Uzbek language
| Uzbek | |
|---|---|
| Northern Uzbek, Western Karluk | |
| oʻzbekcha, oʻzbek tili, ўзбекча, ўзбек тили, اۉزبېکچه، اۉزبېک تیلی | |
 Uzbek in Latin, Perso-Arabic Nastaliq, and Cyrillic scripts | |
| Pronunciation | Uzbek pronunciation: [ɵzˈbektʃʰæ, ɵzˈbek tʰɪˈlɪ] |
| Native to | Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and China |
| Region | Central Asia |
| Ethnicity | Uzbeks |
Native speakers | 36 million (incl. both Northern Uzbek & Southern Uzbek (2020–2024)[1] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects |
|
| Official status | |
Official language in | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Regulated by | Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature named after Navoi |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | uz |
| ISO 639-2 | uzb |
| ISO 639-3 | uzb – inclusive codeIndividual codes: uzn – Northernuzs – Southern |
| Glottolog | uzbe1247 |
| Linguasphere | db 44-AAB-da, db |
 Dark blue = majority; light blue = minority | |
Uzbek[b] is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of the Republic of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language endonymically called Türki or Türkçe, as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.[4]
According to the Ethnologue, Southern Uzbek and Standard Uzbek are spoken as a native language by more than 36 million people around the world, making Uzbek the second-most widely spoken Turkic language after Turkish.[5] In addition to these native speakers, there are members of many other ethnic groups such as Tajiks, Kazakhs, and Russians who live in Uzbekistan and speak Uzbek as their second language.
There are two major variants of the Uzbek language: Northern Uzbek, or simply "Uzbek", spoken in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and China; and Southern Uzbek, spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[6][7] Both Northern and Southern Uzbek are divided into many dialects. Uzbek and Uyghur are sister languages and they constitute the Karluk or "Southeastern" branch of Turkic.
External influences on Uzbek include Persian, Russian, and Arabic.[8] One of the most noticeable distinctions of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is the rounding of the vowel /ɑ/ to /ɒ/ under the influence of Persian. Unlike other Turkic languages, vowel harmony is almost completely lost in modern Standard Uzbek due to extensive linguistic contact with Persian, though it is still observed to some small degree in its dialects, as well as in its sister Karluk language Uyghur.
Different dialects of Uzbek show varying degrees of influence from other languages such as Kipchak and Oghuz Turkic (for example, in grammar) as well as Persian (in phonology), which gives literary Uzbek the impression of being a mixed language.[9]
In February 2021, the Uzbek government announced that Uzbekistan plans to fully transition the Uzbek language from the Cyrillic script to a Latin-based alphabet by 1 January 2023.[10][11] Similar deadlines had been extended several times.[12] As of 2024,[update] most institutions still use both alphabets.[13]
Classification
[edit]Uzbek is the western member of the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family, the eastern member of which is Uyghur. Karluk is classified as a dialect continuum. Northern Uzbek has been determined to be the variety most readily understood by the greatest number of speakers of Turkic languages as a whole – excluding the Siberian Turkic languages – despite its heavy Persianised character.[14][15] The high degree of mutual intelligibility that exists among certain Turkic languages enables Uzbek speakers to comprehend various other, more distantly related Turkic languages with relative ease.
Number of speakers
[edit]Uzbek, being the most widely spoken indigenous language in Central Asia, is as well spoken by smaller ethnic groups in Uzbekistan and in neighbouring countries.[citation needed]
The language is spoken by other ethnic groups outside Uzbekistan. The popularity of Uzbek media, including Uzbekfilm and RizanovaUz, has spread among the post-Soviet states, particularly in Central Asia in recent years. Since Uzbek is the dominant language in the Osh Region of Kyrgyzstan[citation needed] (and mothertongue of the city Osh), like the rest of Eastern, Southern and South-Eastern Kyrgyzstan (Jalal-Abad Region), the ethnic Kyrgyz are, too, exposed to Uzbek, and some speak it fluently. This is a common situation in the rest of Central Asian republics, including: the Turkistan region of Kazakhstan, northern Daşoguz Welaýat of Turkmenistan,[16] Sughd region and other regions of Tajikistan.[17]
The Uzbek language has a special status in countries that are common destination for immigration for Uzbekistani citizens. Other than Uzbekistan and other Central Asian Republics, the ethnic Uzbeks most commonly choose the Russian Federation[18] in search of work. Most of them however, are seasonal workers, whose numbers vary greatly among residency within the Russian Federation. According to Russian government statistics, 4.5 million workers from Uzbekistan, 2.4 million from Tajikistan, and 920,000 from Kyrgyzstan were working in Russia in 2021, with around 5 million being ethnic Uzbeks.[18]
Estimates of the number of native speakers of Uzbek vary widely, from 35 up to 40 million. Ethnologue estimates put the number of native speakers at 33 million across all the recognized dialects. The Swedish national encyclopedia, Nationalencyklopedin, estimates the number of native speakers to be 38 million,[19] and the CIA World Factbook estimates 30 million. Other sources estimate the number of speakers of Uzbek to be 34 million in Uzbekistan,[20] 4.5 million in Afghanistan,[21] 1.63 million in Pakistan,[6] 1.5 million in Tajikistan,[22] about 1 million in Kyrgyzstan,[23] 600,000 in Kazakhstan,[24] 600,000 in Turkmenistan,[25] and 300,000 in Russia.[26]
The Uzbek language is taught in more than fifty higher education institutions around the world.[27]
Etymology
[edit]Historically, the language under the name Uzbek referred to a totally different language of Kipchak origin. The language was generally similar to the neighbouring Kazakh, more or less identical lexically, phonetically and grammatically. It was dissimilar to the area's indigenous and native language, known as Turki, until it was changed to Chagatai by western scholars due to its origins from the Chagatai Khanate.[28] The ethnonym of the language itself now means "a language spoken by the Uzbeks."
History
[edit]Turkic speakers probably settled the Amu Darya, Syr Darya, and Zarafshon river basins from at least 600–650 AD, gradually ousting or assimilating the speakers of the Eastern Iranian languages who had previously inhabited Sogdia, Bactria, and Khwarazm. The first Turkic dynasty in the region was the Kara-Khanid Khanate from the 9th to the 12th centuries,[29] a confederation of Karluks, Chigils, Yagma, and other tribes.[30]
Uzbek (along with Uyghur) can be considered the direct descendant of Chagatai, the language of great Turkic Central Asian literary development in the realm of Chagatai Khan, Timur (Tamerlane), and the Timurid dynasty[31] (including the early Mughal rulers of the Mughal Empire). Chagatai contained a large number of Persian and Arabic loanwords. By the 19th century, it was rarely used for literary composition and had disappeared by the early 20th century.
Muhammad Shaybani (c. 1451 – 2 December 1510), the first Khan of Bukhara, wrote poetry under the pseudonym 'Shibani'. A collection of Chagatai poems by Muhammad Shaybani is currently held in the Topkapı Palace Museum manuscript collection in Istanbul. The manuscript of his philosophical and religious work, Bahr al-Khudā, written in 1508, is located in London.[32]
Shaybani's nephew Ubaydullah Khan (1486–1540) recited the Quran skilfully and provided it with commentaries in Chagatai. Ubaydullah himself wrote poetry in Chagatai, Classical Persian, and Arabic under the literary pseudonym Ubaydiy.[33]
For the Uzbek political elite of the 16th century, Chagatai was their native language. For example, the leader of the semi‑nomadic Uzbeks, Sheibani Khan (1451–1510), wrote poems in Chagatai.[34]
The poet Turdiy (17th century) in his poems called for the unification of the divided Uzbek tribes: "Although our people are divided, these are all Uzbeks of ninety‑two tribes. We have different names – we all have the same blood. We are one people, and we should have one law. Sleeves, collars, and floors – it is all one robe. So the Uzbek people are united, may they be at peace."[35]
Sufi Allayar (1633–1721) was an outstanding theologian and one of the Sufi leaders of the Khanate of Bukhara. He demonstrated his level of knowledge by writing a book entitled Sebâtü'l-Âcizîn. Sufi Allayar was widely read and highly appreciated in Central Asia.[36]
The term Uzbek as applied to language has meant different things at different times:[citation needed]
- Uzbek was a