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Kazakh state TV station ditches Russian language broadcasts
Kazakhstan’s main state-owned television station has stopped broadcasting in Russian despite its status as an official language.
Russian had been the dominant language in Kazakhstan but since independence in 1991 Kazakh has become more widespread.
4:29PM BST 08 Sep 2011
The move also triggered a demand by some politicians to scrap Russian altogether from Kazakhstan’s constitution, 20 years after the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.
State-owned Kazakhstan-1 had shown roughly a quarter of its programmes in Russian but under orders from President Nursultan Nazarbayev as of September 1 it now only broadcasts in Kazakh.
This is the latest move in a long-running push by Kazakhstan to promote Kazakh, a Turkic language, over the language of its former master.
In Almaty, the relatively affluent former capital in the Kazakh-dominated south of the country, Russian is still mainly spoken on the streets but the move met with broad approval.
Seitkazi Matayev, owner of the Kazakh KazTag news agency and head of the National Press Club said that it was good to have one official channel dedicated to Kazakh-language programmes.
“If we only had one channel and it had been switched to Kazakh, that would be a problem, but we don’t. There are many channels showing both Russian and Kazakh programmes so it is not a problem,” he said.
Khabar, another state-owned television station, continues to broadcast Russian language programmes.
Kazakhs make up roughly two-thirds and Russians about a quarter of the 16 million people living in the country.
Before independence in 1991 Russians had been the biggest ethnic group and Russian had been the main language in Kazakhstan but although it is still widely spoken, especially in the main cities and in the north of the country, it has diminished in use as the government has promoted Kazakh.
Kazakhstan’s constitution declares Kazakh to be the state language although Russian is enshrined as an official language but more and more laws have crept in promoting Kazakh over Russian
For Kazakhstan, promoting its national culture and language is important for its national identity and on Monday, a few days after Kazakhstan-1 stopped broadcasting in Russian, a138 politicians and leading cultural figures wrote a letter to Mr Nazarbayev, the president, asking for Russian to be scratched from the constitution.
But, perhaps with an eye on negative reaction in neighbouring Russia, politicians close to Mr Nazarbayev quickly dismissed this idea.
Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, the President’s close adviser and confident, said it would be divisive to scrap Russian from the constitution.
“I am totally against it,” he told the Tengrinews website. “It is irrelevant and an artificial matter and is not needed by Kazakhs, Russians or any of the other 130 nationalities living in Kazakhstan.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...roadcasts.html
Kazakhstan’s main state-owned television station has stopped broadcasting in Russian despite its status as an official language.
Russian had been the dominant language in Kazakhstan but since independence in 1991 Kazakh has become more widespread.
4:29PM BST 08 Sep 2011
The move also triggered a demand by some politicians to scrap Russian altogether from Kazakhstan’s constitution, 20 years after the country’s independence from the Soviet Union.
State-owned Kazakhstan-1 had shown roughly a quarter of its programmes in Russian but under orders from President Nursultan Nazarbayev as of September 1 it now only broadcasts in Kazakh.
This is the latest move in a long-running push by Kazakhstan to promote Kazakh, a Turkic language, over the language of its former master.
In Almaty, the relatively affluent former capital in the Kazakh-dominated south of the country, Russian is still mainly spoken on the streets but the move met with broad approval.
Seitkazi Matayev, owner of the Kazakh KazTag news agency and head of the National Press Club said that it was good to have one official channel dedicated to Kazakh-language programmes.
“If we only had one channel and it had been switched to Kazakh, that would be a problem, but we don’t. There are many channels showing both Russian and Kazakh programmes so it is not a problem,” he said.
Khabar, another state-owned television station, continues to broadcast Russian language programmes.
Kazakhs make up roughly two-thirds and Russians about a quarter of the 16 million people living in the country.
Before independence in 1991 Russians had been the biggest ethnic group and Russian had been the main language in Kazakhstan but although it is still widely spoken, especially in the main cities and in the north of the country, it has diminished in use as the government has promoted Kazakh.
Kazakhstan’s constitution declares Kazakh to be the state language although Russian is enshrined as an official language but more and more laws have crept in promoting Kazakh over Russian
For Kazakhstan, promoting its national culture and language is important for its national identity and on Monday, a few days after Kazakhstan-1 stopped broadcasting in Russian, a138 politicians and leading cultural figures wrote a letter to Mr Nazarbayev, the president, asking for Russian to be scratched from the constitution.
But, perhaps with an eye on negative reaction in neighbouring Russia, politicians close to Mr Nazarbayev quickly dismissed this idea.
Yermukhamet Yertysbayev, the President’s close adviser and confident, said it would be divisive to scrap Russian from the constitution.
“I am totally against it,” he told the Tengrinews website. “It is irrelevant and an artificial matter and is not needed by Kazakhs, Russians or any of the other 130 nationalities living in Kazakhstan.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...roadcasts.html
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