Uzbek[b] 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.[citation needed]
Uzbek is spoken as either a native or second language by around 32 million people around the world, making it the second-most widely spoken Turkic language after Turkish.[1]
External influences on Uzbek include Arabic, Persian, and Russian.[6] One of the most noticeable distinctions of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is the rounding of the vowel /ɑ/ to /ɒ/ under the influence of Persian. Unlike other Turkic languages, vowel harmony is almost completely lost in modern Standard Uzbek, though it is still observed to some degree in its dialects, as well as in Uyghur.
Different dialects of Uzbek show varying degrees of influence from other languages such as Kipchak and Oghuz Turkic (for example, in grammar) as well as Persian (in phonology), which gives literary Uzbek the impression of being a mixed language.[7]
In February 2021, the Uzbek government announced that Uzbekistan plans to fully transition the Uzbek language from the Cyrillic script to a Latin-based alphabet by 1 January 2023.[8][9] Similar deadlines had been extended several times.[10] As of 2024, most institutions still use both alphabets.[11]
Uzbek is the western member of the Karluk languages, a subgroup of Turkic; the eastern variant is Uyghur. Karluk is classified as a dialect continuum. Northern Uzbek was determined to be the most suitable variety to be understood by the most number of speakers of all Turkic languages despite it being heavily Persianized,[12] excluding the Siberian Turkic languages.[13] A high degree of mutual intelligibility found between certain specific Turkic languages has allowed Uzbek speakers to more easily comprehend various other distantly related languages.
Number of speakers
Uzbek, being the most widely spoken indigenous language in Central Asia, is as well spoken by smaller ethnic groups in Uzbekistan and in neighbouring countries.
The Uzbek language has a special status in countries that are common destination for immigration for Uzbekistani citizens. Other than Uzbekistan and other Central Asian Republics, the ethnic Uzbeks most commonly choose the Russian Federation[16] in search of work. Most of them however, are seasonal workers, whose numbers vary greatly among residency within the Russian Federation. According to Russian government statistics, 4.5 million workers from Uzbekistan, 2.4 million from Tajikistan, and 920,000 from Kyrgyzstan were working in Russia in 2021, with around 5 million being ethnic Uzbeks.[16]
Estimates of the number of native speakers of Uzbek vary widely, from 35 up to 40 million. Ethnologue estimates put the number of native speakers at 33 million across all the recognized dialects. The Swedish national encyclopedia, Nationalencyklopedin, estimates the number of native speakers to be 38 million,[17] and the CIA World Factbook estimates 30 million. Other sources estimate the number of speakers of Uzbek to be 34 million in Uzbekistan,[18] 4.5 million in Afghanistan,[19] 1,630,000 in Pakistan,[4] 1,500,000 in Tajikistan,[20] about 1 million in Kyrgyzstan,[21] 600,000 in Kazakhstan,[22] 600,000 in Turkmenistan,[23] and 300,000 in Russia.[24]
The Uzbek language is taught in more than fifty higher education institutions around the world.[25]
Etymology and background
Historically, the language under the name Uzbek referred to a totally different language of Kipchak origin. The language was generally similar to the neighbouring Kazakh, more or less identical lexically, phonetically and grammatically. It was dissimilar to the area's indigenous and native language, known as Turki, until it was changed to Chagatai by western scholars due to its origins from the Chagatai Khanate.[26] The ethnonym of the language itself now means "a language spoken by the Uzbeks."
Uzbek (along with Uyghur) can be considered the direct descendant of Chagatai, the language of great Turkic Central Asian literary development in the realm of Chagatai Khan, Timur (Tamerlane), and the Timurid dynasty[29] (including the early Mughal rulers of the Mughal Empire). Chagatai contained large numbers of Persian and Arabic loanwords. By the 19th century, it was rarely used for literary composition and disappeared only in the early 20th century.
Muhammad Shaybani (c.1451 – 2 December 1510), the first Khan of Bukhara, wrote poetry under the pseudonym "Shibani". A collection of Chagatai poems by Muhammad Shaybani is currently kept in the Topkapı Palace Museum manuscript collection in Istanbul. The manuscript of his philosophical and religious work, Bahr al-Khudā, written in 1508, is located in London.[30]
Shaybani's nephew Ubaydullah Khan (1486-1540) skillfully recited the Quran and provided it with commentaries in Chagatai. Ubaydulla himself wrote poetry in Chagatai, Classical Persian, and Arabic under the literary pseudonym Ubaydiy.[31]
For the Uzbek political elite of the 16th century, Chagatai was their native language. For example, the leader of the semi-nomadic Uzbeks, Sheibani Khan (1451–1510), wrote poems in Chagatai.[32]
The poet Turdiy (17th century) in his poems called for the unification of the divided Uzbek tribes: "Although our people are divided, but these are all Uzbeks of ninety-two tribes. We have different names – we all have the same blood. We are one people, and we should have one law. Floors, sleeves and collars – it's all – one robe, So the Uzbek people are united, may they be in peace."[33]
Sufi Allayar (1633–1721) was an outstanding theologian and one of the Sufi leaders of the Khanate of Bukhara. He showed his level of knowledge by writing a book called Sebâtü'l-Âcizîn. Sufi Allayar was often read and highly appreciated in Central Asia.[34]
The term Uzbek as applied to language has meant different things at different times.
Chagatai was a Karluk language spoken by the older settled Turkic populations ("Sarts") of the region in the Fergana Valley and the Qashqadaryo Region, and in some parts of what is now the Samarqand Region; it contained a heavier admixture of Persian and Arabic and did not have vowel harmony.
According to the Kazakh scholar Serali Lapin, who lived at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, "there is no special Sart language different from Uzbek.[35] Russian researchers of the second half of the 19th century, like L. N. Sobolev, believed that "Sart is not a special tribe, as many tried to prove. Sart is indifferently called both Uzbek and Tajik, who live in the city and are engaged in trade.[36]
In Khanate of Khiva, Sarts spoke a highly Oghuz-influenced variety of Karluk. All three dialects continue to exist within modern spoken Uzbek.
After the independence of Uzbekistan, the Uzbek government opted to reform Northern Uzbek by changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin in an attempt to stimulate the growth of Uzbek in a new, independent state. However, the reform never went into full application, and As of 2024[update] both alphabets are widely used, from daily uses to government publications and TV news. Uzbek language hasn't eclipsed Russian in the government sector since Russian is used widely in sciences, politics, and by the upper class of the country. However, the Uzbek internet, including Uzbek Wikipedia, is growing rapidly.[37]
Writing systems
A 1911 text in the Arabic alphabetCovers of translated books in Uzbek. As can be seen, both Latin and Cyrillic scripts are widely used in the country. Most names are also transliterated, for example Yohann Volfgang Gyote is equivalent to Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
Uzbek has been written in a variety of scripts throughout history:
1000–1920s: The traditional Arabic script, first in the Qarakhanid standard and next in the Chagatai standard. This is seen as the golden age of the Uzbek language and literary history.
Since 1992: Switch back to Latin script, with heavy holdover usage of Cyrillic.
Despite the official status of the Latin script in Uzbekistan, the use of Cyrillic is still widespread, especially in advertisements and signs. In newspapers, scripts may be mixed, with headlines in Latin and articles in Cyrillic.[40] The Arabic script is no longer used in Uzbekistan except symbolically in limited texts[40] or for the academic studies of Chagatai (Old Uzbek).[38]
In 2019, an updated version of the Uzbek Latin alphabet was revealed by the Uzbek government, with five letters being updated; it was proposed to represent the sounds "ts", "sh", "ch", "oʻ" and "gʻ" by the letters "c", "ş", "ç", "ó" and "ǵ", respectively.[41] This would've reversed a 1995 reform, and brought the orthography closer to that of Turkish and also of Turkmen, Karakalpak, Kazakh (2018 version) and Azerbaijani.[42] In 2021, it was proposed to change "sh", "ch", "oʻ" and "gʻ" to "ş", "ç", "ō" and "ḡ".[43][44] These proposals were not implemented.[citation needed]
In the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, in northern Afghanistan and in Pakistan,[45] where there is an Uzbek minority, the Arabic-based script is still used. In the early 21st century, in Afghanistan, standardization, publication of dictionaries, and an increase in usage (for example in News agencies' website, such as that of the BBC) has been taking place.
Modern Latin alphabet
А а
B b
D d
Е е
F f
G g
H h
I i
J j
K k
L l
М m
N n
О о
P p
Q q
R r
S s
Т t
U u
V v
X x
Y y
Z z
Oʻ oʻ
Gʻ gʻ
Sh sh
Ch ch
Ng ng
Cyrillic alphabet
А а
Б б
В в
Г г
Ғ ғ
Д д
Е е
Ё ё
Ж ж
З з
И и
Й й
К к
Қ қ
Л л
М м
Н н
О о
П п
Р р
С с
Т т
У у
Ў ў
Ф ф
Х х
Ҳ ҳ
Ц ц
Ч ч
Ш ш
Ъ ъ
Ь ь
Э э
Ю ю
Я я
Modern Arabic alphabet
ا
ب
پ
ت
ث
ج
چ
ح
خ
د
ذ
ر
ز
ژ
س
ش
ص
ض
ط
ظ
ع
غ
ف
ق
ک
گ
ل
م
ن
و
ه
ی
Phonology
Words are usually oxytones (i.e. the last syllable is stressed), but certain endings and suffixal particles are not stressed.[which?][citation needed] Consonants in brackets are only attested in loanwords.
Vowels
Standard Uzbek has six vowel phonemes.[46] Uzbek language has many dialects: contrary to many Turkic languages, Standard Uzbek no longer has vowel harmony, but other dialects (Kipchak Uzbek and Oghuz Uzbek) retain vowel harmony.
In Uzbek, there are two main categories of words: nominals (equivalent to nouns, pronouns, adjectives and some adverbs) and verbals (equivalent to verbs and some adverbs).
Nouns
Plurals are formed by suffix -lar ـلر. Nouns take the -ni ـنی suffix as a definite article; unsuffixed nouns are understood as indefinite. The dative case ending -ga ـگه changes to -ka ـکه when the noun ends in -k ـک, -g ـگ, or -qa ـقه when the noun ends in -q ـق, -gʻ ـغ (notice *tog‘qa → toqqa تاغقَّه). The possessive suffixes change the final consonants -k ـک and -q ـق to voiced -g ـگ and -gʻ ـغ, respectively (yurak → yuragim یورک - یورگیم).[47] Unlike neighbouring Turkmen and Kazakh languages, due to the loss of "pronominal -n-" there is no irregularity in forming cases after possessive cases (uyida "in his/her/its house", as opposed to Turkmen öýünde, though saying uyinda اویینده is also correct but such style is mainly used in literary contexts).[48]
uyday/uydek/uydaqa اویدی، اویدیک، اویدقه house-SIM like (a) house
Possessive cases
Possessor number
Singular
Plural
1st
-(i)m ـم، ـیم
-(i)miz ـمیز، ـیمیز
2nd
-(i)ng ـنگ، ـینگ
-(i)ngiz ـنگیز، ـینگیز
3rd
-(s)i ـی، ـسی
Verbs
Uzbek verbs are also inflected for number and person of the subject, and it has more periphrases. Uzbek uses some of the inflectional (simple) verbal tenses:[49]
koʻraylik! کورهیلیک (1st person plural) koʻr! کور (2nd person informal singular) koʻring! کورینگ (2nd person formal singular/plural) koʻringlar! کورینگلر (2nd person formal plural) koʻrsin! کورسین (3rd person singular) koʻrsinlar! کورسینلر (3rd person plural)
↑ Cognate with Turkish present continuous suffix -(i)yor ـیار[50]
↑ This suffix is likely a borrowing from Ottoman Turkish,[51] but is usually used as a noun gerund
Notes
Vowels marked with parentheses in the suffixes are dropped if the verb root already ends on a vowel. (e.g. Qara قره + (i)ng ـینگ = Qarang! قرهنگ; "Look!")
Third person plural is commonly replaced by third person singular.
In the simple past and conditional tenses, the possessive suffixes are used at the end of the verb. Otherwise, the full pronoun suffix is used, except in the imperative. The third person is usually not marked.
Negation
Negative is expressed by adding -ma after the verb root, or with auxiliary verb emas. Examples:
Koʻrmay(man) کورمهی(من) "(I) don't see"
Koʻrmoqchi emas(man) کورماقچی ایمس(من) "(I) don't want to see"
The particle yoʻq ـیوق is used to mark the absence or prohibition of a noun or action.
Gerund
The gerund is formed with the verb root + ish ـیش.
Chekish mumkin emas چیکیش ممکن ایمس "Smoking is not allowed"
Pronouns
Pronoun
Suffix
Translation
men مین
-man ـمن
I
biz بیز
-miz ـمیز
we
sen سین
-san ـسن
you (formal singular and informal singular without respect)
senlar سینلر
-sanlar سنلر
you (informal plural without respect)
siz سیز
-siz ـسیز
you (formal plural and informal singular with respect)
sizlar سیزلر
-sizlar ـسیزلر
you (informal plural with respect)
u او
-∅ ـ
he/she/it
ular اولر
-lar ـلر
they
Word order
The word order in the Uzbek language is subject–object–verb (SOV), like all other Turkic languages. Unlike in English, the object comes before the verb and the verb is the last element of the sentence.
Men
مین
1SG
kitobni
کتابنی
book-DO.SG.ACC
koʻrdim
کوردیم
see-PAST.IND.1SG
Men kitobni koʻrdim
مین کتابنی کوردیم
1SG book-DO.SG.ACC see-PAST.IND.1SG
I saw the book
Influences
The influence of Islam, and by extension, Arabic, is evident in Uzbek loanwords. There is also a residual influence of Russian, from the time when Uzbeks were under the rule of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. There are a large number of Russian loanwords in Uzbek, particularly when related to technical and modern terms, as well everyday and sociopolitical terms. Most importantly, Uzbek vocabulary, phraseology and pronunciation has been heavily influenced by Persian through its historic roots. It is estimated that Uzbek contains about 60 Mongolian loanwords,[52] scattered among the names of animals, birds, household items, chemical elements and especially military terms.
Dialects
A man speaking Uzbek
Uzbek can be roughly divided into three dialect groups. The Karluk dialects, centered on Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, and the Ferghana Valley, are the basis for the standard Uzbek language. This dialect group shows the most influence of Persian vocabulary, particularly in the important Tajik-dominated cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. The Kipchak dialect, spoken from the Surxondaryo region through north-central Uzbekistan into Karakalpakstan, shows significant influence from the Kipchak Turkic languages, particularly in the mutation of [j] to [ʑ] as in Kazakh and Kyrgyz. The Oghuz dialect, spoken mainly in Khorezm along the Turkmenistan border, is notable for the mutation of word-initial [k] to [g].
By country
Turkmenistan
In Turkmenistan since the 2000s the government conducted a forced "Turkmenization" of ethnic Uzbeks living in the country.[53][54][55] In the Soviet years and in the 1990s, the Uzbek language was used freely in Turkmenistan. There were several hundred schools in the Uzbek language, many newspapers were published in this language. Now there are only a few Uzbek schools in the country, as well as a few newspapers in Uzbek. Despite this, the Uzbek language is still considered to be one of the recognized languages of national minorities in this country. Approximately 300,000–600,000 Uzbeks live in Turkmenistan. Most of the Uzbek speakers live in Dashoghuz Velayat, as well as in Lebap Velayat and partly in Ashghabad.[56]
Russia
Uzbek is one of the many recognized languages of national minorities in Russia. More than 400 thousand Uzbeks are citizens of the Russian Federation and live in the country. Also in Russia there are 2 to 6 million Uzbeks from the Central Asian republics (mainly Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan) who are immigrants and migrants. Large diasporas of Uzbeks live in large cities of Russia such as Saint Petersburg. Signs in Uzbek are often found in these cities. Signs refer mainly to various restaurants and eateries, barbershops, shops selling fruits, vegetables and textile products. There is a small clinic, where signs and labels are in the Uzbek language. Uzbeks in Russia prefer to use the Cyrillic Uzbek alphabet, but in recent years Uzbek youth in Russia are also actively using the Latin Uzbek alphabet. Small newspapers in Uzbek are published in large cities of Russia.[57][58][59] Some instructions for immigrants and migrants are duplicated, including in Uzbek. Uzbek language is studied by Russian students in the faculties of Turkology throughout Russia.[citation needed] The largest Uzbek language learning centers in Russia are located in the universities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. There are also many Russians who are interested in and love the Uzbek language and culture and who study this language for themselves. Uzbek is one of the most studied languages among the many languages of the former USSR in Russia.[60]
Uzbek language researchers
Scientific interest in the history of the Uzbek language arose in the 19th century among European and Russian orientalists. A. Vambery, V. Bartold, Sh. Lapin and others wrote about the history of the Uzbek language. Much attention was paid to the study of the history of the language in the Soviet period. E. Polivanov, N.Baskakov,[61] A.Kononov,[62] U. Tursunov, A. Mukhtarov, Sh. Rakhmatullaev and others wrote about the history of the Uzbek language among famous linguists.
Development
1900: Early 20th Century Speakers: Approximately 2–4 million. The Uzbek-speaking population was primarily concentrated in Central Asia, within the territories of the Russian Empire, including present-day Uzbekistan, parts of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Global Rank: Likely around 30–40th place. Uzbek was not widely recognized globally as it was primarily spoken in rural and regional areas.
1950: Soviet Era Speakers: Around 7–8 million. The population grew due to natural growth and urbanization under the Soviet Union. Uzbek became one of the officially recognized languages of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Global Rank: Approximately 25–30th place. As a regional language in the USSR, Uzbek gained institutional support in education and media, increasing its influence within Central Asia.
1991: Post-Soviet Independence Speakers: Around 16–20 million. After Uzbekistan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Uzbek was declared the official language of the Republic of Uzbekistan. This led to a revival of Uzbek culture and a shift away from Russian dominance in education and government. Global Rank: Around 20–25th place. With the fall of the USSR, Uzbek gained prominence as a national language, and its number of speakers increased due to population growth.
2024: Current Status Speakers: Estimated 35–40 million. Uzbek is primarily spoken in Uzbekistan but also in neighboring countries like Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, as well as by diaspora communities worldwide. Global Rank: 18–20th place. Uzbek is now one of the top 20 most spoken languages globally, thanks to Uzbekistan’s large population (over 36 million) and Uzbek-speaking minorities in surrounding countries. It is increasingly recognized on digital platforms, in media, and in academia.
Sample text
The following is a sample text in Uzbek Arabic script of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with English version in the bottom), contrasted with a version of the text in Uzbek written in Latin script.
Uzbek Arabic
برچه آدملر اېرکین، قدرقیمت و حقوقلرده تېنگ بۉلیب توغیلهدیلر. اولر عقل و وجدان صاحبیدیرلر و بربیرلری ایله برادرلرچه معامله قیلیشلری ضرور.
Uzbek Latin
Barcha odamlar erkin, qadr-qimmat va huquqlarda teng boʻlib tugʻiladilar. Ular aql va vijdon sohibidirlar va bir-birlari ila birodarlarcha muomala qilishlari zarur.
Uzbek Cyrillic
Барча одамлар эркин, қадр-қиммат ва ҳуқуқларда тенг бўлиб туғиладилар. Улар ақл ва виждон соҳибидирлар ва бир-бирлари ила биродарларча муомала қилишлари зарур.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Kazakh is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia by Kazakhs. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. It is the official language of Kazakhstan, and has official status in the Altai Republic of Russia. It is also a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China, and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of western Mongolia. The language is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union, Germany, and Turkey.
Kyrgyz is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. There is a very high level of mutual intelligibility between Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Altay. A dialect of Kyrgyz known as Pamiri Kyrgyz is spoken in north-eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. Kyrgyz is also spoken by many ethnic Kyrgyz through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Turkey, parts of northern Pakistan, and Russia.
Tatar is a Turkic language spoken by the Volga Tatars mainly located in modern Tatarstan, as well as Siberia and Crimea.
Chagatai, also known as Turki, Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic, is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia. It remained the shared literary language in the region until the early 20th century. It was used across a wide geographic area including western or Russian Turkestan, Eastern Turkestan, Crimea, the Volga region, etc. Chagatai is the ancestor of the Uzbek and Uyghur languages. Turkmen, which is not within the Karluk branch but in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, was nonetheless heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries.
Turkmen is a Turkic language of the Oghuz branch spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia. It has an estimated 4.3 million native speakers in Turkmenistan, and a further 719,000 speakers in northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in northwestern Afghanistan, where it has no official status. Turkmen is also spoken to lesser varying degrees in Turkmen communities of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and by diaspora communities, primarily in Turkey and Russia.
Tajik, Tajik Persian, Tajiki Persian, also called 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 aspects to it.
Uyghur or Uighur is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8–13 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Apart from Xinjiang, significant communities of Uyghur speakers are also located in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; it is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio. Other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang also use Uyghur as a common language.
Bashkir or Bashkort is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by around 750,000 native speakers in Russia, as well as in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other neighboring post-Soviet states, and among the Bashkir diaspora. It has three dialect groups: Southern, Eastern and Northwestern.
Tuvan, sometimes spelt Tyvan, is a Turkic language spoken in the Republic of Tuva in South Central Siberia, Russia. There are small groups of Tuvans that speak distinct dialects of Tuvan in China and Mongolia.
Lezgian, also called Lezgi or Lezgin, is a Northeast Caucasian language. It is spoken by the Lezgins, who live in southern Dagestan (Russia); northern Azerbaijan; and to a much lesser degree Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan; Kazakhstan; Turkey, and other countries. It is a much-written literary language and an official language of Dagestan. It is classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
The Karaim language, also known by its Hebrew name Lashon Kedar, is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak group, with Hebrew influences, similarly to Yiddish or Judaeo-Spanish. It is spoken by only a few dozen Crimean Karaites in Lithuania, Poland, Crimea, and Galicia in Ukraine. The three main dialects are those of Crimea, Trakai-Vilnius and Lutsk-Halych, all of which are critically endangered. The Lithuanian dialect of Karaim is spoken mainly in the town of Trakai by a small community living there since the 14th century.
Crimean Tatar, also called Crimean, is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey 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.
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.
Sart is a name for the settled “Aryan” inhabitants of Central Asia. According to Great Soviet Encyclopedia, before the October Revolution of 1917, the name “Sart” was used in relation to the Uyghur and Uzbek merchants by Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and semi-nomadic Uzbeks.
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.
Khorasani Turkic or Khorasani Turkish is an Oghuz Turkic language spoken in the North Khorasan Province and the Razavi Khorasan Province in Iran. Nearly all Khorasani Turkic speakers are also bilingual in Persian.
The majority language of Uzbekistan is the Uzbek language. However, many other native languages are spoken in the country. These include several other Turkic languages, Persian and Russian. The official language of government according to current legislation is Uzbek, while the Republic of Karakalpakstan has the right to determine its own official language. Russian and other languages may be used facultatively in certain public institutions, such as notary services and in contact between government institutions and citizens, and the choice of languages in individual life, interethnic communication and education is free. In practice, alongside Uzbek, Russian remains the language most used in public life. There are no language requirements for the citizenship of Uzbekistan.
Southern Uzbek, also known as Afghan Uzbek, is the southern variant of the Uzbek language, spoken chiefly in Afghanistan with up to 4.6 million speakers including first and second language speakers. It uses the Perso-Arabic writing system in contrast to the language variant of Uzbekistan.
Uzbek literature refers to the literature produced and developed in the Republic of Uzbekistan with additional literary works contributed by the Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan people of Central Asia. Influenced by Russian and Turkish literature, Uzbek is predominantly written in the Uzbek language with its roots in Chagatai language, one of the widely accessible languages in the region from 14th to 20th century. In Uzbek literature, Chagatai plays an important role as a reference point.
↑ Ethnic Groups and Religious department, Fujian Provincial Government (13 September 2022). "少数民族的语言文字有哪些？". fujian.gov.cn (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 28 October 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
↑ "Ethnic Makeup of the Population"(PDF). National Statistics Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic (in Russian). Archived from the original(PDF) on 13 November 2013. Retrieved 7 December 2012.
↑ "National Census 2009"(PDF). Statistics Agency of Kazakhstan (in Russian). Archived from the original(PDF) on 19 December 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
↑ Vladimir Babak; Demian Vaisman; Aryeh Wasserman (23 November 2004). Political Organization in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Sources and Documents. Routledge. pp. 343–. ISBN 978-1-135-77681-7.
↑ Golden, Peter. B. (1990), "Chapter 13 – The Karakhanids and Early Islam", in Sinor, Denis (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Cambridge University Press, ISBN0-521-24304-1
↑ Allworth, Edward (1994). Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, a Historical Overview. Duke University Press. p.72. ISBN0-8223-1521-1.
↑ A.J.E.Bodrogligeti, «Muhammad Shaybanî’s Bahru’l-huda: An Early Sixteenth Century Didactic Qasida in Chagatay», Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, vol.54 (1982), p. 1 and n.4
↑ B. V. Norik, Rol shibanidskikh praviteley v literaturnoy zhizni Maverannakhra XVI v. // Rakhmat-name. Sankt Petersburg, 2008, p.230
↑ A.J.E.Bodrogligeti, «MuÌammad Shaybænî’s Bahru’l-huda: An Early Sixteenth Century Didactic Qasida in Chagatay», Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher, vol.54 (1982), p. 1 and n.4
↑ Turdy. Izbrannyye proizvedeniya. Tashkent, 1951, p.33
↑ Bronnikova O. M., Sarty v etnicheskoy istorii Sredney Azii (k postanovke problemy) Etnosy i etnicheskiye protsessy. Moskva: Vostochnaya literatura, 1993, s. 153.
↑ Sobolev L. N. Geograficheskiye i statisticheskiye svedeniya o Zeravshanskom okruge (s prilozheniyem spiska naselonnykh mest okruga), Zapiski IRGO po otdeleniyu statistiki. SPb., 1874. T.4. S. 299. Prim. 1.
Bregel, Yu (1978). "The Sarts in The Khanate of Khiva". Journal of Asian History. 12 (2): 120–151. JSTOR41930294.
Bodrogligeti, András J. E. (2002). Modern Literary Uzbek: A Manual for Intensive Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced Courses. München: Lincom Europa. ISBN3-89586-695-4. OCLC51061526.
Fierman, William (1991). Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Experience. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN3-11-085338-8. OCLC815507595.
Ismatullaev, Khaĭrulla (1995). Modern literary Uzbek I. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. ISBN0-933070-36-5. OCLC34576336.
Republic of Uzbekistan, Ministry of Higher and Middle Eductation. Lotin yozuviga asoslangan oʻzbek alifbosi va imlosi (Latin writing based Uzbek alphabet and orthography), Tashkent Finance Institute: Tashkent, 2004.
A. Shermatov. "A New Stage in the Development of Uzbek Dialectology" in Essays on Uzbek History, Culture and Language. Ed. Bakhtiyar A. Nazarov & Denis Sinor. Bloomington, Indiana, 1993, pp.101–9.
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