Languages of Kazakhstan
| Languages of Kazakhstan | |
|---|---|
| Official | Kazakh (state language), Russian |
| National | Kazakh language |
| Minority | Kazakh; German; Uzbek; Ukrainian; Uyghur; Tatar; Kyrgyz; Azerbaijani; Korean; |
| Foreign | English, German |
| Signed | Kazakh Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
| Source | Languages committee of the Ministry of culture and Sports |
| Alphabet | Kazakh alphabets Kazakh Braille |
Kazakhstan is officially a bilingual country. Kazakh, part of the Kipchak sub-branch of the Turkic languages, is proficiently spoken by 80.1% of the population according to the 2021 census, and has the status of "state language". Russian, on the other hand, is spoken by 83.7% as of 2021.[1] The Constitution of Kazakhstan does not give it any special status, only allowing its use in government "on an equal footing" with Kazakh.[2] Russian is also used routinely in business and inter-ethnic communication. However, only 63.45% of ethnic Kazakhs and 49.3% of the country's population are daily speakers of Kazakh language, according to the same census.[3]
Other languages natively spoken in Kazakhstan are Dungan, Ili Turki, Ingush, Plautdietsch, and Sinte Romani.[4] A number of more recent immigrant languages, such as Belarusian, Korean, Azerbaijani, and Greek are also spoken.[5][6]
Languages
The following table shows the share of the population that can speak the language according to the 2021 census:[7]
| Language | % | Script |
|---|---|---|
| Russian | 83.7 | Cyrillic |
| Kazakh | 80.1 | Cyrillic, Latin |
| English | 35.1 | Latin |
| Uzbek | 2.5 | Latin, Cyrillic |
| Uyghur | 0.9 | Perso-Arabic, Latin |
| Turkish | 0.6 | Latin |
| German | 0.6 | Latin |
| Tatar | 0.5 | Cyrillic |
| Azerbaijani | 0.5 | Cyrillic, Latin, Perso-Arabic |
| Korean | 0.3 | Hangul |
| Kyrgyz | 0.2 | Cyrillic, Perso-Arabic |
| Belarusian | 0.1 | Cyrillic |
| Ukrainian | 0.1 | Cyrillic |
| Chinese | 0.1 | Chinese characters |
| Chechen | 0.1 | Cyrillic |
| French | 0.1 | Latin |
| Arabic | 0.1 | Arabic alphabet |
| Other | 2.7 | — |
Gallery
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Many street signs in Kazakhstan are written in both Kazakh and Russian
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Percentage of daily Kazakh speakers in Kazakhstan according to the 2021 Census
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Language proficiency by age group
See also
References
- ^ "National census 2021 – Agency for Strategic planning and reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan Bureau of National statistics". stat.gov.kz. Retrieved 8 September 2024.
- ^ "Constitution of the Republic of Kazakhstan". President of Kazakhstan. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
- ^ "Краткие итоги" [Brief summary] (in Russian). Archived from the original on 12 January 2024.
- ^ Higgins, Andrew (12 May 2019). "A Mennonite Town in Muslim Central Asia Holds On Against the Odds". New York Times. New York City. Retrieved 2 December 2023.
- ^ О родном языке корейцев Казахстана [On the mother tongue of Kazakhstani Koreans] (in Russian)
- ^ "Kazakhstan". Ethnologue. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
- ^ National composition, religion and language proficiency in the Republic of Kazakhstan (PDF). Astana: Bureau of National Statistics of the Agency for Strategic Planning and Reforms of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 2023. p. 323.