FACTORS SHAPING LANGUAGE POLICY AND STATUS DEVELOPMENT

We now turn to an examination of the key factors that have been shaping the recovery of Kazakh’s status in the last decade and a half and that seem likely to continue to play important roles in this process. Based on this, at the end of the article, we will briefly consider the likely direction of future developments.

NAZARBAYEV’S IMPRINT ON POLICY AND POLITICAL CULTURE

The promotion of the Kazakh language in Kazakhstan has been profoundly affected by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who first ascended to the leadership of Kazakhstan as the republic Communist Party first secretary in June 1989. Having become president of the Kazakh SSR in 1990, he was subsequently elected and re-elected independent Kazakhstan’s president in 1991 and 1999.
Nazarbayev’s appointment as Kazakhstan’s Party leader in 1989 marked a turning point in the history of the republic. By removing his predecessor, Gennadii Kolbin, and appointing Nazarbayev, Moscow implicitly agreed to allow the republic party leadership to accept many of the platforms that were being advocated by relatively independent “informal” groups in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan’s informals, like those throughout the USSR, brought together activists interested in a variety of issues; they stood outside the Party and other official institutions. Many informals focused on language, historical monuments, and the environment, and therefore their members frequently either shared particular ethnic, religious, and/or linguistic bonds, or else inhabited the same territory. Upon his 1989 promotion, Nazarbayev quickly embraced the platform of a new informal organization devoted to language that would soon become known as the Qazaq tili qoghamy (Kazakh Language Society). Most importantly, Nazarbayev endorsed Kazakh (instead of both Kazakh and Russian) as the sole “state language” of Kazakhstan.^[1]
Although Nazarbayev has consistently supported recovery of the Kazakh language, he has eschewed extreme positions. For example, even as a champion of Kazakh as the sole state language, he took issue with a reference in the 1989 draft language law that called for Russian to serve “along with” (nariadu s) Kazakh; upon Nazarbayev’s insistence, “along with” in the law was replaced with “on a par with” (naravne s).^[2]
Since then, Nazarbayev has frequently emphasized that sudden and overly forceful measures to promote Kazakh may alienate Kazakhstan’s citizens with weak or no Kazakh skills (including many Kazakhs) and may carry serious economic consequences. He has stressed that the teaching of Kazakh should focus on the next generation rather than today’s mature adults, and that before Kazakhs demand members of other ethnic groups to learn the Kazakh language, Kazakhs themselves should learn it and use it.^[3] Nazarbayev’s restraining influence on language was manifest recently in a speech in which he criticized attempts to replace Russian with Kazakh too rapidly, noting, “it is the Russian language that unites our nation [natsiia], all citizens of our country. This is the way things developed historically, and this is no one’s fault. We will need time in order for the Kazakh language to begin to fulfill this unifying role, and things should not be rushed.”^[4]
Along with this moderation concerning language, Nazarbayev’s “soft dictatorial” political style has been important to language status development in Kazakhstan because it has allowed ideas that are more nationalist than his own to be aired. This has remained the case even though since the mid-1990s, Nazarbayev has moved toward ruling Kazakhstan in a more authoritarian fashion.
A key aspect of Nazarbayev’s impact on language policy is related to his insistence that Kazakhstan maintain a unitary political system. Despite Kazakhstan’s great territory and conditions that vary from one part of the country to the next, Nazarbayev has refused to consider a federal system, which might open the door to regional autonomy and the eventual secession of regions. In terms of language, this has meant that despite the very dissimilar demographic and linguistic circumstances prevailing in different areas of the country, language policy throughout Kazakhstan has been fundamentally uniform.^[5]
Although a major reason for the insistence that Kazakhstan retain a unitary structure appears to be a perceived or real danger that parts of Kazakhstan might secede and join Russia, Nazarbayev has also consistently demonstrated that he places a high priority on maintaining good relations with his northern neighbor and seeking economic and political ties or integration with it. In the early years of independence, Nazarbayev supported a “Eurasian Union” that would have promoted greater integration among the CIS states. A more recent symbolic reflection of Nazarbayev’s policy was his declaring 2004 the “Year of Russia” in Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev is keenly aware of sensitivity in Russia to alleged language discrimination in Kazakhstan – especially discrimination against Russians and other Slavs – and his recognition of the need to maintain good relations with Russia has likely reinforced his disinclination to support radical measures related to promoting Kazakh’s status.
As president of Kazakhstan, Nazarbayev has overseen and often orchestrated a system in which there have been almost constant changes in law, personnel, and even administrative borders. Kazakhstan adopted two separate constitutions in its first years of existence. Flux is also apparent in the transformation of many of Nazarbayev’s former allies into open political opponents who were exiled or arrested. The borders of Kazakhstan’s oblasts have been redrawn, with several being eliminated as independent units. Nazarbayev is famous for shuffling personnel in major government offices, sometimes setting in motion a version of “political musical chairs.”
This constant change has affected the implementation of language policy as well. The government organs responsible for language have not remained stable. At various times, local offices in charge of language have been created and liquidated, and the line of command has also shifted. The first government body with primary responsibility in this area was the “Committee on Languages” created under the Cabinet of Ministers in April 1993.^[6] In April 1995, language issues became part of the work of the newly created “National Committee on Nationality Policy.”^[7] In March 1997, coordination of language was largely handed over to a newly created Department for Coordinating Language Policy under the Ministry of Education and Culture.^[8] Some months later, in late 1997, primary responsibility for language issues was transferred once again, this time to the Ministry of Information and Public Harmony.^[9] Later “culture” was added to this ministry’s portfolio. However, in September 2003, this expanded ministry was split once more, and responsibility for language was given to a department in the newly established Ministry of Culture.^[10] In February 2005, a new “Committee on Languages” was created to coordinate language matters within the recently reconstituted Ministry of Culture, Information, and Sport.^[11]
Frequent change of political personnel in key jobs has also negatively affected implementation of language policy. One of the most innovative individuals in terms of promoting Kazakh was Ghalymzhan Zhaqiyanov, who during his time as akim (governor) of Semei Oblast began to introduce salary bonuses for those with Kazakh skills. However, after transferring to other work, Zhaqiyanov was eventually arrested and removed from open political activity. The “crimes” for which Zhaqiyanov was sidelined had nothing to do with his positions or policies on language issues. Likewise, the reasons for a virtual revolving door in the leadership of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education are probably not directly related to language issues, either.^[12] However, the Ministry of Education is a key institution in implementing Kazakhstan’s language policies. The shifting jobs and political fortunes in national and regional posts is a hallmark of Nazarbayev’s Kazakhstan, and it is very likely that constant political reshuffling has negatively affected language policy formation and implementation.
Although it cannot be blamed entirely on Nazarbayev, pervasive corruption in Kazakhstan reaches the very top of the political pyramid. This has fostered widespread cynicism, and has interfered with implementation of virtually all laws. In the area of language, it has undoubtedly reduced the feasibility of introducing regulations that would require certain levels of skills as job qualifications. To extrapolate from the field of education, where bribes are paid in order to achieve scores high enough to enter educational institutions or to pass other exams, a test of language skills as a condition for employment would be vulnerable to exploitation for personal enrichment. Corruption in administration and in the legal system also means that regulations can often be ignored if a bribe is paid to an inspector or other person in charge of implementing them.

THE SOVIET SYSTEM’S COLLAPSE: CONSISTENCY AND CHANGE IN THE ROLE OF RUSSIA

Perhaps the most important fact about efforts to raise the status of Kazakh is that although the USSR’s political leadership allowed Kazakh language recovery to begin in the late 1980s, the Soviet system – under which the first language law was adopted – soon collapsed, and Kazakhstan became an independent country. Though Kazakhstan’s political system has changed dramatically, its geographical position has not. As in the Soviet era, Kazakhstan and Russia still share a border of over 4000 miles with few natural physical barriers and, partly for this reason, it remains quite porous. From the perspective of Kazakhstan, the weaker neighbor, anxieties about the border’s vulnerability have been aggravated by declarations of Russian nationalists who have suggested Russia reclaim territories now inside Kazakhstan.^[13]
As noted above, extensive parts of Kazakhstan are inhabited primarily by non-Kazakhs. Upon the USSR’s collapse, Slavs in these areas, whose commonality as well as groupness is greater with co-ethnics across the Russian Federation-Kazakhstani international border than with Kazakhs in the south of Kazakhstan, began to push for increased regional autonomy in Kazakhstan or even redrawn state borders.^[14] Although neither Boris Yeltsin nor Vladimir Putin has encouraged Russian nationalist ambitions to expand Russia’s territory in this region, as noted above, Nazarbayev (as well as other political leaders of Kazakhstan) are extremely sensitive to pressure from Russia. Besides the historical and demographic factors that lie behind this, Kazakhstan is also dependent on Russia (as a source and transit country) for most of its foreign trade, especially for its most precious commodity, oil. Although the situation has shifted somewhat since 1991, the transportation grids of areas of Kazakhstan adjacent to Russia are generally better tied to Russia than to Kazakhstan’s densely populated south. A combination of all these factors has moderated more extreme measures of Kazakh linguistic nationalism.

ECONOMIC CHANGE

Paralleling developments in the political realm, Kazakhstan has permitted much broader and faster dismantling of key aspects of the Soviet economic system than Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. This included a quicker privatization of state property and decrease or cessation of state subsidies to enterprises that had operated at a loss. As a result, many factories and mines temporarily halted production or closed entirely, and/or sought ways to shed excess labor. Much of the social safety net in the USSR had been supported through these institutions. The upheaval that affected them meant massive closure of clinics and nursery schools, as well as recreation and other services. Local governments, which received facilities and responsibilities from the enterprises that no longer wanted them, did not collect sufficient revenues to support them, partly because there were no taxes to collect on non-existent production, but also because the country lacked an enforceable tax system.
The era in which the economy and especially the safety net collapsed nevertheless offered opportunities for enormous personal gain to many individuals with access to public resources and good connections. Some, for example, took advantage of their positions in order to purchase state property at low prices and then sell it (often to foreign concerns) at enormous profit. Others benefited by behaving according to entrenched Soviet traditions of exchanging favors and bribes, and more generally blurring the lines between private and public property and perquisites.
Nazarbayev’s choice of economic course has profoundly affected language processes in Kazakhstan. Recognition of the high economic costs of more rapid or radical linguistic Kazakhization in the public sphere has undoubtedly reduced the likelihood of proposals involving radical change. Beyond this, however, the financial straits of government and non-government institutions have greatly slowed the implementation of laws and other measures that have been formally adopted. Institutions have lacked the wherewithal to train and hire enough high quality Kazakh-speaking personnel to work in such key positions as schoolteachers, or translators and clerks for offices where work is supposed to shift to Kazakh. Though the situation has eased in recent years, funds have also been scarce for the creation and distribution of related key materials, such as textbooks or innovative and attractive local television programs.
Implicit costs of another sort have likely also restrained abrupt shifts intended to promote the Kazakh language. For example, changing an institution’s language of operation from Russian to Kazakh has the potential to alter power relations radically inside it and disrupt operations. Furthermore, if, as is often the case, the person with the best professional qualifications cannot communicate in Kazakh, his or her replacement by a less qualified Kazakh speaker entails a loss in the institution’s performance. True, in many cases language is simply a convenient excuse (or weapon) that is used in the battle for employment. Nevertheless, recognition of this dynamic has probably also tempered the political leadership’s willingness to support measures promoting Kazakh language.
The impact of the collapsed economy on family budgets has also seriously affected the course of Kazakh language recovery. Because the state does not provide for the popular welfare as it had in the Soviet era – including through a guaranteed job – many citizens of Kazakhstan have been preoccupied with assuring very basic needs, such as finding ways to pay for food, heat, and medical care. For those with the appropriate qualifications, the desire or need for more income has often encouraged or required taking a second job. Few people have the luxury of spare time to engage in language courses for which there is no immediate economic payoff.
Likewise, for most urban Kazakh parents seeking a high quality primary and secondary education for their children with promise for higher education and/or income, it still makes sense to select Russian-medium instruction. In the last few years, knowledge of Kazakh has also become appreciated in some cases as a qualification that might positively affect future employment; however, it is not an important enough consideration for most parents to select a Kazakh-medium education for their offspring. Some Kazakhs with the means to do so send their children to elite private Kazakh-medium schools that charge tuition (or for which other payments or levels of achievement may be required in order to enroll). Others attempt to assure a good education plus Kazakh language skills by enrolling children in Russian-medium classes and hiring Kazakh language tutors, or by enrolling in a Kazakh-medium class and hiring tutors to help in various disciplines where the Kazakh-medium instruction may be poor. However, economic reality puts this beyond the reach of most parents, and/or it does not make such a course appear rational for most families. Family economic difficulties may also affect such considerations as discouraging enrollment at a “good” Kazakh school that is located across town and so requires a bus ride to get there. The ride itself is more expensive than it was in the Soviet era, crime that is related to economic change may make that ride more dangerous, and grandparents, who in Soviet times might have been available to accompany the children to a distant school, may well be involved in activity that is intended to generate income.

DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFTS

Closely related to economic changes, demographic developments in Kazakhstan since the late 1980s have also had a major impact on the language picture. The most important change has been the growing share of Kazakhs in the population. One of the major reasons for this is the large emigration of Slavs and Germans. Over the period 1993-1997 alone, the number of Slavs and Germans leaving Kazakhstan exceeded those arriving in the country by about 1.5 million. In the same period, there was a slight positive balance of Kazakh immigration into Kazakhstan: arriving Kazakhs exceeded those who left by 46,700.^[15] An important factor behind the positive balance of Kazakh migration was the official state policy providing benefits to an annual quota of Kazakhs from outside Kazakhstan who wanted to resettle in the “historic homeland.” The return of many Kazakhs to Kazakhstan was also encouraged by discrimination and/or deteriorating economic conditions in their respective countries of residence.^[16]
The increasing share of Kazakhs was also a result of a substantially higher birth rate among Kazakhs than among Russians. In 1991, when Kazakhs comprised something over 40 percent of Kazakhstan’s total population, they accounted for 72.4 percent of the total natural population increase of 219,429. In 1993, they accounted for 88.2 percent of the 145,371 natural increase. By contrast, Russians, whose total number was not yet much less than Kazakhs’, accounted for only 12 percent of the increase in 1991, and experienced negative natural growth in 1993.^[17]
Despite the relatively high Kazakh birth rate in comparison to Russians, the rate of natural growth for Kazakhs and all other groups dropped in the early years of independence: whereas in 1987 there had been 417,000 births in Kazakhstan, a decade later there were only 232,000.^[18]
Migration within Kazakhstan, especially Kazakhs’ movement from rural to urban areas, has had a major impact on language in urban areas. Although some cities from which Slavs and Germans departed simply withered because they lacked employment opportunities, others attracted Kazakh-speaking migrants who, arriving from rural areas or other smaller towns, replaced the former inhabitants. The shift of the capital from Almaty to Astana created many new opportunities for employment, including patronage positions for which ethnic Kazakhs often enjoyed the inside track. Almaty, though it lost its status as capital, has consistently offered a much better life than smaller towns or villages, and so it has remained a strong magnet for Kazakh migrants.^[19]
Although most new Kazakh arrivals in cities have enough Russian skills to get along, and many also may still see knowledge of Russian as a skill that increases their chances of upward mobility, their presence in the city has increased the use of Kazakh in urban areas. This may make it easier to encourage compliance with language regulations, for example in the case of merchants who see that it makes economic sense to advertise to Kazakh-speaking clientele in Kazakh. In most cities of Kazakhstan, Russian signs will still reach a larger number of potential customers than Kazakh. Nevertheless, the addition of Kazakh to what were previously Russian-only announcements may be more than merely a form of compliance with the law; it may also be a relatively inexpensive way to project a favorable image. The increased share of Kazakh speakers has also raised the likelihood of non-Kazakh speakers or those with very limited skills encountering Kazakh language in their place of employment or at public or private gatherings. Whereas in the 1970s or 1980s, bilingual Kazakh and Russian speakers who lived in the city would generally have refrained from using Kazakh at work meetings, where not everyone knew the language, today it is common to speak Kazakh in this kind of setting. In such an environment, it may be prudent for non-Kazakh-speakers to learn at least enough Kazakh to understand what others are saying. This is especially true in the case of ethnic Kazakhs, who may be humiliated for not having proper respect for “their own” people and ancestors if they demonstrate that they do not know what is going on. The expanding share of Kazakhs who can at least understand and on occasion do speak at least some Kazakh is probably not a sign that the Kazakh language is a major component in a groupness uniting the newly arrived rural Kazakh with a neighbor who is a third generation urban dweller. However, the Kazakh language may be at the beginning of a long process of becoming part of Kazakh commonality.

PROSPECTS

Progress toward a higher status for Kazakh both as a language used by Kazakhs and as language known and used by all Kazakhstanis has been far slower than what Kazakh nationalists like Qoyshybayev have advocated. Indeed, even moderates such as President Nazarbayev have criticized the poor and uneven implementation of laws and programs adopted to date. Naturally, progress has been easiest in those areas of Kazakhstan, including certain cities, where the Kazakh population is largest.
If we stand back and look at the larger picture for a moment, despite the problems of raising Kazakh’s status, its prospects look rather bright. One key reason relates to the independent state and its proclaimed ideology, which is granted at least grudging support by a large majority of Kazakhstan’s population, and enthusiastic support by a large and probably growing segment of it. This factor alone, of course, is insufficient to guarantee a higher status for Kazakh, but it is nevertheless a crucial component supporting it. In addition, however, the widespread popular mindset that identifies language, territory, and ethnicity is still basically intact. To the increasing majority Kazakh population, this lends a greater plausibility to the Kazakh linguistic nationalists’ argument that the government’s identification project should increase the prominence of what they (the nationalists) define as Kazakh. The platforms and aspirations of the nationalists, of course, do not automatically translate into reality. However, in terms of language, even among Kazakhstan’s ethnic minority population, a considerable share appears to concede, that, whether they like it or not, time is on the side of the nationalists. One sign of this was an open letter signed by the presidents of the Almaty chapters of twelve non-Kazakh “national” cultural centers. This letter announced support for an initiative to remove parallel Russian translations of certain types of public signage, leaving only Kazakh writing.^[20]
This open letter was almost certainly encouraged by prominent political leaders, perhaps in this case Imanghali Tasmaghambetov, Almaty’s new mayor and influential politician. This, however, does not lessen its importance. Indeed, it is another sign that, for all the moderation in executing language policy, Kazakhstan’s leadership continues to stay the course of promoting Kazakh. Moreover, it suggests that if Nazarbayev should unexpectedly disappear from the scene, it might be difficult for a successor, whose legitimacy among a large segment of the population rests on support for a certain level of Kazakhization, to make a radical change of course on the issue of language.
Demographic trends supporting an increased status for Kazakh also seem likely to continue. Slavic emigration from Kazakhstan has slowed, but natural growth is producing a larger Kazakh share of urban population. The likely trend for the coming decades is unambiguous: as of 1999, among the cohort of Kazakhstan’s population born between 1990 and 1993, Kazakhs outnumbered Russians more than three to one, and even in urban areas almost two to one. By contrast, among the cohort born from 1940 to 1949, Russians outnumbered Kazakhs more than two to one.^[21] The trend of migration by Kazakhs from (especially rural) areas into urban areas, especially larger cities where Kazakh has been weakest in the late Soviet era, will also probably continue. This, too, is apt to make urban areas more linguistically Kazakh.
Given the financial costs of language development and change, Kazakh is very “fortunate” to be spoken on a territory with substantial natural wealth, especially energy reserves that attract foreign investment. Even though today’s trends are no guarantee of future development, Kazakhstan’s wealth and economic growth may also contribute to efforts to expand the use of the Kazakh language by easing financial constraints that might otherwise complicate efforts to promote Kazakh.
It is worth noting, too, that although Kazakh’s linguistic weakness inclines Beybit Qoyshybayev to oppose the idea of declaring a “Kazakhstani nation” today, other nationalists take a different view. Historian Azimbay Ghali, for example, welcomes the idea, citing linguistic changes as evidence that the process of producing a Kazakhstani nation is indeed already beginning. According to Ghali, the process is evident today in the linguistic assimilation of speakers of other Turkic languages; furthermore, in his view it is possible to predict that Kazakhstan will change from a country in which even many Kazakhs do not know the Kazakh language to one in which large numbers of non-Kazakhs will join most or all Kazakhs in speaking it.^[22] Ghali, unlike Qoyshybayev, seems to feel that Kazakh is already becoming a component of a Kazakhstani groupness.
In today’s increasingly globalized world, it is unlikely that Kazakh will replace other languages in Kazakhstan, even among Kazakhs, in ways that would fully satisfy either Qoyshybayev or Ghali. Nevertheless, it seems that Kazakh will proceed with the reconsolidation of its position in rural areas of Kazakhstan, and continue to make gains in urban settings as well. However, as in the case of other ethnic groups throughout the world, languages of wider communication (LWCs) will remain important for many forms or domains of communication. In areas ranging from advanced science to popular entertainment, Russian seems likely to continue to hold a substantial niche, though in these and other domains the functions once served exclusively or very heavily by Russian are already being shared with other LWCs, most importantly English. In any case, Kazakh currently seems to be on a path – even if not a very direct path – to becoming an integral part of Kazakh connectedness and even groupness in a way that it was not during the late Soviet period. The prospects for Kazakh language also to become part of a connectedness linking some of the minority population of Kazakhstan to members of the titular nationality may also appear good over the next few decades. Whether, however, in the more distant future it becomes a part of a Kazakhstani groupness is much more difficult to predict.