Author(s)

Miaomiao Han, Heping Wu

Corresponding Author

Miaomiao Han

Abstract

"Russianization" and "de-Russianization" are the main themes of the adjustment of language policy in Central Asia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation of the dominance of Russian in Central Asian countries was broken, and the national language consciousness of the dominant ethnic group in each country rose. At the same time, due to complex historical reasons and the multi-ethnic characteristics of Central Asian countries, its language policies and language use are characterized by diversity, variability, complexity, and imbalance. Although the Central Asian countries have successfully enhanced the status of the main ethnic groups’ language, the implementation of any language policy will have a significant impact on all aspects of a country's language life. The significant improvement of the main ethnic groups’ languages has caused new inequalities among the nationalities in the Central Asian countries, become one of the incentives for the intensification of conflicts among the ethnic groups, and caused the large-scale outflow of Russian-speaking elites, resulting in a decline in the quality of education in the short term. In the long run, the overall trend of de-Russianization and the nationalization of the main ethnic group’s language has become irreversible.

Keywords

Language policy, Central Asian, Russianization, de-Russianization