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
Many street signs in Kazakhstan are written in both Kazakh and Russian
Percentage of daily Kazakh speakers in Kazakhstan according to the 2021 Census
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.
