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Russian in Central Asia | ||
Tags: Language Importance | Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5088 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes  Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 1 of 20 22 February 2011 at 5:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi all,
Do you think it is worth learning Russian if a big part of my motivation is interest in Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan, Kirghiztan, even Mongolia. I know it still serves as a lingua franca to varying degrees in each of those countries (IIRC it is especially important in Kazakhstan), but it's still not clear to me exactly how useful it would be. For example, are some of the main media in each of those countries (newspapers, TV, etc) in Russian? Does the average person in small towns speak Russian? Or is it just the elite that speak it. Just as importantly, is Russian on an uphill or downward trend there? Any insight appreciated! Mikael 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5930 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 2 of 20 22 February 2011 at 6:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I don’t know about Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, or Mongolia, but I know that Russian is very important in Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
At my school this year, there is an exchange student from Tajikistan whose native language is Russian. When I first met her, I had just begun learning Persian a couple weeks previously, so I thought that since the official language of Tajikistan is Tajik (a dialect of Persian), I could try to practice my limited Persian on her. When I went up to her and said something in Persian, I got a very puzzled look and she said after a moment, “Oh no, I don’t speak Farsi.” Later I asked that if she didn’t speak Tajik/Persian, what did she speak as her native language, which I found out to be Russian. She said that most people in Tajikistan speak Russian and only a minority actually speaks Tajik. She said that most of the schools are taught only in Russian, but there are Tajik-language schools in some places. However, I think she is from the capital Dushanbe, so it could be very different in other places in Tajikistan. According to Wikipedia, Russian is the “language for inter-ethnic communication.” From my reading, Kazakhstan seems to be in a similar situation. Both Kazakh and Russian are official there, but Kazakh retains the title of “first official language.” Almost everyone in the country speaks Russian and it is often their native language. However, over half of the population (64.4% according to Wikipedia) also speaks Kazakh. I hope this has helped. Удачи! 10 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6944 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 20 22 February 2011 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
These articles about the situation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan seem to reinforce what ellasevia has posted. The policies mentioned in the articles reflect how dominant Russian has become within the citizenry. It's got to the point where there's now a conundrum between promoting the traditionally-associated language of the ethnicity (i.e. Kazakhs = Kazakh language; Kyrgyz = Kyrgyz language) and realizing that many of these people who should be most supportive of the ideas now speak only Russian. Right now it's hard to say what Russian's trend will be there. What happens in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan may end up like in Paraguay where the indigenous language (Guaraní) is spoken by roughly two-thirds of the population alongside the colonialists' language (Spanish) which is spoken by almost everyone. On the other hand, Kazakh and Kyrgyz could eventually be pushed closer to social irrelevance by Russian as Irish has been by English. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| polyglHot Pentaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 4854 days ago 173 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, German, Spanish, Indonesian Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 20 22 February 2011 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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1. No. Find out which Central Asian country interests you the most and learn that
language. 2. Apparently many people immigrate to Russia only to return to these countries with money, speaking only Russian etc. An 18 year old Uzbek friend of mine who has lived here for a few years didn't even know that Uzbek was a language so I guess that family speaks only Russian. However with a slightly different accent of course. 3. Uphill because of immigrants returning. However with your knowledge of a Central Asian language you could make some use of it within Russia as well, I daily hear strange tongues spoken on the streets of St. Petersburg... I guess it would be best to learn a Central Asian language that uses the Cyrillic alphabet though, I don't know, why are you interested in this region, for business, travel, history, politics? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4966 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 5 of 20 22 February 2011 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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yes, on Kazakh TV you see Asians speaking Russian.
Kazakh language is used too. Well, it's a little shame, I think. People should speak their native language. Moreover there is not much resource for those languages,if you cannot speak Russian. I want to learn Kazakh, and I could only find Russian textbooks, one in Chinese, and as for English - only peace corps free course, so it's good to learn Russian maybe anyway. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5088 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 6 of 20 23 February 2011 at 2:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the informative replies all.
polyglHot, I'm not interested in any of those countries in particular. The region as a whole is appealing to me for a few reasons: the beautiful and varied landscapes, the fact it's a little mysterious (I'm an adventure freak and those countries seem pretty remote for the most part), and besides they seem to be like a double bridge between East and West, North and South, which by itself is amazing! So I'm looking for a language that would be useful over as large an area as possible in that region. As a multi-year investment I am undecided between Russian and Chinese, considering who knows, in 15-20 years' time in terms of geopolitical/economic influence in Central Asia Chinese might have surpassed Russia (but I'm getting ahead of myself here, I won't start studying either language until I'm satisfied with my Arabic!) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| aabram Pentaglot Senior Member Estonia Joined 5321 days ago 138 posts - 263 votes Speaks: Estonian*, English, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Mandarin, French | Message 7 of 20 02 March 2011 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
As sad as it is, pretty much in all countries that used to be former USSR you can most likely get by with Russian. However, being able to get comfortably by and scoring high on social interaction scale might be two different things in different regions, depending on local nationalist climate. Just be sure to speak with thick accent (ei mitään pahalla, mutta suomalaisillä taitaa olla hieman paksu venäjä ;) when needed and you'll be fine :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Mikael84 Bilingual Pentaglot Groupie Peru Joined 5088 days ago 76 posts - 116 votes Speaks: French*, Finnish*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Arabic (classical), German, Russian | Message 8 of 20 03 March 2011 at 1:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Haha, or I can pretend I am "Russian" from Karjala and then we can all get along making anti-Russian jokes and remarks! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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