Language protests feared in Bishkek
Deputies of the Kyrgyz Parliament raised the language issue again, which led to intense debate and almost caused a conflict in the legislature. In conditions when attempts to limit the scope of the official Russian language were unsuccessful, the parliamentarians decided to change their strategy and focus on raising the status of the Kyrgyz language in the state and public spheres. The day before, the parliament approved in the first reading a package of draft laws on amendments to some legislative acts on the use of the state language.
The amendments introduce requirements for proficiency in a certain level of the state language for civil servants, deputies, transitional exams in schools, as well as standards for advertising and content.
The Cabinet of Ministers will determine the level itself. In addition, all geographical names in the country will be indicated exclusively in Kyrgyz, without translation into other languages. In addition, the new rules suggest that ads can only be published in Kyrgyz and Russian, and the use of other languages will be prohibited. The initiators of the bill also propose to amend the law “On Television and Radio Broadcasting”, establishing the requirement that the volume of broadcasting in the state language should be at least 60%. Warnings or fines are provided for violation or non-compliance with these requirements.
In Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyz is the official language, and Russian, according to the Constitution, has been an official language since 2004. Previously, Russian was the second official language, as more than 80 nationalities live in the republic, which makes the language issue particularly relevant. The decline in its status is explained by the desire to support the development of the Kyrgyz language.
The parliament session was broadcast live, and the deputies’ controversy became public knowledge. In particular, Parliament Speaker Nurlanbek Turgunbek uulu expressed support for the bill, saying: “If a citizen lives and works in Kyrgyzstan, he must know the official language and speak it.” Deputy Nadira Narmatova from the Ata-Jurt Kyrgyzstan faction recalled that there are two languages in the country – the state and the official one. “Our language (Kyrgyz. – “NG”) has been suffering from this for 35 years. There are many nationalities living in our country, but the state language should remain the main one,” she stressed. People’s Deputy Ulugbek Ormonov is unhappy that employees of airlines operating flights to Kyrgyzstan do not make announcements on board the aircraft in Kyrgyz. Moreover, “they have a menu only in English or Russian.”
MP Elmurza Satybaldiev supported the initiative, but criticized the amendments concerning candidates for deputies, arguing that citizens should have the right to choose their representative, regardless of the language they speak.
Parliamentarian Balbak Tulobayev called for the authors of the bill to be punished, arguing that the innovations would limit the representation of various ethnic groups in government structures and could undermine interethnic trust. “Tomorrow, the people may rebel. Such a good bill was “killed”. How will representatives of other nationalities become deputies? Aren’t they the people? The Constitution says that the basis of the state is the people. The Kyrgyz are a people, and the rest of the nations are not the people of Kyrgyzstan?” – He was indignant.
Gulya Kozhokulova, another MP, also spoke about the Constitution, pointing out that the amendments contradict the Basic Law. If approved, the National Commission on the State Language will have the right to impose fines on individuals in the amount of 5 thousand soms (4.5 thousand rubles), and on legal entities – 17 thousand soms (16.5 thousand rubles). “The ideological body will actually become punitive,” Kozhokulova explained her position.
It is worth noting that over the past 35 years, the methodology of teaching the Kyrgyz language has not been developed. Nevertheless, the deputies decided to legislate the Kyrgyz language. Moreover, at the beginning of his term as president, in September 2021, President Sadyr Japarov set a task for his subordinates to achieve “full–scale functioning of the state language in all spheres of public life.” The Head of State pointed out that “only our desire is required to switch office work to the official language.” According to him, “it is not worth referring to various allegedly unfavorable conditions and circumstances” if a citizen has not yet learned it. Therefore, the deputies follow his instructions, although today he speaks about the problem of language in a completely different way, since he is actively promoting the idea of “Kyrgyzstan is a country of ski tourism.” The issue of attracting foreign tourists is generally a priority for the government of the country. This is not accidental, as this area brings the country more than a billion dollars a year. Russian citizens are among the top three who visit the republic. However, the fight against advertising in Russian and the translation of the service sector into Kyrgyz is unlikely to become a driver for attracting tourists.
Igor Shestakov, director of the Oi Ordo Center for Expert Initiatives, told NG that the status of the Kyrgyz language has always been a priority in the republic. But at the system level, this priority was quite declarative. In reality, as linguists have repeatedly pointed out, we see a lack of translations of scientific and technical literature into Kyrgyz, which affects the training of qualified personnel who could really increase the scientific and educational potential of the language. The second reason is rampant corruption, which also affected the state language: under the previous government, considerable funds were allocated, but they were all stolen. It is no coincidence that Kamchybek Tashiev, head of the State Committee for National Security, has recently drawn attention to corruption in the field of education.
“It’s much easier to play politics, impose fines for ignorance of the state language. But in this case, it is much more logical to fine those who worked poorly in charge of this area. To turn all the arrows of the problems to the alleged dominance of the Russian language is a favorite move of our “politicizers” in language issues. You may ask why? The answer is simple – in this case, nothing really needs to be done to support the state language, it’s enough to hype loudly in the media space, showing yourself to be a kind of patriot. You don’t have to invest in supporting schools, especially in the regions, it’s enough to pose for a video at an event to tear down signs in Russian from a cafe. And if we offer these “patriots” to go to teach the Kyrgyz language in rural schools, then the answer is unlikely to be positive,” the political scientist emphasized.
Meanwhile, Russian is in high demand in rural schools, especially in the south of the country. Because it is from Osh, Batken, and Jalal-Abad regions that labor migrants flow to Russia. “In 2016, at a round table held by our Center in Osh, it was noted that Russian-speaking classrooms in schools in southern Kyrgyzstan are overcrowded, with the number of students ranging from 60 to 70 people. The textbooks used by schoolchildren were published back in the time of Brezhnev (Leonid Brezhnev was the general secretary of the CPSU). But despite this, the Russian language was in demand among the population, primarily due to migration to Russia, which remains the only realistic employment option for Kyrgyz citizens. Unlike the proposals of the EU countries, which can provide only a few thousand jobs,” said Shestakov.