Nazarbayev says Kazakhstan should preserve Russian language
ASTANA. Oct 18 (Interfax) - Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has called on fellow citizens to preserve the Russian language as an aspect of wellbeing.
"We should preserve the Russian language in our country as one of the six international languages. That will contribute to the wellbeing of our people. We should sustain the centuries-old friendship and concord between our country and its neighbors," he said at the 15th extraordinary congress of the Nur Otan party in Astana on Friday.
"We are a landlocked country situated in the middle of the continent and do not have sea routes. We have to transport our goods to seaports in order to enter world markets. So, integration, concord and friendship with our neighbors and knowledge of our languages are tokens of the happy future of the Kazakh people. This is not just a question of politics, this is a token of our future," Nazarbayev said.
He also said it was time to take knowledge of the official Kazakh language more seriously.
"Knowledge of the Kazakh language is both our civil duty and a demonstration of our respect for the people," Nazarbayev stressed.
"We said our education would completely switch to Kazakh by 2025. We are working for the unity and accord in our country. You know about the percentage of ethnic Kazakh citizens in the total population of Kazakhstan in its first years of independence. Currently, the percentage of ethnic Kazakh citizens is higher than 70% and Kazakh-speaking regions should shift to paperwork in Kazakh," the president said.
He said the percentage of ethnic Kazakh citizens was small in certain regions. "These regions should remain bilingual. But they also have certain areas with the predominantly Kazakh population and they may do their paperwork in Kazakh," Nazarbayev stressed.
The constitution defines Kazakh as the official language. Yet governmental agencies and local authorities officially use Russian alongside Kazakh.