Kazakh For Non-Kazakhs

This is an article I wrote for the Vesti responding to another volunteer's criticism of the way Kazakhstan is promoting the Kazakh language and culture at the expense of Russian.

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In the language section of the previous Vesti, on the page before George Wunder’s fine article titled Language and Nationalism in Kazakhstan, Kazakh readers found this poem:

Strength Diminished

The majestic banner has fallen
Yesterday a hero; today fearful, cowering,
The bright soul is in shackles, forgotten by freedom,
The cold-blooded heart scarcely beats.

The eagle’s wings are clipped,
The thunderous nation, once strong as the day, is silenced
The heights of the Altai and the golden ancestors are not remembered,
The Khans and the heroes are forgotten.

Nationality, unity, manliness, energy, the happy conscience,
Everything that was, all this has been destroyed by hateful fate.
But there is one sign as precious as the golden day –
The shining star, the language of our ancestors, you remain!

Though you may long lay unused, my language,
My clean, deep, brave, strong, broad language,
May you be happily bound with the friendship
Of the scattered Turkic children, oh my language!

This was written by Maghzhan Zhumabaev, not to celebrate Kazakh independence, but to lament Russian rule and express hope for the future – Zhumabaev died in 1938. Many of you may who were in Shymkent may have noticed the billboards with Kazakh poems and pictures of Kazakh landscapes or symbols – many of these are poems praising the Kazakh language. One read, “Is there any mountain higher than language? Is there any sea deeper than language? Is there any wealth more precious than language?” and another, featuring a grandmotherly but condescending old lady, scolded “My goodness – have you really forgotten your mother tongue?” As George points out, many of the symbols chosen to create a Kazakhstan national identity (such as yurts) are anachronistic, particularly for urban and wealthy Kazakhs, and others, like the Golden Man (a Sak) and Al-Farabi (a Persian) seem a little forced. But the Kazakh language is a present and meaningful symbol of Kazakhstan’s statehood. Calls for the Russian language to maintain even its present status in the next ten years ignore the Kazakhs’ deep identification with their language. And as the future existence and independence of Kazakhstan seems more and more assured, Kazakh nationalists are getting bolder. Kazakh is not going anywhere.

The problem, of course, is that the language is associated with the Kazakh identity, not the Kazakhstani identity, and the present course stands to alienate everyone except Kazakhs. This would be catastrophic for Kazakhstan I agree with what George wrote, but would like to elaborate on it from the perspective of someone who was lucky enough to speak both languages while he lived here, and suggest what we, as volunteers, can do to help.

The decisive matter is whether or not Kazakh will continue to be a divisive force. Certainly, some people are using it today as such, from the marshutkas to the Mazhilis, and the hypocrisy and thoughtlessness of this can sometimes be painful. A woman on a marshutka indignantly scolds the driver for playing Russian music instead of Kazakh, and then when she answers her cel-phone speaks only Kazassian (that is, Kazakh grammar with Russian vocabulary). The Kazakh director at an English language conference accuses the non-Kazakh speakers in the audience of “ignorance” in his closing speech. My Kazakh host mother, who was educated in a Russian school and had Russian-speaking parents, feels genuine guilt at not knowing her “mother tongue”. We all have scores of examples.

However, at least here in the urban North of Kazakhstan, Russians and non-Kazakh speaking Kazakhs show incredible patience for this. Many of the Russians I speak to at least give lip-service to their desire to learn Kazakh. My host mother and I usually get at least a minute or two out in Kazakh before switching to the comfort of Russian. My Kazakh friends who have Russian-speaking children express concern about their children’s future rather than anger at the state language policy. In fact, the only people I know who are indignant about the divisive nature of the Kazakh language are Americans; everyone else seems to at least ostensibly accept their responsibility to learn the new state language.

Also, though the dominance of the Kazakh language is now the de facto dominance of the Kazakh nation, I don’t believe that most Kazakhs believe this is or should be intentional. I have a great advantage as a foreigner, of course, but as a Kazakh-speaking American I feel accepted as at least a proto-Kazakh. (I even sometimes refer to myself as Kazakh, and though it may provoke a smile, it never provokes a correction.) In fact, the genetic ties between “ethnic” Kazakhs are much weaker than the linguistic ties, and if a Northern Kazakh who looks Korean and a Southern Kazakh who looks Uzbek can be in the same nation because of a common language, it gives some credence to the idea that other nations could join to some degree as well.

This is all idle speculation, though, since no matter how much a Russian is willing to learn Kazakh, there are few good opportunities to learn it, and no matter how accepting Kazakhs may be of non-Kazakhs speaking their language, there aren’t very many of them to accept. Certain things are lacking that Peace Corps can do nothing about – decent dictionaries and good, widely available Russian-language Kazakh textbooks, for example. However, the greatest deficit is in teaching methods. Every child in Kazakhstan takes a substantial amount of Kazakh language instruction in school, but the classes are taught as if they were teaching Kazakh literature courses for Kazakh speakers, not a foreign language. If the teaching methods were improved, a whole generation of non-Kazakhs who are at least basically competent in Kazakh is possible.

And who has the best access to new teaching methods for foreign language instruction in the villages of Kazakhstan? It’s us. Imagine Peace Corps volunteers organizing teaching methods seminars for teachers of Kazakh in Russian schools, offering basic Kazakh classes through their resource center, or organizing translation of some of our books of teaching games into Kazakh. (If you’re the vindictive type, you might also enjoy imagining the best ethnic Russian English teachers you know giving lessons to certain self-righteous Kazakhs you might know about how to teach their own language.) The English language education system in Kazakhstan has gone through a lot of reform during the time since independence, and I believe local administration may support efforts to reform the Kazakh education system likewise, out of nationalism if nothing else. Because of the language barrier, this is something that most of us will have to do by proxy, of course, through our counterparts or other local teachers, and it won’t be easy, but the resources are there. In the city school boards, a single person answers for English, Kazakh, and Russian. I spoke with ours, and she expressed strong interest in doing a seminar for Kazakh teachers before I leave, and our English resource center director also agreed to start offering a basic Kazakh class. (It almost makes a fellow want to extend.)

I believe the acceptance I described above, of Russians for a new language and Kazakhs for non-Kazakhs speaking their language, will not last forever. Kazakhstan has a window in which to teach its non-Kazakhs the Kazakh language and Peace Corps has the resources to help, at least a little. It is possible that this is almost as important to the future of Kazakhstani democracy as learning English. It would be exciting if a few volunteers after Kaz 15 up tried to take this on.