According to theJoshua Project,Southern Uzbek and Standard Uzbek are spoken as a native language by more than 34 million people around the world, making Uzbek the second-most widely spokenTurkic language afterTurkish.[5] There are about 36 millionUzbeks around the world, and the reason why the number of speakers of the Uzbek language is greater than that of ethnic Uzbeks themselves is because many other ethnic groups such asTajiks,Kazakhs,Russians who live inUzbekistan speak Uzbek as their second language.
External influences on Uzbek includeArabic,Persian, andRussian.[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 ofPersian. Unlike other Turkic languages,vowel harmony is almost completely lost in modern Standard Uzbek, though it is still observed to some degree in its dialects, as well as in Uyghur.
Different dialects of Uzbek show varying degrees of influence from other languages such asKipchak 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 theCyrillic script to aLatin-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]
Uzbek is the western member of the Karluk languages, a subgroup of Turkic; the eastern variant is Uyghur. Karluk is classified as adialect continuum. Northern Uzbek was determined to be the most suitable variety to be understood by the most number of speakers of all Turkic languages despite it being heavilyPersianized,[14] excluding theSiberian Turkic languages.[15] A high degree ofmutual intelligibility found between certain specific Turkic languages has allowed Uzbek speakers to more easily comprehend various other distantly related languages.
Uzbek, being the most widely spoken indigenous language inCentral Asia, is as well spoken by smaller ethnic groups in Uzbekistan and in neighbouring countries.
The Uzbek language has a special status in countries that are common destination forimmigration for Uzbekistani citizens. Other thanUzbekistan and otherCentral Asian Republics, the ethnicUzbeks most commonly choose theRussian 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 fromTajikistan, and 920,000 fromKyrgyzstan were working inRussia 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 theCIA 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] 1,630,000 in Pakistan,[6] 1,500,000 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]
Historically, the language under the nameUzbek referred to a totally different language ofKipchak origin. The language was generally similar to the neighbouringKazakh, more or less identical lexically, phonetically and grammatically. It was dissimilar to the area's indigenous and native language, known asTurki, until it was changed toChagatai by western scholars due to its origins from theChagatai Khanate.[28]The ethnonym of the language itself now means "a language spoken by theUzbeks."
Uzbek (along with Uyghur) can be considered the direct descendant of Chagatai, the language of great Turkic Central Asian literary development in the realm ofChagatai Khan,Timur (Tamerlane), and theTimurid dynasty[31] (including the early Mughal rulers of theMughal Empire). Chagatai contained large numbers of Persian and Arabicloanwords. By the 19th century, it was rarely used for literary composition and disappeared only in the early 20th century.
Shaybani's nephewUbaydullah Khan (1486–1540) skillfully recited theQuran and provided it with commentaries in Chagatai. Ubaydulla 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, but 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. Floors, sleeves and collars – it's all – one robe, So the Uzbek people are united, may they be in peace."[35]
Sufi Allayar (1633–1721) was an outstanding theologian and one of theSufi leaders of the Khanate of Bukhara. He showed his level of knowledge by writing a book calledSebâtü'l-Âcizîn. Sufi Allayar was often read and highly appreciated in Central Asia.[36]
The termUzbek as applied to language has meant different things at different times.
Chagatai was a Karluk language spoken by the older settled Turkic populations ("Sarts") of the region in theFergana Valley and theQashqadaryo Region, and in some parts of what is now theSamarqand Region; it contained a heavier admixture of Persian and Arabic and did not havevowel harmony.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Chagatai remained the main literary language in most of Central Asia, but it faced a phase of decay.[37] Eventually, Chagatai was mostly referred to as the language of theSarts, the settled Turkic-speaking populations of theFergana Valley, although the definition of this term shifted through the decades. According to the Kazakh scholarSerali Lapin, who lived at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, "there is no special Sart language different from Uzbek".[38] Russian researchers of the second half of the 19th century, like L. N. Sobolev, believed that "Sart is not a special tribe, as many tried to prove. Sart is indifferently called both Uzbek and Tajik, who live in the city and are engaged in trade".[39]
After the independence of Uzbekistan, the Uzbek government opted to reform Northern Uzbek by changing its alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin in an attempt to stimulate the growth of Uzbek in a new, independent state. However, the reform never went into full application, and As of 2024[update] both alphabets are widely used, from daily uses to government publications and TV news. Uzbek language has not eclipsed Russian in the government sector since Russian is used widely in sciences, politics, and by the upper class of the country. However, the Uzbek internet, includingUzbek Wikipedia, is growing rapidly.[46]
A 1911 text in theArabic alphabetCovers of translated books in Uzbek. As can be seen, both Latin and Cyrillic scripts are widely used in the country. Most names are also transliterated, for exampleYohann Volfgang Gyote is equivalent toJohann Wolfgang Goethe.
Uzbek has been written in a variety of scripts throughout history:
1000–1920s: The traditional Arabic script, first in the Qarakhanid standard and next in the Chagatai standard. This is seen as the golden age of the Uzbek language and literary history.
Since 1992: Switch back to Latin script, with heavy holdover usage of Cyrillic.
Despite the official status of the Latin script in Uzbekistan, the use of Cyrillic is still widespread, especially in advertisements and signs. In newspapers, scripts may be mixed, with headlines in Latin and articles in Cyrillic.[49] The Arabic script is no longer used in Uzbekistan except symbolically in limited texts[49] or for the academic studies ofChagatai (Old Uzbek).[47]
In 2019, an updated version of the Uzbek Latin alphabet was revealed by the Uzbek government, with five letters being updated; it was proposed to represent the sounds "ts", "sh", "ch", "oʻ" and "gʻ" by the letters "c", "ş", "ç", "ó" and "ǵ", respectively.[50] This would have reversed a 1995 reform, and brought the orthography closer to that ofTurkish and also ofTurkmen,Karakalpak,Kazakh (2018 version) andAzerbaijani.[51] In 2021, it was proposed to change "sh", "ch", "oʻ" and "gʻ" to "ş", "ç", "ō" and "ḡ".[52][50] These proposals were not implemented.[citation needed]
In the western Chinese region ofXinjiang, in northernAfghanistan and inPakistan,[53] where there is an Uzbek minority, the Arabic-based script is still used. In the early 21st century, in Afghanistan, standardization, publication of dictionaries, and an increase in usage (for example in News agencies' website, such as that ofthe BBC) has been taking place.
Words are usuallyoxytones (i.e. the last syllable is stressed), but certain endings and suffixal particles are not stressed.[which?][citation needed] Consonants in brackets are only attested in loanwords.
Standard Uzbek has six vowel phonemes.[54] Uzbek language has many dialects: contrary to many Turkic languages, Standard Uzbek no longer hasvowel harmony, but other dialects (Kipchak Uzbek and Oghuz Uzbek) retain vowel harmony.
In Uzbek, there are two main categories of words: nominals (equivalent to nouns, pronouns, adjectives and some adverbs) and verbals (equivalent to verbs and some adverbs).
Plurals are formed by suffix-lar ـلر. Nouns take the-ni ـنی suffix as a definite article when they aredirect objects; unsuffixed nouns are understood as indefinite. The dative case ending-ga ـگه changes to-ka ـکه when the noun ends in-k ـک,-g ـگ, or-qa ـقه when the noun ends in-q ـق,-gʻ ـغ (notice*tog‘qa →toqqa تاغقَّه). The possessive suffixes change the final consonants-k ـک and-q ـق to voiced-g ـگ and-gʻ ـغ, respectively (yurak →yuragim یورک - یورگیم).[56] Unlike neighbouringTurkmen andKazakh languages, due to the loss of "pronominal-n-" there is no irregularity in forming cases after possessive cases (uyida اوییده "in his/her/its house", as opposed to Turkmenöýünde اویونده, though sayinguyinda اویینده is also correct but such style is mainly used in literary contexts).[57]
Uzbek verbs are also inflected for number and person of the subject, and it has moreperiphrases. Uzbek uses some of the inflectional (simple) verbal tenses:[58]
Vowels marked with parentheses in the suffixes are dropped if the verb root already ends on a vowel. (e.g.Qara قَرَه +(i)ng ـِینْگ =Qarang! قَرَهنْگ;"Look!")
Third person plural is commonly replaced by third person singular.
In the simple past and conditional tenses, the possessive suffixes are used at the end of the verb. Otherwise, the full pronoun suffix is used, except in the imperative. The third person is usually not marked.
Conjugations of the verbermoq (to be) with regard to tenses (except for future tense), serve as copula verbs. Future conjugation of ermoq, (Old Turkic ergäy) is not present in Uzbek.
The word order in the Uzbek language issubject–object–verb (SOV), like all other Turkic languages. Unlike in English, the object comes before the verb and the verb is the last element of the sentence.
The influence ofIslam, and by extension,Arabic, is evident in Uzbekloanwords. There is also a residual influence ofRussian, from the time whenUzbeks were under the rule of theRussian Empire and theSoviet Union. There are a large number of Russian loanwords in Uzbek, particularly when related to technical and modern terms, as well everyday and sociopolitical terms. Most importantly, Uzbek vocabulary, phraseology and pronunciation has been heavily influenced byPersian through its historic roots. It is estimated that Uzbek contains about 60 Mongolian loanwords,[61] scattered among the names of birds and other animals, household items, chemical elements and especially military terms.
Uzbek can be roughly divided into three dialect groups. The Karluk dialects, centered on Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, and the Ferghana Valley, are the basis for the standard Uzbek language. This dialect group shows the most influence of Persian vocabulary, particularly in the important Tajik-dominated cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. The Kipchak dialect, spoken from theSurxondaryo region through north-central Uzbekistan intoKarakalpakstan, shows significant influence from theKipchak Turkic languages, particularly in the mutation of [j] to [ʑ] as inKazakh andKyrgyz. The Oghuz dialect, spoken mainly inKhorezm along the Turkmenistan border, is notable for the mutation of word-initial [k] to [g].
In Turkmenistan since the 2000s the government conducted a forced "Turkmenization" of ethnic Uzbeks living in the country.[62][63][64] In the Soviet years and in the 1990s, the Uzbek language was used freely in Turkmenistan. There were several hundred schools in the Uzbek language, many newspapers were published in this language. Now there are only a few Uzbek schools in the country, as well as a few newspapers in Uzbek. Despite this, the Uzbek language is still considered to be one of the recognized languages of national minorities in this country. Approximately 300,000–600,000 Uzbeks live in Turkmenistan. Most of the Uzbek speakers live inDashoghuz Velayat, as well as inLebap Velayat and partly inAshghabad.[65]
Uzbek is one of the many recognized languages of national minorities inRussia. More than 400 thousandUzbeks are citizens of the Russian Federation and live in the country. Also in Russia there are 2 to 6 million Uzbeks from theCentral Asian republics (mainlyUzbekistan,Kyrgyzstan andTajikistan) who are immigrants and migrants. Large diasporas of Uzbeks live in large cities of Russia such asSaint Petersburg. Signs in Uzbek are often found in these cities. Signs refer mainly to various restaurants and eateries, barbershops, shops selling fruits, vegetables and textile products. There is a small clinic, where signs and labels are in the Uzbek language. Uzbeks in Russia prefer to use the Cyrillic Uzbek alphabet, but in recent years Uzbek youth in Russia are also actively using the Latin Uzbek alphabet. Small newspapers in Uzbek are published in large cities of Russia.[66][67][68] Some instructions for immigrants and migrants are duplicated, including in Uzbek. Uzbek language is studied by Russian students in the faculties ofTurkology throughout Russia.[citation needed] The largest Uzbek language learning centers in Russia are located in the universities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. There are also manyRussians who are interested in and love the Uzbek language and culture and who study this language for themselves. Uzbek is one of the most studied languages among the many languages of the former USSR in Russia.[69]
Scientific interest in the history of the Uzbek language arose in the 19th century among European and Russian orientalists.Á. Vámbéry, V. Bartold, Sh. Lapin and others wrote about the history of the Uzbek language. Much attention was paid to the study of the history of the language in the Soviet period. E. Polivanov,N. Baskakov,[70] A.Kononov,[71] U. Tursunov, A. Mukhtarov, Sh. Rakhmatullaev and others wrote about the history of the Uzbek language among famous linguists.
The following is a sample text in Uzbek Arabic script of Article 1 of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights (with English version in the bottom), contrasted with a version of the text in Uzbek written in Latin script.
Uzbek Arabic
برچه آدملر اېرکین، قدرقیمت و حقوقلرده تېنگ بۉلیب توغیلهدیلر. اولر عقل و وجدان صاحبیدیرلر و بربیرلری ایله برادرلرچه معامله قیلیشلری ضرور.
Uzbek Latin
Barcha odamlar erkin, qadr-qimmat va huquqlarda teng boʻlib tugʻiladilar. Ular aql va vijdon sohibidirlar va bir-birlari ila birodarlarcha muomala qilishlari zarur.
Uzbek Cyrillic
Барча одамлар эркин, қадр-қиммат ва ҳуқуқларда тенг бўлиб туғиладилар. Улар ақл ва виждон соҳибидирлар ва бир-бирлари ила биродарларча муомала қилишлари зарур.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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