Kazakhstan: STATE LANGUAGE POLICY WILL NOT LEAD TO DISCRIMINATION

[Harold F. Schiffman]

STATE LANGUAGE POLICY WILL NOT LEAD TO DISCRIMINATION OF NON-KAZAKHS -
PRESIDENT OF RK

[15:23] 13/12/2006, Kazakhstan today
http://www.gazeta.kz/eng/art.asp?aid=84595

ASTANA. The policy of the state language development should not violate
rights of the ethnic non-Kazakhs, Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of
Kazakhstan, has stated today, December 13, at a meeting with non-Kazakh
state officials, who have learned the Kazakh language on their own,
Kazakhstan Today correspondent reports. "When the office-keeping will
switch to the state language everywhere the rights of other ethnicities
should not be discriminated," - the president has said.

"Such measures as transferring the office-keeping into the state language
should not be perceived one-sidedly. If we say that the office-keeping is
translated into the state language, it means that the documents will be
kept in both languages, Russian and Kazakh," - he has added. The President
of Kazakhstan has observed that around 20% of the state officials are not
ethnic Kazakhs. Many of them are fluent in the state language.

"According to the latest data out of 6 million of representatives of the
ethnic minorities living in RK around 1.5 million are fluent in Kazakh," -
he has stressed. Mr. Nazarbayev has also reminded that the next year's
budget provides 2 billion 700 million for the state language development.

http://eng.gazeta.kz/print.asp?aid=84595

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