Comments on: Who Needs Kazakh?

By: Marat

Marat — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 19:50:24 +0000

We all need to know Kazakh language.
Being Kazakh myself I hardly speak My native lang.But we need take measures
Nation without language has no past present future

By: Takappar

Takappar — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:56:06 +0000

No way to blame somebody! Just handle it. All you need is intent. That’s it! Whining around like “blah-blah, that damned Soviet times” and “they forced us to speak russian…” shows your total ignorance and impatience. Why – instead of whining and cyring – not to force the rest people to learn Qazaq like the russians did in Soviet times? It is reasonable! And government does so! And what it does is absolutely right! I think in the following way: the government shall put dilema – if you want the best living standards and conditions, best career, chances, jobs, opportunities, money, you should speak only in the State language. It is not racism or any language discrimination, so far, since in any other country it is a normal matter and the standard practice. So, limiting the usage and applicablity areas of russian, thus forcing to speak Qazaq (no matter, whether as your mother- or -foreign tongue), they will provide you the best option for living in this beautiful country, and will ensure the firm status of national language, leave the language as the most valuable thing ever and as the immortal heritage to the next generations of young Qazaq people. You should be proud of yourself, your mothertongue, cuz you are Qazaq! Otherwise, you are the shame of your nation and go suck from russians, or whatever nation! That’s it!

By: ChrisM

ChrisM — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:30:00 +0000

It isn’t just the quantity of courses/textbooks/dictionaries that are available though, with the first two of those three items, it is the QUALITY that is critical. One thing not mentioned previously is also the local attitude. I can’t speak about how attempts at speaking Kazakh are received (my Kazakh vocab runs to about three words maximum), however when trying to speak Russian in Kazakhstan, I still often find that people are impatient (especially in shops) and will simply get bored, walk off, and serve someone else. Maybe other people would handle this differently, but this just makes me more likely to point, grunt and speak a little louder in English ( ) instead of trying again. Of course friends and family are usually a lot more forgiving, but I still believe the attitude of native Kazakh speakers to those attempting to become familiar with the language will play a role.

By: sd

sd — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 01:36:26 +0000

If one wants to learn Kazakh, there are plenty Language cources offering Kazakh as well as English and other languages. There are dictionaries and phrase books in book stores. All these complaines is only excuse for Kazakhs do not know their language.

By: California

California — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:25:34 +0000

If the citizens of Kazakstan don’t want to speak and learn their own language, generations will be lost and this country will just become Russian. So what was the point of the independence from the Soviet Union. Obviously, the Soviet Union did something good for this country.

By: KZBlog

KZBlog — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 08:25:14 +0000

Yeah, I think the problem is that at least living in Astana, I don’t need to learn Kazakh. If I spoke Kazakh, it would make people happy and I might get some bonus points, but frankly with Russian I can do everything I need to do. I have never been in a situation where I thought, “if only I knew Kazakh”. As long as that is the case for most people, no one will ever learn it. There won’t be any demand. And this is the real situation at the moment. We can’t ignore it or make it different.

If I lived in Shymkent or in a small village, I would probably speak Kazakh of course and I might feel the opposite, that there is no reason to learn Russian.

Honestly I don’t speak any Kazakh except for a few words here and there and I wouldn’t know where to go beyond that into sentences or anything complicated. I have no idea how to even start learning Kazakh.

By: Zhamilya

Zhamilya — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:40:50 +0000

Hello everybody!

I agree too that we have so many problems in terms of teaching Kazakh language and creating political systems. I worked in one international company, and there was one korean man. He traveled a lot to Shymkent, Zhambyl and some western cities, once he mentioned that it is very difficult and boring to travel for him as he doesn’t know kazakh language and everybody speaks only in kazakh there. He really wanted to study the language, and asked me “why there is no institutions or web-sites that provide free kazakh cources?”. I did not know what to say, and felt very uncomfortable. But he knew some words in kazakh and could understand the overall meaning of the conversation. Sometimes I taught him. Providing kazakh cources is one problem, but if nobody speaks or tries to speak the languge, of course, there is no need to this language and even can be forgotten. What I want to say is that please TRY to speak in kazakh, even if you make some mistakes, and if you are not sure about a word ASK somebody (I am sure that kazakh people will help you). Only in this case other people will evaluate the value of the language.

However, in most cases, it is kazakh people’s false that they do not know the language. For example, I was born in a small village, where everybody speaks only in kazakh, obviously, I graduated kazakh school. But when I came to Almaty city it was very difficult for me as I didn’t know Russian very well. I enrolled to the university. My major was technical, and I can say that there wasn’t material in kazakh, so I translated a lot. Sometimes I didn’t sleep all the night. Teachers didn’t know Kazakh very well, they gave texts to translate and marked us according to our translations, as a result, they published their books in Kazakh. Eventually, I learnt Russian without any cources. So why people (kazakhs or other nations) live in Kazakhstan and do not know the language? I know it is not easy to study languages, but we are in our country not abroad where you can ask questions or just practice by talking to a native speaker. I think, it is just excuse to say that I was born in the area where everybody speaks only Russian. Most people know English even if they live in non-speaking country as Kazakhstan, but do not know kazakh. I had some classes of English language when I was at school as well, but I cannot compare knowledge gained in rural area to town. Sometimes teachers were not able to explain in English, but I translated a lot and studied by myself, and I knew English at the same level as my some classmates at the university who graduated gymnasium. I am just surprised, to this complainings. Now I am taking English cources, where lots of russian speakers, but I try to speak to them in English, because I need to practice. Why don’t you try this approach?
Again, of course, it would be better to improve the way of teaching Kazakh language and open more organisations that would provide kazakh cources, but everything depends on the level of our INTERST and DEMAND! Complaining to the government is NOT ideal decision to the problem! Think about it.

Thank you very much for your blog, author! Your subjects are very interesting.

By: KZBlog

KZBlog — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:36:26 +0000

Interesting comments. Thanks for taking the time to write so much!

By: Ayaka

Ayaka — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:25:35 +0000

I do agree with that journalists that in schools Kazakh teachers only would like to bring attention to the grammar and not language itself. Especially in Russian schools (where I studied) Kazakh teachers were very strict about grammar mistakes and did not care whether you have a wide or narrow vocabulary. It was a big problem for me when it was a time to write an essay, though I am Kazakh but I can not speak fluently, only conversational, due to some factors. Those factors are first of all my birthplace, I was born in a town very close to Russia, where a lot of Russians live and you can feel a strong Russian influence. I was born at the end of 80′s and when I went to school in the mid of 90′s if you wanted to have a best education there was one option – go to the Russian school. It was a huge problem for Kazakh schools that were just established and for children who attended them because there were no books in Kazakh at that time. And those pupils were obliged to study Russian books but present the material on Kazakh (actually it is still the same, even in the universities kazakh groups who study only in kazakh have all the material in Russian and waste part of their ttime to translate it into Kazakh and then learn from it).
Another factor all my family member speak Russian even though some know Kazakh (still it is not a high level). Why do they speak Russian even though we are Kazakh family? Simple, they were bron in USSR where all Kazakh people were obliged to know Russian, it had a status of a mother tongue. Even if you wanted to know Kazakh, you had to live somehwere out of a city, in a small village where they speak only kazakh. It took about 5 years for my parents to remember Kazakh again when we got independence in 1991.
The other thing is that it is true everywhere and everyone speaks Russian in KAzakhstan. And if you want to earn more than average you better know Russian and English but no Kazakh really required. Only if it is work at the government institute. However, there are some parts in Kazakhstan where people kept Kazakh language in their minds, most of such places are in the South like Shymkent and Kyzylorda. There everyone speaks Kazakh even Russians. My friend works in PwC Audit and she deals with a lot of Kazakhstan companies. Sometimes she faces people who speak only Kazakh and because she is Kazakh they would like to do business in Kazakh. So right now it is a problem for Kazakh not to know your language as it will be a shame if during the business you would not be able to make yourself clear in Kazakh.
There is a big pressure on people like me, young Kazakhs who can not speak Kazakh fluently. But partly it is not our fault. I do not blame myself or my family cause I understand under what circumstances I was growing and I was forced to learn and accept Russian as my mother tongue as it will open more doors to me in the future than my real native language.
And going back to schools. I do not agree that the class should be split in the groups of non-Kazakh and Kazakh pupils. The reason why they do so in Russian schools because they think tha Kazakh children already know the basics and can write and speak Kazakh. Well, from my experience I’d better stay in non-Kazakh group and start with the basics than learn my native language with a teacher that says I already have it in me and just need to release it.
Totally disagree with the government that forces us to learn Kazakh but does not support it in the business and does not provide any educational support in learning the language.