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Languages of Kazakhstan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Languages of Kazakhstan
The Kazakh-speaking world:
  regions where Kazakh is the language of the majority
  regions where Kazakh is the language of a significant minority or sparsely populated areas
OfficialKazakh (national/state language), Russian (official)
NationalKazakh language
MinorityKazakh; German; Uzbek; Ukrainian; Uyghur; Tatar; Kyrgyz; Azerbaijani; Korean;
ForeignEnglish, German
SignedKazakh Sign Language
Keyboard layout
ЙЦУКЕН
The Kazakh keyboard.
SourceLanguages committee of the Ministry of culture and sports
AlphabetKazakh alphabets
Kazakh Braille
Language proficiency by age group

Kazakhstan is officially a bilingual country. Kazakh (part of the Kipchak sub-branch of the Turkic languages) is proficiently spoken by 80.1% of the population according to 2021 census, and has the status of "state language". Russian, on the other hand, is spoken by 83.7% as of 2021.[1] It has equal status to Kazakh as an "official language", and is used routinely in business, government, and inter-ethnic communication. However, only 63.45% of ethnic Kazakhs and 49.3% of the country's population are daily speakers of Kazakh language, according to the same census.[2]

Other languages natively spoken in Kazakhstan are Dungan, Ili Turki, Ingush, Plautdietsch, and Sinte Romani.[3] A number of more recent immigrant languages, such as Belarusian, Korean, Azerbaijani, and Greek are also spoken.[4][5]

Languages

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The following table shows the share of the population that can speak the language according to the 2021 census [ru; kk]:[6]

Language % Script
Russian 83.7 Cyrillic
Kazakh 80.1 Cyrillic, Latin
English 35.1 Latin
Uzbek 2.5 Latin, Cyrillic
Uyghur 0.9 Perso-Arabic, Latin
Turkish 0.6 Latin
German 0.6 Latin
Tatar 0.5 Cyrillic
Azerbaijani 0.5 Cyrillic, Latin, Perso-Arabic
Korean 0.3 Hangul
Kyrgyz 0.2 Cyrillic, Perso-Arabic
Belarusian 0.1 Cyrillic
Ukrainian 0.1 Cyrillic
Chinese 0.1 Chinese characters
Chechen 0.1 Cyrillic
French 0.1 Latin
Arabic 0.1 Arabic alphabet
Other 2.7
Percentage of daily Kazakh speakers in Kazakhstan (2021 Census)

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "National census 2021 - Agency for Strategic planning and reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bureau of National statistics". stat.gov.kz. Retrieved 8 September 2024.
  2. ^ http://old.stat.gov.kz/api/getFile/?docId=ESTAT464825
  3. ^ Higgins, Andrew (12 May 2019). "A Mennonite Town in Muslim Central Asia Holds On Against the Odds". New York Times. New York City. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
  4. ^ О родном языке корейцев Казахстана [On the mother tongue of Kazakhstani Koreans] (in Russian)
  5. ^ "Kazakhstan". Ethnologue. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  6. ^ National composition, religion and language proficiency in the Republic of Kazakhstan (PDF). Astana: Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 2023. p. 323.