“All That Glitters Is Not Gold” — what’s wrong with the Latin alphabet in Kazakhstan?
26 October 2017 — the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev signs law on the change of the Kazakh alphabet from Cyrillic, which has been used from the 1940s, to Latin. This rapid shift has stirred up the international community — the largest (and by far, the richest) country in Central Asia, famous for its multi-vector diplomatic style, through this action puts at risk the relations with its all-times close neighbor Russia.
But are we bringing too much value to the mere inscription? Let’s see what this new alphabet means for Kazakhstan and its international politics.
And what people will say?
The local population has met the news about the Latin alphabet with a rather ambiguous mood. Some Kazakhstani cheer it as a national manifesto, while others foresee a major loss of the accumulated cultural luggage.
“We are surprised that many people do not understand that a language that is in a difficult position gets weaker every time with a change of alphabet,” commented several intellectuals to Eurasianet.
Throughout history, the alphabet in Kazakhstan has changed multiple times. First — from the ancient runes to the Arabic writing, then Latin, Cyrillic, and again Latin. And every time the population would lose the essential skill of reading the previous historical documents and literature.
Moreover, a lot of people simply might not follow this shift: “I think it will affect generations differently”, shares Karakoz Ydyrys, a Kazakh journalist and writer. “The older generation won’t adopt the new alphabet into their lifestyle, while the generation Y will try to be more flexible and learn it.”
Besides, the new alphabet also promises to bring an enormous cost on the entrepreneurs, educational and financial institutions as the documentation and names will have to be transcribed into Latin. All of that might push the economy back.
Goodbye, Homo Sovieticus
The President and the Foreign Minister Erlan Idrisov assert that there is “no subtext and no geopolitical signal in Kazakhstan’s intention to switch”. However, the Russians (the largest ethnic minority in the country) are afraid that this change implies aggression towards the Russian language and hurry to leave the country. This is justified, as in other post-Soviet republics a similar shift has been wearing an exclusive nationalist tone.
Despite the 20 years of the “Kazakhification” policy of promotion of the Kazakh language, the Russian language remains by far the most spoken language in the country. “Keeping Kazakh in Cyrillic would be dangerous for the language itself”, argues Anar Fazylzhanova, deputy director of the Akhmet Bayturnsynuly Linguistics Institute. And she is not alone in this fear — many linguists also insist on the need to separate the language from Russian.
From the titles in the Russian newspapers “The Non-Russian World: Kazakhstan Replaces its ‘Older Brother’”, “Kazakh Activists Suggest a Suspicious Alphabet Reform,” and “Kazakhs Want to Throw 14 Letters out of Their Alphabet”, Kazakhstan is perceived as a “younger brother” inhabiting the Russian world. Alternatively, it could be a continuation of the Soviet overview, when all the Post-Soviet republics were subject to Russian supremacy. With this new alphabet, the “Kazakhstani” identity through this alphabet now isolates from the post-Soviet interpretation, and acquires a modern key.
Speaking of technicalities, several Cyrillic letters are uncommon for Kazakh, and some language-specific sounds requiring a different inscription. For Karakoz, who is writing a book in Kazakh, it is unhandy to switch between languages, because the Kazakh letters take place of the numbers “So it would be nice to make the amount of letters smaller”.
All in all, while Kazakh uses Cyrillic, it could be portrayed as an addition to the Russian language, and lead citizens to learn Russian instead of Kazakh. Considering all this, it reasonable to break this Soviet association of the Kazakh with Russian, at least in terms of the visual character.
Turkification or globalization?
In addition to the aforementioned post-Soviet (and post-colonial) tone, there are some theories behind the change of alphabet. One of them is the Turkification policy of Kazakhstan — an initiative to unite all Turkic-speaking countries into one pole. Hence, Kazakhstan would substitute the Russian-speaking domain to the Turkic one.
Recalling the past, Uzbekistan would be a good example of such dynamics. In an attempt to replicate the Turkish model, it has also changed the alphabet to Latin to support the “basis for unity” between the countries. Nevertheless, the country failed to implement the change due to the limited resources. Kazakhstan, on the other hand, has the financial capability to do that. Moreover, Nazarbayev has been promoting an idea of cooperation with Turkey and supporting other Turkic-speaking neighbors (for instance, Azerbaijan in comparison to Armenia in the Eurasian Economic Union).
Meanwhile, the new alphabet is designed to be remarkably different from other Turkic-speaking countries. Besides, the president explains that this whole shift has been based on the need for modernization.
“English language itself is associated with knowledge and modernity. And then we still have many stereotypes of the Kazakh language not being enough beautiful and cool enough. So, moving towards the Latin alphabet, people would change their perception that it is a worthy and nice language, it can be cool, it can be used in different ways”. — reflected Karakoz.
Thus, a shift to the Latin alphabet could kill two birds with one stone — both motivating Kazakhstanis to learn their language, and ease the get around for foreigners. For the latter, the country using the Latin alphabet might also be more attractive as a potential investment platform. All in all, the alphabet should help the national economy to boom in the future.
Not all black and white
Having these prospects in mind, it is important to take a step and look at the domestic political scene again. As Karakoz pointed out: “It seems to me that our former President Nazarbayev, seeks to stay in the history.” The old leader is famous for his ambitious political plans: from the move of the capital to the middle of (nowhere) the steppe to the idea of renaming the whole country to ‘Qazaq Eli’(tr. The Land of Kazakhs).
The change of alphabet is still a rare happening in world history. And it could have only been implemented without popular consent in the authoritarian state. So here comes the question: is this whole change just a sign of the increasing authoritarianism in the country? The Freedom House reports that the media freedom in Kazakhstan has degraded in 2009 and since then has stayed at an alarming level. The same is noticeable with Uzbekistan and Turkey.
Would this change of alphabet be then a cosmetic measure and the trend of increasing authoritarianism in the whole Turkic-speaking region? It is known that authoritarian leaders often seek to gain legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens. And while they advertise their actions as encouraging modernity and development, it does not much improve the life of the state. It is not only Nazarbayev — his colleagues in the Central Asian region seem to fall in the same framework. Take for instance Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (the president of Turkmenistan), who initiated the first auto-race in the country and beaten several Guinness World Records. His farce and luxury serve to mask the harsh economic crisis in the country.
In the same manner, one cannot guarantee that the alphabet change is not just an attempt to secure oneself geopolitically. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, Nazarbayev might have sensed the danger of maintaining a too-close relationship with its northern neighbor. Therefore, the change of alphabet could have put the state in the spotlight. With the Latin alphabet, Kazakhstan might gain more support from the Western states and thus, receive protection from the aggression of Russia (and possibly China). Altogether, it helps the Omni-enmeshment policy of creating broad ties with the focus on integration and peace (but also losing own identity on the way).
No past, no future
With all due respect, the change of alphabet is just the tip of the iceberg locally and internationally. The complete shift is postponed to 2023, and the design is still underdeveloped. Be it an attempt to promote the Kazakh language, isolate from the Russian legacy, or a mere desire to attract foreign investment — the Kazakh citizens are not machines to adapt to the government’s agenda so easily.
To conclude, I would like to bring a quote from Chingiz Aitmatov’s book The Day Lasts Longer than a Hundred Years: “Mankurt (here a slave, a person without memory) did not know who he is, where he is from, he didn’t know his name, didn’t remember his childhood, father and mother — in one word, Mankurt did not identify as a human.” The new Latin alphabet is not yet a part of the Kazakh national identity. On the opposite, the vast cultural legacy is their part, so they should make every effort to save it for future generations.