Linguistic Landscape of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Video Transcript

SME 1: "In [the] Central Asian countries [of] Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, [Russian] was the official language. And even today it is the official language. But you see the native languages, like the Dari people using it more and more because the Soviet influence waning, with the Soviets influence waning the ethnic languages and the culture has an opportunity to grow. So people are not afraid to use their ancestral languages, and you see that more and more in use. But it still hasn't reached the point that it will become an official language, because those technical words that you can translate from, let's say, English to Russian, are not in their tribal or ethnic languages."

SME 2: "As Tajikistan grows farther from the Soviet days, and the education system is more conducted in the Tajik language, we're definitely finding that having a background in Persian languages, and less of an assumption that Russian will be the common language, has been beneficial for us."

In this video, a U.S. Army National Guard major and a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel discuss the linguistic landscape in Tajikistan.