Legal groundwork of state language policy in Kazakhstan

[Harold F. Schiffman]

27.05 / 18:24 Legal groundwork of state language policy discussed in
Astana

ASTANA. May 27. KAZINFORM. /Nazym Shakhanova/ - The problems of legal
groundwork for the state language policy and expansion of the Kazakh
language usage have been discussed today in Astana during the round table
titled Constitution and the State Language organized by the Languages
Committee of the Ministry of Culture, Information and Sport of Kazakhstan.
The participants of the discussion were deputies of the Parliament of
Kazakhstan, members of the Constitutional Board, workers of courts, law
scholars, linguists, and representatives of central and local executive
bodies.

During the round table timed to the 10th anniversary of the Constitution
of Kazakhstan it was stated that only alteration of the legal base could
ensure further development of the state language. And it is not only the
Law on Language that should be amended, but also several articles of the
Constitution require revising. Deputy of the Senate Walikhan Kaisarov
stated the necessity to introduce the examination system of checking the
knowledge of the state language for the deputies of Parliament. Nowadays
all legislative acts, decrees and other documents are issued in Russian
and afterward translated into Kazakh.

Weak patriotism in the country is one more obstruction in raising the
proper status of the Kazakh language, said director of the department on
legal propaganda, development of the state language and public relations
of the Justice Ministry Sultan Orazalinov. The policy of multi-nationality
puts the state language in one row with other languages of the nations
residing in Kazakhstan. The official Russian language in many ways
dominates over the state Kazakh language.  All proposals uttered during
the round table will be considered by the working party of deputies
working on emendation of the Law on Languages.

http://www.inform.kz/showarticle.php?lang=eng&id=124891

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