Languages
Kyrgyzstan is one of the two former Soviet republics in Central Asia to retain Russian as an official language, Kazakhstan being the other. It added the Kyrgyz language to become an officially bilingual country in September 1991.
Kyrgyz is a member of the Turkic group of languages. It was written in the Arabic alphabet until the twentieth century. Latin script was introduced and adopted in 1928, and was subsequently replaced by Cyrillic script in 1941.
According to the 2009 census, 4.1 million people spoke Kyrgyz as native or second language and 2.5 million spoke Russian as native or second language. Uzbek is the second most widely spoken native language, followed by Russian; Russian is the most widely spoken second language, followed by Kyrgyz, Uzbek and English.
| Language name | Native speakers | Second-language speakers | Total speakers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kyrgyz | 3,830,556 | 271,187 | 4,121,743 |
| Russian | 482,243 | 2,109,393 | 2,591,636 |
| Uzbek | 772,561 | 97,753 | 870,314 |
| English | 28,416 | 28,416 | |
| French | 641 | 641 | |
| German | 10 | 10 | |
| Other | 277,433 | 31,411 |
Read more about this topic: Sport In Kyrgyzstan
Famous quotes containing the word languages:
“People in places many of us never heard of, whose names we can’t pronounce or even spell, are speaking up for themselves. They speak in languages we once classified as “exotic” but whose mastery is now essential for our diplomats and businessmen. But what they say is very much the same the world over. They want a decent standard of living. They want human dignity and a voice in their own futures. They want their children to grow up strong and healthy and free.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“Wealth is so much the greatest good that Fortune has to bestow that in the Latin and English languages it has usurped her name.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)