Russian is an East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Russia. It is the native language of the Russians and belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is one of four living East Slavic languages, and is also a part of the larger Balto-Slavic languages. It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union. Russian has remained an official language in independent Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine, Moldova, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel. It is also one of the six official languages of United Nations.
Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a country located in Central Asia. It is surrounded by five countries: Kazakhstan to the north, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Tajikistan to the southeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest, making it one of only two doubly landlocked countries on Earth, along with Liechtenstein. Uzbekistan is part of the Turkic world, as well as a member of the Organization of Turkic States. Uzbek is the majority language, while Russian is widely spoken and understood. Islam is the predominant religion, and most Uzbeks are Sunni Muslims.
Samarqand or Samarkand is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. Samarqand is the capital of Samarqand Region and a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlements Kimyogarlar, Farhod and Khishrav. With 551,700 inhabitants (2021), it is the third-largest city of Uzbekistan.
Uzbek, formerly known as Turki, is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language also known as "Turki", as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.
Tatar is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan, as well as Siberia. It should not be confused with Crimean Tatar or Siberian Tatar, which are closely related but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages.
Tajik, also called Tajiki Persian or Tajiki, is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by Tajiks. It is closely related to neighbouring Dari of Afghanistan with which it forms a continuum of mutually intelligible varieties of the Persian language. Several scholars consider Tajik as a dialectal variety of Persian rather than a language on its own. The popularity of this conception of Tajik as a variety of Persian was such that, during the period in which Tajik intellectuals were trying to establish Tajik as a language separate from Persian, prominent intellectual Sadriddin Ayni counterargued that Tajik was not a "bastardised dialect" of Persian. The issue of whether Tajik and Persian are to be considered two dialects of a single language or two discrete languages has political sides to it.
Altai is a set of Turkic languages, which are in turn hypothesized by some to be a set of Altaic languages spoken officially in the Altai Republic, Russia. The standard vocabulary is based on the Southern Altai language, though it's also taught to and used by speakers of the Northern Altai language as well. Gorno–Altai refers to a subgroup of languages in the Altai Mountains.The languages were called Oyrot (ойрот) prior to 1948.
Crimean Tatar, also called Crimean, is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It should not be confused with Tatar, spoken in Tatarstan and adjacent regions in Russia; the two languages are related, but belong to different subgroups of the Kipchak languages, while maintaining a significant degree of mutual intelligibility. Crimean Tatar has been extensively influenced by nearby Oghuz dialects and is also mutually intelligible with them, to varying degrees.
Nogai also known as Noğay, Noghay, Nogay, or Nogai Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken in Southeastern European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. It is the ancestral language of the Nogais. As a member of the Kipchak branch, it is closely related to Kazakh, Karakalpak and Crimean Tatar. In 2014 the first Nogai novel was published, written in the Latin alphabet.
Koppa is an archaic numeral character of the Cyrillic script. Its form are derived from some forms of the Greek letter Koppa (Ϙ ϙ).
Karakalpak is a Turkic language spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan. It is divided into two dialects, Northeastern Karakalpak and Southwestern Karakalpak. It developed alongside Nogai and neighbouring Kazakh languages, being markedly influenced by both. Typologically, Karakalpak belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages, thus being closely related to and highly mutually intelligible with Kazakh and Nogai.
The Karakalpaks or Qaraqalpaqs, are a Turkic ethnic group native to Karakalpakstan in Northwestern Uzbekistan. During the 18th century, they settled in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya and in the (former) delta of Amu Darya on the southern shore of the Aral Sea. The name "Karakalpak" comes from two words: qara meaning "black" and qalpaq meaning "hat". The Karakalpaks number nearly 871,970 worldwide, out of which about 726,000 live in the Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan.
Bukharian is a Judeo-Persian dialect historically spoken by the Bukharan Jews of Central Asia. It is a Jewish dialect derived from — and largely mutually intelligible with — the Tajik branch of the Persian language.
The Tajik language has been written in three alphabets over the course of its history: an adaptation of the Perso-Arabic script, an adaptation of the Latin script and an adaptation of the Cyrillic script. Any script used specifically for Tajik may be referred to as the Tajik alphabet, which is written as алифбои тоҷикӣ in Cyrillic characters, الفبای تاجیکی with Perso-Arabic script and alifboji toçikī in Latin script.
The languages of the Soviet Union consist of hundreds of different languages and dialects from several different language groups.
The Uzbek language has been written in various scripts: Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic. The language traditionally used Arabic script, but the official Uzbek government under the Soviet Union started to use Cyrillic in 1940, which is when widespread literacy campaigns were initiated by the Soviet government across the Union. In Uzbekistan, the Latin script was officially reintroduced, along with Cyrillic, in 1992, and a full transition to Latin script is awaiting implementation. In neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, people use Cyrillic. In the Xinjiang region of China, some Uzbek speakers write using Cyrillic, others with an alphabet based on the Uyghur Arabic alphabet. Uzbeks of Afghanistan also write the language using Arabic script, and the Arabic Uzbek alphabet is taught at some schools in the country.
Standard Persian is the standard variety of Persian that is the official language of the Iran and Tajikistan and one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. It is a set of spoken and written formal varieties used by the educated persophones of several nations around the world.
Kyrgyzstan is one of four former Soviet republics in Central Asia to have Russian as a de jure official language. The Kyrgyz language was adopted as the official language in 1991. After pressure from the Russian and other minorities in the country, the republic adopted Russian as an official language as well in 1997, to become an officially bilingual country.
The Northwest Military District is a military district of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Uzbekistan based in the city of Nukus. Nukus serves as the capital city of the autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan. It serves the territory of Karakalpakstan as well as the Xorazm Province. It was established in 2000.
