Language Policy and Language Planning in Kazakhstan: About the Proposed Shift from the Cyrillic Alphabet to the Latin Alphabet

Abstract

The dissertation is an analysis of the history, current state, and possible future directions of the development of language policy in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Although language planning in the republics of the former Soviet Union has been a major subject of debate on government nation building agendas over the last two decades, the situation and implementation of language policies significantly differ in Kazakhstan due to the conditions of multilingualism and diglossia, in addition to other geographic and historical factors that resulted in the extended penetration of the Russian language during the Soviet era (Isayev, 1977:20). In the first chapter of the study, I trace the history of language legislation and political practices throughout the period of Russian-Kazakh diglossia (Fishman, 1967), a language situation in which the use of two unrelated languages (Kazakh and Russian) performed as high and low varieties at different levels prestige, and provide an analysis of important aspects of implementing legislative decisions and practices aimed at the development and promotion of the Kazakh language. The second and third chapters of this study are devoted to legislative documents and practices aimed at the modernization of Kazakh, especially with regards to the proposed switch from a Cyrillic to a Latin orthography, and amendments to the trinity of the Kazakh, Russian and English language status policies. This study of "language modernization" (switching from Cyrillic to Latin) is an attempt to define linguistic, literary, and social conditions and challenges, especially in the remote areas. The analysis of the modernization is based on the results of an extensive review of 1) official documents related to language policies; 2) on-line/magazine/newspaper and scholarly articles on Kazakh history, culture, language, education, and politics; 3) interviews with the officials of the educational departments, schools and language specialists.