Sociolinguistic Situation of Turkic Ethnicities Deported to Kazakhstan

Saule Tazhibayeva; Irina Nevskaya

doi:10.32523/2664-5157-2021-1-33-47

Authors

Saule Tazhibayeva Eurasian National University named after L.N.Gumilyov
Irina Nevskaya Goethe University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32523/2664-5157-2021-1-33-47

Keywords:

deported ethnicities, mother tongue, self-identification, Meskhetian Turk, sociolinguistic survey, Assembly of People of Kazakhstan

Abstract

The article discusses the sociolinguistic situation of the Kazakhstani Turkic
communities deported to Kazakhstan in the 1930s and 1940s. Different Turkic ethnicities had been
forcibly relocated from their historical places of living to Southern regions of Kazakhstan. The results
of the research are based on a sociolinguistic survey and oral interviews that have been conducted in
2013-2018 within the framework of the international project ‘Interaction of languages and cultures in
post-Soviet Kazakhstan’, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. A free-license online database with
the obtained sociolinguistic data was created, allowing filtering the data according to 191 parameters.
Special attention is paid to Azeri and Meskhetian Turks belonging to most numerous Turkic ethnic
groups living in contemporary Kazakhstan. Azeri people were allowed to return to their historical
homeland in the 1960s. The Meskhetian and Hemshilli Turkish communities did not get permission
to return to the regions of their historical settlement in Georgia. They found the second homeland in
Kazakhstan got integrated into its cultural and socioeconomic life.

Information about author

Saule Tazhibayeva, Eurasian National University named after L.N.Gumilyov

Professor of Department of Translation Theory and Practice of the Faculty of Philology

Irina Nevskaya, Goethe University

Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor at the Institute of Empirical
Linguistics, Chief researcher at the Institute of Philology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences