity of the Punjab.50
Early missionary activities also included the publication of bibli-
cal literature in Punjabi. Missionaries believed that a translation of the
Bible would facilitate the evolution of an indigenous literature. Indeed,
Robert Cust, the Judicial Commissioner in the Punjab during the 1860s,
argued that the Bible is the nucleus of an indigenous literature; due
to its translation into an Indian language, the grammatical structure
of the language became fixed, and a certain amount of permanence is
guaranteed to its existence.51 Cust may have exaggerated the role of
missionaries, nonetheless, the Serampore Mission published a transla-
tion of the New Testament into Punjabi, utilizing the gurmukhi script,
in 1811.52 This appears to be the first copy of any portion of the Bible to
be published in Punjabi.53 Careys Grammar (in progress during 1811)
may have facilitated this translation. By 1820, Carey claimed that his
translation of the Bible caused a considerable stir in the minds of the
people in the Punjab at that time.54
The publications of William Carey and his Serampore Mission proved
highly influential in the development of Indian languages such as Ben-
gali. However, his publications has a less direct impact upon the devel-
opment of Punjabi. It is not clear why Careys work on Punjabi was
not as effective, but his writings may not have been widely available to
missionaries and colonial officials who began further studies on Punjabi
in the 1830s and 1840s.55 Still, Careys efforts at Serampore facilitated
the foundation for later missionary efforts. His efforts illustrated that
grammars, dictionaries and bibles assisted with missionary activities and
50
Carey, A Grammar, Preface.
51
Robert Needham Cust. Language, as Illustrated by Bible-Translation, in
R.N. Cust, Notes on Missionary Subjects. Part I. London: Elliot Stock, 1888, p. 64. Cust
was sympathetic toward missionaries, and he is discussed in further detail below.
52
Paramesvar de sabh bacan visekhkarkai jo manhkhadi rakia ate kajde sadhle lai
prakasia soi dharam pothi. Serampur: Mission Press, 1811.
53
It has been argued that later missionaries did not find Careys work useful as they
translated the Bible several further times. John S.M. Hooper, (revised by W.J. Culshaw).
Bible Translation in India, Pakistan, and Ceylon, 2nd ed. London: Oxford University
Press, 1963, p. 135. Yet, this also may have been because each mission sought to pro-
vide its own translation and interpretation of various parts of the Bible.
54
Carey is quoted in Smith, The Life of William Carey, p. 263.
55
Careys works on Punjabi were not widely diffused in North India. This may
be due to the Great Fire of 1812 at the Serampore Mission that destroyed much of
Careys writings, minimizing their eventual dispersion in India. For information about
the fire, see Khan, William Carey, p. 236.
298 jeffrey m. diamond
56
For details of the American Presbyterian Mission at Ludhiana, see John C. Lowrie.
A Manual of Missions; Sketches of the Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church: With
Maps Showing the Stations and Statistics of Protestant Missions Among Unevangelized
Nations. NY: Anson D.F. Randolph, 1854; John C.B. Webster, The Christian Commu-
nity and Change in North India: A History of the Punjab and North India Missions
of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, 18341914, PhD dissertation, University of
Pennsylvania, 1971.
57
Idiomatic Sentences, in English and Panjabi. Lodiana: American Presbyterian Mis-
sion Press, 1846. This work is attributed to Rev. Levi Janvier and Rev. John Newton.
58
Idiomatic Sentences, pp. 12-3.
59
Reverend Levi Janvier provides this background in the Dictionary published
in 1854 (examined below). Committee of the Lodiana Mission. A Dictionary of the
Panjabi Language. Lodiana: Mission Press, 1854, Preface.
a vernacular for a new generation? 299
60
John Newton. A Grammar of the Panjabi Language; With Appendices. Lodhiana:
American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1851, Preface.
61
Newton, A Grammar, Preface.
62
This also includes the comparative grammar by Robert Leech in 1838 (discussed
below) that mainly provided details about vocabulary. Thus, Newton would not have
found it helpful.
300 jeffrey m. diamond
63
This standard continued to be used through the nineteenth century. Conse-
quently, the Gazetteer of the Ludhiana District stated the The language of the dis-
trict is Panjabi in a very pure form. See, Gazetteer of the Ludhiana District, 18889.
Calcutta: Calcutta Central Press Co., 1890, p. 59.
64
The division of these dialects is based upon Griersons analysis on Punjabi from
1916 that still serves as a model for the classification of Punjabi dialects. Grierson,
Linguistic Survey, pp. 607-46.
65
In the 1850s, a large function of the Ludhiana Mission press was to publish
religious materials for different missionary organizations in the region. This mainly
a vernacular for a new generation? 301
included translated portions of the Old and New Testaments in Punjabi. For exam-
ple, see, The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Lodiana Mission, For the Year Ending
September 30th, 1852. Lodiana: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1852.
66
John Newton. Grammar of the Panjabi Language; With Appendices. Second Edi-
tion. Lodhiana: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1866.
67
John Beames. A Comparative Grammar of the Modern Aryan Languages of
India: To Wit, Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, and Bangali. London:
Trubner and Co., 1872.
68
Grierson, Linguistic Survey, p. 609.
302 jeffrey m. diamond
69
Similarly, the numerous dialects of Bengali also hampered its initial use for
administration in the early nineteenth century. For a discussion about early British
attitudes toward Bengali, see, Christopher R. King. One Language, Two Scripts: The
Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India. Bombay: Oxford University Press,
1994, pp. 54-7.
70
R. Leech. Epitome of the Grammars of the Brahuiky, Baluchky, and Panjabi Lan-
guages with Vocabulary of the Baraky, Pashi, Laghmani, Cashgari, Teerhai and Deer
Dialects. (Reprinted from the 1838 Asiatic Society Journal). Calcutta: R.C. Lepage and
Co., 1849, p. 33.
a vernacular for a new generation? 303
of Urdu. Leechs work was published in book form during the annexa-
tion of the Punjab in 1849, as the need for grammars increased. It
was one of the first significant colonial studies to explicitly argue that
Punjabi was a dialect of Urdu. The more substantial missionary efforts
that began at this time (such as Careys Grammar) did not radically
change the view that Punjabi was a dialect, as they were written for
people who already knew Urdu.
The view that Punjabi was a dialect of Urdu remained for several
years following annexation, and it influenced colonial policy concern-
ing education. In 1862, a question was posed to Captain A.R. Fuller,
the Director of Public Instruction in the Punjab, about the viability of
Punjabi in the courts. He readily dismissed the advocacy of Punjabi as
a court vernacular by denigrating the significance of Punjabi. Fuller
believed that, Punjabee is merely a dialect of Urdoo, and, As a written
language it makes its appearance only in the Goormookhee Character, a
bastard form of the Nagree, almost as bad as the Kuyasthe of the N.W.
Provinces.71 Fullers attitudes illustrate the low opinions about Punjabi
in administrative circles. As the head of the colonial governments edu-
cational establishment of the time, his opinion was highly regarded.
For colonial officials, a second concern about Punjabi was the
apparent oral nature of the language. This understanding was fostered
by early administrative developments in various districts (discussed
below) and many empirical studies of the region (including the census
data) that illustrated the main spoken language of the region to be
Punjabi. Moreover, officials did not view favorably the perceived lack
of a strong written tradition. Thus, as colonial perceptions regarding
oral language were somewhat negative, the oral nature of Punjabi was
not viewed positively. Literacy brought with it notions of civilization
and progress, while illiteracy (orality) implied almost an uncivilized
society and social setup. For example, an administrator at one early
school in the Simla settlement in 1849 went so far as to describe his
illiterate students as wholly uncivilized.72
71
Fuller to Sec. Government of Punjab, 22 July 1862, No. 32, in, Nazir Ahmad
Chaudhry. Punjab Government Record Office Publications. Development of Urdu as Offi-
cial Language in the Punjab (18491947). Lahore: Evergreen Press, 1977, p. 37.
72
Additional opinions included beliefs that students are entirely ignorant, again
referring to the students inability to read and write to a measurable standard. OIOC
(Oriental and India Office Collections), Home/Misc/760, p. 408.
304 jeffrey m. diamond
Thirdly, the belief that Punjabi did not have a strong textual tradi-
tion was further undermined by the widely held view that the limited
written works of Punjabi were connected to gurmukhi and Sikh texts.
This association began with early literary studies of texts in Punjabi
that mainly discussed the Sikh Adi Granth. For instance, John Mal-
colm offered an early attempt to understand these texts in his Sketch of
the Sikhs. As a study of the book of the Sikhs Malcolm wrote about
the Gurumukh character of Punjabi.73 Thus, he was one of the first
British authors to link gurmukhi with Punjabi. Missionary writings,
beginning with the early efforts of William Carey and the Serampore
Missionaries (in 18111812), also furthered the belief that written Pun-
jabi was associated mainly with gurmukhi texts. The American Presby-
terian Mission later believed that gurmukhi was the standard script for
Punjabi as well. Thus, they believed that Punjabi (at least in the written
form) was the language important to the Sikhs, and they adapted their
press to allow them to print Punjabi language materials in the gurmukhi
script. They printed the Bible in gurmukhi, and the Dictionary, Grammar,
and other texts in a romanized version of gurmukhi that they adapted
from John Shakespears work on Hindustani from the earlier nineteenth
century.74 The Ludhiana publications influenced colonial perceptions
of Punjabi (especially the widely circulated Dictionary and Grammar).
Thus, early colonial administrators understood Punjabi (at least in the
written form) to be the language sacred and important to the Sikhs,
and often used the terms Punjabi and gurmukhi interchangeably.75
The connection between Punjabi, gurmukhi, and the Sikhs helps
us to further understand colonial attitudes about Punjabi. As we shall
see, colonial officials sought to replace the administrative structures
affiliated with Sikh rule and shift authority to local officials and the
73
Malcolm, Sketch of the Sikhs, pp. 1-2. John Malcolm is discussed in the above
section about empirical studies of the Punjab.
74
A Dictionary of the Panjabi Language, Preface. John Newton was an influential
Orientalist around the turn of the nineteenth century who wrote an Urdu grammar
and dictionary.
75
For example, the 18511852 Punjab Administration Report stated that gurmukhi
was sacred and important to Sikhs, implying gurmukhi was a religious language of the
Sikhs. General Report on the Administration of the Punjab Territories, Comprising the
Punjab Proper and the Cis and Trans-Sutlej States, for the Years 185152 and 185253,
in Selections from the Records of the Government of India (Foreign Department). Calcutta:
Calcutta Gazette Office, 1854, p. 184; For further documents equating gurmukhi with the
Sikhs, see, OIOC, Home/Misc/760, p. 366.
a vernacular for a new generation? 305
76
For a study about the reform of indigenous educational structures, see, Diamond,
(forthcoming).
77
General Report on the Administration of the Punjab . . . for the Years 185152 and
185253, in Selections from the Records, p. 184.
78
General Report on the Administration of the Punjab . . . for the Years 185151 and
185253, p. 184.
306 jeffrey m. diamond
early colonial officials in the Punjab came from the neighboring North-
Western Provinces (NWP), the British colonial encounter with Punjab
after 1849 was constructed from their administrative knowledge and
bureaucratic experiences developed in the NWP. Many officials were
trained under the tutelage of the NWP Lieutenant Governor, James
Thomason, including John Lawrence.79 Thus, Thomasons administra-
tion effected the formation of colonial bureaucracy in the Punjab, and
ultimately influenced language policy as well.
The officials who governed early colonial Punjab were part of the
paternalistic administrative structures known as Punjab School of
administration. The brothers Henry and John Lawrence are both con-
sidered the founders of this School, but John Lawrence was especially
influential in its development.80 Henry Lawrence held sweeping powers
as the British Resident at Lahore prior to 1849. Although Henry did
not support the annexation of the Punjab, he served as President of the
Board of Administration from 18491853. John Lawrence was a mem-
ber of the Board as well. Both brothers debated the future direction of
British rule in the region, where John argued for a more intervention-
ist role and the development of formal bureaucratic structures to shift
power away from symbols of Sikh rule and the native aristocracy.81
John developed considerable experience creating administrative struc-
tures when he worked in Delhi and in eastern Punjab prior to 1849.
He utilized these experiences to formulate new revenue, judicial, police
and affiliated administrative systems for the Punjab, and he con-
vinced the Governor General, Lord Dalhousie, to support these efforts.
79
Peter Penner, The Patronage Bureaucracy in North India: The Robert M. Bird and
James Thomason School, 18201870. Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1986, p. 273.
80
John Lawrence was born in 1811. He studied at Haileybury College from 1827
1829, and then left for Delhi where he worked under Charles Metcalfe. By 1846, he
was appointed Commissioner of Jullunder in the annexed Trans Sutlej States of east-
ern Punjab. During this time, John often officiated as Resident in place of Henry,
including serving as Resident from August 1847 to March 1848. His biographies pro-
vide details of his life. These include, Sir Richard Temple. Lord Lawrence. London:
Macmillam and Co., 1889. Lawrence later became Chief Commissioner of Punjab
from 18531859, and the Viceroy of India from 18641869.
81
This discussion is meant to provide an overview of administrative changes in
order to situate the analysis about language and colonial rule. For a background of the
Punjab School and the debates between John and Henry Lawrence, see, Sir Richard
Temple, Men and Events of My Time in India. London: John Murray, 1882, pp.
51-101. Also see, Harold Lee, John and Henry Lawrence and the Origins of Pater-
nalist Rule in the Punjab, 18461858, International Journal of Punjab Studies, vol. 2,
no. 1, 1995, pp. 65-88.
a vernacular for a new generation? 307
82
Robert Montgomery was raised near the Lawrence home, and was a contem-
porary of John at Foyle College. The close relationship between John Lawrence and
Robert Montgomery is discussed in, John Lawrence (Audrey Woodiwiss, ed.). Law-
rence of Lucknow: A Story of Love. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, p. 197.
83
For example, officials educated at Haileybury included Donald Mcleod. Mcleod
served as a Financial Commissioner in 1850s Punjab, and was appointed Lieuten-
ant Governor of the Punjab in 1865. See Frederick Charles Danvers, Sir M. Monier-
Williams, et al. Memorials of Old Haileybury College. London: Archibald Constable
and Co., 1894, p. 385.
84
A general overview of these debates can be found in, King, One Language, Two
Scripts; Shackle and Snell, Hindi and Urdu Since 1800, p. 8.
308 jeffrey m. diamond
dialect around Delhi became the convenient standard for Urdu. For rea-
sons of efficiency and retaining a reliable standard, Urdu in a modified
Persian script was chosen for the NWP.
NWP administrators believed that Urdu was the natural successor to
Persian. It was a vulgar version of Persian that could readily replace
Persian, as reformers were still developing formalized Urdu structures,
grammars, terms, and expressions at that time.85 Consequently, the
shared features between Urdu and Persian throughout North India,
including the Persian script and the large vocabulary of highly Persian-
ized Urdu, was advantageous for people who knew Persian. Many judges
favored Urdu in the Persian nastaliq script, although there were prob-
lems with colonial officials retaining Persian vocabulary but merely using
Hindustani verb structures. Nonetheless, Urdu (Hindustani) became a
successor to Persian as an administrative vernacular language that was
intelligible to most people in the NWP.
These administrative developments had a direct relation to the choice
of an administrative vernacular in the Punjab. Most officials who arrived
in early colonial Punjab knew Urdu (and often Persian) because they
had typically been educated at Haileybury College and because Urdu
had already replaced Persian as the official administrative vernacular
language in the NWP. Thus, their knowledge of languages and previ-
ous administrative experiences in the NWP influenced their approach
to language policy and their support of Urdu.
The final decision to utilize Urdu as an administrative vernacular was
connected to the establishment of the judiciary, and the courts become
an early test for its usage. Soon after the British annexed the region,
the Board of Administration sought to have a uniformity in the lan-
guage used, as documents submitted to them were written in Persian,
some in Urdu, and some in a mixed dialect composed of both.86 They
believed there was an obvious advantage for the adoption of one
uniform language for all Courts and official documents in the districts
under the Board.87
At this point, colonial perceptions about Punjabi influenced the nature
of the debate. As there was little support for Punjabi or belief it was
85
Majeed, The Jargon of Indostan, p. 184.
86
Circular No. 193, 1 June 1849, in Selected Circular Orders of the Board of
Administration for the Affairs of the Punjab in General and Political Departments.
Lahore: Punjab Printing Co., 1871, pp. 8-9.
87
Circular No. 193, 1 June 1849, in Selected Circular Orders, p. 9.
a vernacular for a new generation? 309
88
This was also for the ease of administration in the newly established colonial judi-
ciary system in Punjab. G.J. Christian Esq. Sec. Board of Administration for Punjab to
H.M. Elliot, Sec. GOI, 17 August, 1849, OIOC, Home/Misc/760, pp. 115-8.
89
Circular No. 193, 1 June 1849, in Selected Circular Orders, p. 9.
90
OIOC, Home/Misc/ 760, pp. 115-8.
310 jeffrey m. diamond
91
Sec. Board of Administration to DC Peshawar and Hazara, 20 September 1849,
no. 21, Chaudhry, Development of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab, pp. 27-8.
92
Note by John Lawrence, No. 21, Chaudhry, Development of Urdu as Official
Language in the Punjab, pp. 27-8.
93
John Lawrence argued that officials who arrived from the NWP typically were
not familiar with Punjabi, and several did not know Persian. Thus, Urdu was the
most convenient vernacular language for officials. Note by John Lawrence, no. 21,
Chaudhry, Development of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab, pp. 27-8.
94
For example, see the correspondence between the Secretary to the Chief Com-
missioner, Punjab and the Commissioner of the Leia Division. No. 24, 7 June 1854;
No. 25, 10 June 1854; No. 26, 8 June 1854; No. 28, 13 June 1854, in, Chaudhry, Devel-
opment of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab, pp. 30-4.
a vernacular for a new generation? 311
about Indian languages and linguistics.95 These pursuits led him to advo-
cate the use of Punjabi. His opinion also may have been influenced by
the reality that the courts had to negotiate the usage of Urdu with Pun-
jabi.96 However, he often held views that were not shared by other British
officials.
Custs remarks began a debate about the use of Punjabi as a court
vernacular, evoking strong responses to his proposal. It also was an
early contradiction of the prevailing attitudes toward Punjabi. However,
many officials did not agree with Custs conclusions, as their beliefs were
influenced by colonial and missionary empirical and linguistic studies
about Punjabi. For instance, the Commissioner of the Lahore Division,
Thomas Douglas Forsytha Haileybury graduate who earned honors
for his studies of Persian, Hindustani, Sanskrit, and Hindiwas skep-
tical about the use of Punjabi for written records due to the lack of a
defined textual tradition and grammar.97 Forsyth spent considerable time
in various posts throughout the Punjab, and he was well placed within
the administrative and linguistic debates at the time. Therefore, he was
concerned that there should be one standard administrative vernacu-
lar language for the Punjab, which included the Urdu speaking areas
of Delhi and Haryana after 1857. He illustrated his concerns by stating
that if a munshi from Delhi came to a Lahore Court, he would find,
his flowing Oordoo turned into Punjabi. Captain N.W. Elphinstone,
95
Robert Needham Cust was educated at Haileybury College from 18401842, win-
ning prizes in Hindustani, Arabic, classics, and history. Danvers, Memorials of Old
Haileybury College, p. 420. Cust later became a prolific writer of essays on linguistics
in India and in Africa as well. For example, see, Robert Needham Cust, Linguistic
and Oriental Essays. 2nd series, written from the year 1847 to 1887. London: Trubner,
1887.
96
Although it is difficult to find first hand accounts of courtrooms at that time,
we know that many Punjabi who began to use the courts did not speak Urdu (based
upon the linguistic culture of the region). Thus, the courts had to negotiate the usage
of language, with both Punjabi and Urdu being used in the oral proceedings (and the
written records being in Urdu and English). This negotiation still takes place today in
many parts of Pakistani Punjab, where Urdu and Punjabi are used side by side for a
variety of functions, and Urdu still serves as the primary written language.
97
Thomas Forsyth, Commissioner, Lahore Division, to Sec. GOP, 16 June 1863,
no. 33, Chaudhry, Development of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab, pp. 39-40.
Forsyth attended Haileybury College from 18451847, where he earned prizes in Per-
sian, Sanskrit, Hindustani, and Hindi. In India, he became acquainted with Henry
Lawrence, and by the early 1860s, he was the Commissioner of Lahore Division. For
information about Forsyth, see Douglas Forsyth (Ethel Forsyth, ed.), Autobiography
and Reminiscences of Sir Douglas Forsyth. London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1887;
Danvers, Memorials of Old Haileybury College, p. 434.
312 jeffrey m. diamond
98
Elphinstone, DC Jullundhur, to Sec. GOP, 8 July 1862, No. 37, Chaudhry, Devel-
opment of Urdu as Official Language in the Punjab, pp. 46-7.
99
Shackle and Snell, Hindi and Urdu since 1800, p. 8.
100
Lawrences influence on successive officials and the administrative structures
that developed after his tenure as Chief Minister is discussed in P.H.M. van den
Dungen. The Punjab Tradition: Influence and Authority in Nineteenth Century India.
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1972, especially pp. 56-66.
a vernacular for a new generation? 313
9.5. Conclusion
101
The development of Indian languages such as Urdu involved the patronage
of institutions and specialists to support and transmit this knowledge. See, Bernard
Cohn, The Command of Language and the Language of Command, in Bernard
Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1997, pp. 45-7. Diamond, (fortcoming).
102
Christopher Shackle argues that Modern Standard Punjabi did not exist before
the twentieth century, after the formation of Sikh reformist organizations that actively
promoted the Punjabi language. See, Shackle, Some Observations, p. 105.
314 jeffrey m. diamond
103
General Report on the Administration of the Punjab . . . for the Years 185152 and
185253, p. 184.
104
Prakash Tandon, in his famous memoir Punjabi Century, states that his grand
uncle, born in 1850, spoke in clear Punjabi laced with chaste Urdu and Persian and
an occasional English word, punctuated with much conscious wisdom and many
Punjabi, Persian, and Urdu proverbs. Prakash Tandon. Punjabi Century: 18571947.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973, pp. 17-23.
105
For a general discussion of this issue, see, Tariq Rahman. Language and Politics
in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press, pp. 199-209.
a vernacular for a new generation? 315
to larger problems for the postcolonial state and society. Elite attitudes
and beliefs about regional languages (and the people who primarily
utilize them) remain rather negative although these regional languages
have retained their influence among the majority of the population.
This article has examined the historical roots of such debates.
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318 jeffrey m. diamond
Brian Spooner
10.1. Introduction
1
Often written Baluchi, when it is Romanized from Persian which does not dis-
tinguish written /o/ from /u/. In this article I have used Baloch for the people, and
Balochi for the language, except where there is a reason to Romanize from a Persian
context.
2
Some claim many more, and national censuses are indeterminate, except for
Turkmenistan where the 1989 Soviet census lists 29,000 Baloch (Axenov 2006: 19).
320 brian spooner
3
This account is based on my own research with the Baloch in Afghanistan, Iran
and Pakistan between 1958 and 1985, enriched by data from the works cited below.
balochi: towards a biography of the language 323
the Union was formally absorbed into the unitary province of West
Pakistan, together with the area known as British Balochistan along
the Afghan border (which had been directly ruled from Calcutta,
and later New Delhi). The current Pakistani Province of Balochistan,
including all these earlier divisions, was established after East Pakistan
broke away to become Bangladesh in 1971. Since that time various
movements have arisen among the Baloch (whose leaders never fully
acquiesced in the accession to Pakistan) to seek independence from
Pakistan, or minimally to renegotiate the relationship with the central
government in Karachi, and later in Islamabad.4 Tariq Rahman (1996)
classifies Balochi as one of 65 languages in Pakistan. It is one of the
six official languages, but not one that can be used for any form of
nationally recognised or useful qualification. He records that 3.57%
of the population speak it, and that it is a strong identity symbol but of
no value for either economic or political advancement. The Province
of Balochistan, however, covers over 43% of Pakistans territory, and
Balochi is the primary language associated with it.
Hostility to the Federal Government in Islamabad has grown, most
particularly among the Marri and Bugti tribes in the northeast of the
Province. The discovery of a cache of arms in the Iraqi embassy in
Islamabad in 1973, supposedly destined for delivery to the Marri Baloch
in the northeast of Balochistan Province, led to an escalation of the
Governments efforts to suppress Baloch opposition, which in turn
increased their sense of political identity. In 1974 the Marri went into
full rebellion, and some migrated into southern Afghanistan, where
they remained for over a decade (despite the Russian occupation). The
problem has not been resolved. Nominally the Baloch in modern Paki-
stan have a significant degree of political autonomy in that the prov-
ince elects and forms its own provincial government. However, the
Baloch have been unable to benefit from this situation, partly because
of the divisions among the communities that formed the Princely
States of the British period, and partly because of the number of Pash-
tuns who are included in the part of the Province that was British
Balochistan (that is, under direct British administration) along the
border of Afghanistan.
4
Islamabad was constructed as the new national capital in the 1960s and began
functioning as such in the early 1970s. Its location was chosen to provide better access
to the seat of government from all parts of the country. In fact, however, it reduced
accessibility from Balochistan.
324 brian spooner
5
Nader Shah (17361747), who replaced the Iranian Safavid dynasty (15011722),
was assassinated in Mashhad in 1747.
326 brian spooner
The Baloch have been held together, and perhaps even able to expand,
because their sense of common identity lay in acceptance of institu-
tional forms of behavior among strangers, forms in which language
was a central component, and the necessary standard forms were
shared across dialects. To be accepted as a Baloch one had to do little
more than do as the Baloch did. It was a hierarchical society with an
oral culture. Anyone could be accepted so long as they assimilated
to the behavioral norms that signified acceptance of a position in the
political hierarchy of communities. The most important general insti-
tutions which are a part of everyday Baloch life concern meetings and
exchange of information (cf. Barth 1964: 13-4).
Although Baloch etiquette and formality is minimal compared to
(for instance) Persian, except when he is with intimates the Baloch
is properly always dignified, formal and laconic (sangin). When a
man enters anothers house he says the traditional Islamic greeting
salaam alaikum (peace be on you) and equals and inferiors rise. The
newcomer gives hands with his host and any other men present with
whom he has or would like to have some personal relationship. The
balochi: towards a biography of the language 327
host is not necessarily the owner of the house. The honorary role of
host is played by the most senior man present who is least traveller
(musafer), i.e. a more senior man after the first day or so of his stay
is treated as though he were the owner and host. The newcomer then
sits in the place indicated by the host, and the host turns to him, and
does the wash-atk (Bal. wash-atk akant), thus:
Host Newcomer
wash tke you are welcome wash tke you are welcome
ju e are you well ju e are you well
mehrabni kan do kindness hodi mehrabn int God is kind
tau mehrabni kan you do kindness
habar kan talk, tell the news
these practices are still recognised and have not lost their cultural
value. One may assume that this function of the language belongs to a
particular historical phase of the developing relationship between the
Baloch and their neighbors. Although there is no historical evidence, it
is easy to understand how such a function would have evolved under
regimes of Baloch rulers who could not use literacy for local admin-
istration. Although this use of the language continues, Balochi is now
a written language and has been evolving slowly in this new dimen-
sion of remote interaction over the past fifty years. But still very few
Baloch read Balochi, and fewer write it, and those who do are mostly
in Pakistan. The foundations of Balochi literacy were laid by foreign-
ers in the 19th century, mostly by missionaries. The interests of the
Baloch were also served significantly by the production of the multi-
volume Baluchistan District Gazetteer Series, published in 19061907,
which included a great deal of information on the language as well as
the sense of identity and the cultural life associated with it, making
them one of the best documented non-literate peoples anywhere. The
earliest periodical publication appears to have been Bolan, a literary
weekly published in Quetta before Independence, perhaps as early as
the 1930s (see Elfenbein 1989a, and Jahani 1989: 135). We lack data
on printruns and readership. Publication in Balochi was subsidized by
the Federal Government when the Balochistan States Union acceded
to Pakistan in 1948. But it appears to have peaked in the 1960s.
Other initiatives designed to raise the status of Balochi to a national
level (all in Pakistan) include regular radio broadcasts (Baloch 1985),
the establishment of a Balochi Academy in 1957 in Quetta (the pro-
vincial capital), and a Balochi Studies section at Balochistan University
in Quetta in 1997, which teaches and sponsors research on the Balo-
chi language and literature. Broadcasts in Balochi were introduced by
Radio Pakistan in 1949. The program was daily, forty five minutes,
and was broadcast from Karachi. Starting in 1956 the programs were
broadcast from Quetta, the provincial capital. The Balochi Academy
was established in Quetta, with financial support from the Federal
Government. Its most important literary activities have been publi-
cation of books, mainly in Balochi, and the organization of literary
meetings. There have also been some attempts at starting primary edu-
cation in Balochi. As the result of an initiative of the government of
Benazir Bhutto, Balochi, Brahui and Pashto were introduced as the
medium of instruction in government schools in 1990. However, only
two years later, in 1992, education in mother tongue languages was
balochi: towards a biography of the language 329
ten hours a week each.) Baloch writers published magazines and books
in Balochi, English, and Urdu. Beginning in the 1960s an increasing
number of Baloch writers have published on the history and culture
of the Baloch.
After the establishment of the Khalqi government in Afghanistan in
1978 Balochi was declared one of seven national languages of Afghani-
stan, along with not only Dari and Pashto but also Uzbeki, Turkmani,
Nuristani, Pashai (DPA Revolutionary Councils Decree Number 4
on May 15, 1978; see Nawid, this volume). Balochi continued with
this status through the various changes of government during the
Soviet occupation and the civil war that followed, although Dari and
Pashto were given preference in practice under Najibullah, from 1986
onwards, and the Baloch were not equipped to take much advantage of
the opportunity to promote their ethno-linguistic identity. Beginning
in 1996, under the regime of the Taliban, although no official language
policy was announced, Pashto became de facto the official language of
the government. The next constitution, promulgated by the coalition
forces in 2004, like previous constitutions, did not designate any lan-
guage as official. However, Article 16 states, From amongst Pashto,
Dari, Uzbeki, Turkmani, Balochi, Pachaie, Nuristani, Pamiri and other
current languages in the country, Pashto and Dari shall be the official
languages of the state. In areas where the majority of the people speak
in any one of Uzbeki, Turkmani, Pachaie, Nuristani, Balochi or Pamiri
languages, any of the aforementioned languages, in addition to Pashto
and Dari, shall be the third official language, the usage of which shall
be regulated by law. The state shall design and apply effective programs
to foster and develop all languages of Afghanistan. Usage of all current
languages in the country shall be permissible in press publications and
mass media. Past academic and national administrative terminology
and usage in the country shall be preserved.
While Irans 1906 Constitution did not specifically acknowledge
Balochi, Chapter 1 Article 15 did articulate that local languages were
allowed to be used, including use in the media. This article also
allowed the instruction of ethnic literature alongside Persian courses.
However, despite the previously detailed spurts of production follow-
ing the Revolution, solely Radio Zahidans daily radio broadcasts were
sustained (Jahani 1989: 86). The central government in Iran did dur-
ing the 1960s broadcast Balochi news and music for several hours a
day from a transmitter in Zahedan (Elfenbein 1966: 1). It is perhaps
332 brian spooner
A L BU Mazar Sharif
RZ
Balkh
ER
AT
H
JS
SW
N
PA
Herat Kabul
Ghur
HAZARAJAT Peshawar
Qaenat
Ghazni
AFGHANISTAN
Isfahan
IRAN Qandahar
r
ve
Ri
d
an
Helm
Quetta
ZA
GR
OS Shiraz BOLAN
PASS
Kharan
PE PAKISTAN
R Bampur
Saravan
GU SIA
LF N
M A K R A N
N
Turbat
Bahu Kalat
DASHTIARI
LAS BE
Approximate area of majority LA
W E
Baloch population
balochi: towards a biography of the language
0 500 1000 km
333
Karachi who are fluent in Urdu and Sindhi. The number of situations
where it is important to speak Balochi is diminishing.
References
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SECTION IV
Cynthia Groff
11.1. Introduction
and this volume are only a beginning. The Internet in particular pro-
vides scholars access to one another as never before, starting with
opportunities to join list-serves, offer our names on the various expert
lists, post relevant bibliographies online, or contribute to the UCLAs
Language Materials Project. Continued collaboration will help to fill
the gaps. For example, we may consider forming a Language Policy
Materials Project where language policy materials, particularly from
less commonly studied regions, may be compiled similar to the way
language-learning resources are compiled through UCLAs Language
Materials Project. Hopefully, we will continue to be a resource for one
another in our search for resources relevant to Central Asian language
policies and language learning.
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350 cynthia groff
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CONCLUSION
Harold F. Schiffman
1
Article Sixteen states that From among the languages of Pashto, Dari, Uzbeki,
Turkmani, Balochi, Pashaei, Nuristani, and other languages spoken in the country,
Pashto and Dari are the official languages of the state.
2
See the article by Schlyter in this volume.
356 harold f. schiffman
and distinctiveness; they have now been cut loose from Soviet control,
and are struggling to define themselves based on their own percep-
tions, rather than having the Soviets do this for them. This has meant
that dialects of a language like Uzbek, if spoken in an area remote
from Uzbekistan itself, may be closer in some ways to whatever is
spoken locally than to standard Uzbek. And in some cases, speakers
may find it advantageous to declare themselves to be speakers of the
local dominant titular language, rather than retain their allegiance to
a standard language spoken far away. In the Soviet period, resources
were available to support education in these now dachlose dialects;
today that support is shrinking. Add to this the diluted status of Rus-
sian, formerly the clear H variety in a Fishman-type diglossia, and a
once-clear choice for a default language, especially in education, and
we have a hard time stating what model of multilingualism we are
dealing with. In other words, if Russian is no longer the H variety,
what will replace itEnglish? Persian? Or will the group succeed in
creating an H-variety of its own that can function as a language of
science and technology? The latter outcome, one that appeals to nation-
alist instincts, is one that is so fraught with difficulty that it probably
has no chance of succeeding, but is a factor ignored by nationalist
ideologies.
Another issue dealt with in at least one of the contributors to this
volume is that of reversing language shift in areas such as Kazakh-
stan, where speakers of local languages had in fact given up their lan-
guages in favor of an H variety. This was particularly prevalent in the
Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, because of the
massive influx of Russian speakers into some if not all of the republics.
Since Russians were first among equals in the Soviet Union, a covert
if not overt kind of russification became more common after 1938.
Subsequently, as Russian in-migration became more of a flood in the
1960s, and Russian schooling became available to all who wanted
it, upward-mobile members of the republics elites began to shift to
Russian, not only in their education and professions, but as a home
language. Now, in the post-Soviet period, there is a push to reverse
this shift, and return to the titular language. But as Fishman (1991)
has shown, RLS can be problematical.
What has happened in Kazakhstan, however, is that RLS has resulted,
not just in a shift from Russian as a language of wider communication
(LOWC), but also to some extent to English, as enrollments in the lat-
ter have increased dramatically. Russian is still an obligatory subject
conclusion 357
in schools in this republic, but other LOWCs are now seen as having
an important place, and the globalization of English has also reached
areas of the former Soviet Union. As for Pakistan, Afghanistan and
Iran, English had already occupied an important niche in the linguistic
ecology of those areas, and will not be easily dislodged.
References
Afghanistan, Constitution of. (2003). The Constitution of Afghanistan Year 1382 (2003).
Fishman, Joshua A. (1991). Reversing Language Shift. Clevendon: Multilingual Matters.
Kloss, Heinz. (1978). Die Entwicklung neuer germanischer Kultursprachen seit 1800.
2nd edition. Munich: Schwann.
INDEX
in, 330-4; in early Punjab culture, Catalan: language shift with, 121-2
289-90; evolution of, 11, 13; future Center for the Publication of Uzbek-
status of, 332-4; as lingua franca, Language Textbooks (CPULT), 240-1
68n.18; national identity and, 326-34; Central Asia: economic change in,
standard-with-dialects system and, 17; 219-21; geographical factors in
written construction of, 320-2 language policies in, 214-6; lack of
Balochistan: education and literacy in language arbiter in post-Soviet era,
Pashto in, 271; links to Iran and, 218-9; language and cultural trends
325-6; post-Partition establishment in, 222-4; map of, 5; Persian language
of, 322-6 in, 7-8, 96-101; research sources for
Bangladesh: Balochistan history and, language policy in, 340-7; Soviet
323; Persian language status in, 89 language policy implementation
Barfield, Thomas J., 57, 83-4 and repression and, 216-8; Soviet
Barkazai clan: Baloch culture in Iran nationalities policy in, 13; technology
and, 324-6 development in, 221-2; Uzbek
Bartens, Angela, 121 language in, 208-7
Barth, Fredrik, 56n.4, 57n.7, 326 centrally managed economic policies: in
Bela, Las, 320 Central Asian republics, 219-21
Berdymukhammedov, Gubanguly, 230 Chaghatay language, 178-80, 178n.6,
Bible: Indian translations of, 296-7 189-91
bilingual cultures: power and solidarity Chatterjee, Partha, 63
in, 25-6 Chernenko, Konstantin, 144
bilingualism: Afghan Constitutional China: Persian language in, 10, 90-1, 95,
Monarchy and official policy for, 109, 115-6
39-42; in Afghanistan educational class politics in Afghanistan: ethno-
system, 37-46, 78-9, 82-4; in Central linguistic awareness and, 42-3; Pashto
Asian republics, 223-4; in Pakistan, language and, 81-4
279-80; in Pashtun communities, classical diglossia: extended diglossia
66-70 vs., 18-9; Pashto complexity and, 54;
Binawa, Abdul Rauf, 38 Persian and, 89, 102-4
Bolan literary journal, 328 colonialism: missionary encounters with
Bolshevik Russia: language policy in, Punjabi and, 294-304; Northwest
126-30, 214-6; Uzbek russification India language policy under, 282-315;
under, 182-5 Pashto language policies and, 263-7;
border politics: language policies in Persian language status and, 91,
Central Asia and, 214-6 107-9; prevalence of Urdu over
Brahui dialect, 330 Punjabi and, 301-12; Punjabi language
Brass, Paul, 56n.5 policies and, 291-4, 313-5
British East India Company, 307; communication technology:
Afghanistan and, 3 communication patterns and changes
Brown, Roger, 25 in, 2
Bugti tribe, 323-4 Communist Party of Kazakhstan, 147
Bustan (Persian text), 286 Constitutional Monarchy in
Afghanistan: official bilingualism
Cabuliwallah, The (Tagore), 54n.3 under, 39-42
Can Language Be Planned (Fishman), Crews, Robert D., 55
124-5 cuneiform writing: Old Persian and, 9
Can Threatened Languages Be Saved? Cust, Robert, 297, 310-2
(Fishman), 121 Cyrillic alphabet: abolition in
Cannon, G., 76-7, 84 Uzbekistan, 194; use in Tajikistan of,
Carey, William (Rev.), 295-8, 303 97-9; Uzbek russification using, 182-5
Caron, James, 53n.1, 63
caste system: in early Punjab society, Da Atam Jamiat text, 275
287n.15 Dames, M. Longworth, 329-30
index 361
Uzbek language in, 203-5, 249-56; 13-26; current and future research
in Kazakhstan, 140-1, 160-1, 247-9, issues, 354-7; language policies and,
253-4; in Kyrgyzstan, 242-5, 251-3; in 1; Pashto in context of, 60-5; in
Tajikistan, limits on Uzbek language Uzbekistan, 198-9
materials, 235-7; in Turkmenistan, Muscadine Empire, 325-6
post-Soviet era policies, 226-30 Muslim culture: Punjabi literary
Masud, Ahmad Shah, 82 tradition and, 288-91
McIntosh, Angus, 21 Muslim League: Pashtun culture and,
Mektep textbook publisher, 246-9 267
Memlekettik qoghamdyq til qozghalysy
(State Language Public Movement) Nader Shah (King), 11, 35-6, 325-6
(Kazakhstan), 155-7, 161-3 Nahv (Fitrat), 181
Memlekettik til qzghalysy (State *Najibullah, 46-7, 81-2
Language Movement) (Kazakhstan), Nanak, Guru, 289
155-7 Napoleon, 3
Metcalfe, Charles, 307-8 nastaliq (Punjabi script), 288, 299
Mezon (newspaper), 242 national anthem: Pashto as language of,
Mezon TV, 243 49-50
Middle Persian, 9, 90, 99 national identity: Afghan languages
Middle Turkic Chaghatay language, and, 4-9; in Baloch culture, 326-34;
179-80 Pashto designation as official language
migration: within Kazakhstan, 166-70 and, 36-46; Uzbek language as state
military in Afghanistan: Pashto as ritual language and, 185-9
language in, 60n.14 nationalism: Afghanistan historical
Minhas, Rashid, 274 events and shaping of, 8-12;
minority languages: Afghanistan nineteenth-century emergence of,
awareness of, 42, 45-6; in Central 3-4; Pashto language policies in
Asia, 225-6; Pashto language as, 78-84 Afghanistan and, 34-6; Pashtunistan
Minorsky, Vladimir, 329-30 self-determination and, 38-41; Persian
Miran, M. Alam, 78-9 language status and emergence of, 89,
Mirs, Talpur, 320 95-101, 104-9; Taliban and Afghan
missionaries in Central and South Asia: resurgence of, 48-9
Punjabi language and, 294-301, 304 nationality policies: in Central Asia,
Moazzam, Anwar, 109 214-6
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 111 nativization (korenizatsiya) policy: in
Mohmand, Syed Ahmed, 273 Uzbekistan, 180, 182-5
Momyshuly, Bauryzhan, 142 Nawid, Senzil, 12, 15, 31-51
Mongols, 11, 90 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 145, 155, 164-6,
monoglossic language environment: in 230
Kazakh workplace, 139 New Persian: emergence of, 9, 90, 99-100
Montgomery, Robert, 307 Newton, John, 299-301
Morgenstierne, Georg, 2-3, 77-8, 264 Nichols, Robert, 13, 263-80, 355-6
mother tongue: Balochi language as, Nimroz province: in Pashtun culture,
328-9; diglossia model of 55-6; Urdu dominance in, 83
multilingualism and, 16, 124-6; Niyazmand, Hamidullah, 83-4
linguistic register and role of, 21-4; Norgate, James, 57
standard-with-dialects systems and, 17 North West Frontier province: culture
Mughal Empire, 6-7, 75, 90-1, 103, 109, of, 3; Pashto in, 13, 63, 263-80;
285-6 Pastunistan issue and, 49; Persian
Muhammad Zaher Shah, 8, 325 in, 103; refugees in, 58; textbook
mujahedin: takeover of Afghanistan by, publication in, 269-80
48 Northern Alliance, 82-3
multilingualism models: age-related Nuristani, 44
trends in, 141-5; basic elements of, Nurtazin, Muhit, 153n.75
index 367