Officials Who Can't Speak Kyrgyz Will Be Fired, State Warns, As Language Law Takes Effect

Civil servants who can't speak Kyrgyz will be fired from their jobs, officials in Bishkek warned as a law came into force making it compulsory for public-sector workers to be proficient in the state language.

Kanybek Osmonaliev, the head of the National Committee for the State Language, said on July 27 that officials who don't speak Kyrgyz have had enough time to learn it, as efforts to strengthen the status of the state language have been under way for years.

Russian is widely spoken in Kyrgyzstan, a close ally of Russia, with many ethnic Kyrgyz speaking it as their first language. While Kyrgyz is known as Kyrgyzstan's state language, Russian is called the country's "official" language.

"They had three to four years to learn Kyrgyz and had they been [diligent] they would have learned it in six months," Osmonaliev said. "All deadlines have now passed. Officials [who can't speak Kyrgyz] will be fired," he said without providing details.

The comment came days after President Sadyr Japarov signed a law that says Kyrgyz must be used in the activities of all state institutions, parliament, courts, the army, and the science and cultural sectors, among others.

Additionally, all television and radio channels -- both public and private -- must have at least 60 percent of their broadcasts in Kyrgyz, though Russian-language television is extremely popular.

The law also requires all state workers to be fluent in Kyrgyz. The list includes government officials, lawmakers, central bank employees, law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and notary officials.

But the new state-language law angered politicians in Russia, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov calling it "undemocratic" and "discriminatory."

Japarov rejected the criticism and said the law didn't discriminate against Russian, which -- he emphasized -- will remain an official language in Kyrgyzstan, according to its constitution.

Japarov spoke about the importance of Russian, especially its role as a lingua franca for citizens of the Commonwealth of Independent States. He said Kyrgyz officials often speak Russian even during official visits to China, the Middle East, and Europe.

But at the same time, Kyrgyz officials must also "fully master" their own language, Japarov said. "Look at how our state officials and deputies speak: half in Russian, half in Kyrgyz. None of us is fluent in either Russian or Kyrgyz," he said in an interview on July 24.

Kyrgyzstan first adopted a Law on State Language in 1989, and it has been amended several times.

"The previous law stated that 'official documents must be drawn up in either the state or official language.' Just because of this 'or,' all documents and paperwork had been written in Russian for 34 years. We removed that [in the new law]," Osmonaliev said.

The new law declares that all official documents must be written in Kyrgyz and will be translated into other languages if necessary, the official explained.

There have been calls in Kyrgyzstan since it gained independence in 1991 to switch from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin one, as three of its neighbors in Central Asia have decided to do. But Japarov and his predecessors have resisted such calls.

In April, Japarov said it was "premature" to talk about a transition to Latin.

The capital, Bishkek, is the only city in Central Asia that has kept the Soviet-era names of its districts, including one named after Vladimir Lenin.

When some Kyrgyz called for the renaming of the districts last year, Russian politicians and media furiously interpreted it as a "call to de-Russify Bishkek" and "the first small step toward squeezing out the Russian language completely."

Addressing angry reactions from Russia, Osmonaliev said on July 27 that "no country in the world is so accommodating to the Russian language as Kyrgyzstan." Like Kyrgyzstan, the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan also have Russian as a de jure official language.

"Russian officials claim Russian is being squeezed out in Kyrgyzstan. Look at the [new] law, which clearly states Russian is an official language. It is the same in the Kyrgyz Constitution. No other country has this," Osmonaliev said, adding sarcastically, "Or should we repeat it 100 times?!"