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President Nazarbayev on language policy and Ukraine </h1>
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<div id="newsdate">Monday, 25.08.2014, 12:58</div>
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<img src="http://en.tengrinews.kz/userdata/news_en/2014/news_255663/thumb_b/photo_42871.jpg" alt="President Nazarbayev on language policy and Ukraine" title="President Nazarbayev. Turar Kazangapov ©">
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<div class="">President Nazarbayev. Turar Kazangapov ©</div>
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</div><p>Kazakhstan
might follow Ukraine’s scenario should it ban all the languages other
than Kazakh, the country’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev believes.</p>
<p>“The Government has been doing its best to ensure development of
Kazakh language. In line with the country’s Constitution, Kazakh
language is declared to be the official language of Kazakhstan. There
is not a single person who might be prevented from speaking the
language. I do admit writers and public figures are still grieving over
inadequacy of the language [as it wasn’t developing throughout the
Soviet era]”, he said in an interview for Kazakhstan’s Khabar TV
Channel.</p>
<p>“However, if we introduce limitations on use of other languages, we
will be another Ukraine (…) Language policy is something that calls for
caution”, he added.</p>
<p>Among other things, he criticized the way new words emerge in Kazakh
language. “We try to come up with new words for a lot of things that
have had similarly sounding names in a lot of languages for ages. We
falsely think that we need to drift away from Russian language and for
this reason borrow certain words from Turkish, Arabic, Persian
languages, however less precise they may be (…) as a nation, we need to
enrich the language as it has a bright future here in Kazakhstan”, he
said.</p>
<p>President reminded that there is a whole range of about 6000
languages in the world, with around 70% of the global population
resorting to English as a language of education, science, medicine,
Internet, media, and culture.</p>
“If we fail to speak English, we miss out on a lot of things. How can
we join the club of 30 most developed nations of the world if the young
don’t speak the global language? After gaining independence India
abandoned English, but returned to the language 5-6 years later.
Singapore and Malaysia saw the same scenario. Developing all the three
languages [Kazakh, Russian and English] is the optimal option”, he said.<span id="ctrlcopy"><br><br>For more information see: <a href="http://en.tengrinews.kz/politics_sub/President-Nazarbayev-on-language-policy-and-Ukraine-255663/">http://en.tengrinews.kz/politics_sub/President-Nazarbayev-on-language-policy-and-Ukraine-255663/</a><br>
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