Uzbek language

Spoken in

• Altaic languages ​​( disputed) Turkic languages Karlukische languages Uzbek

Uz

Uzb

Uzb ( macro language ) Contained languages:

• UZN ( Nordusbekisch )
• UZS ( Südusbekisch )

The Uzbek language ( usbek. Ozbek tili, Ozbekcha, obsolete spellings Cyrillic тили Ўзбек and Arabic ئۇزبېك تیلى Ozbek tili ), short- Uzbek, is the most common Turkic Central Asia. In Uzbekistan it is the mother tongue of the majority of residents and official language.

Language names

Besides the name Uzbek also " Turkish Uzbek " (Turkish Ozbek Türkçesi, uzbek. Ozbek Turkchasi ) is used in Turkish Turkish Studies as an alternative name.

The proper name of the Uzbek language variants in Afghanistan is tili Uzbek, Uzbeki, Uzbaki or Uzbekcha.

The language name goes back to the name of the Uzbeks, who described a group of nomadic tribes originally that the rule took over in the 16th century in the western Central Asia and their names turn in Uzbek Khan, a ruler of the Golden Horde in the 14th century, attributed. Today, however, the term Uzbek refers not only to derive from the language of the Uzbeks of the 16th century dialect ( the Kyptschak - Uzbek ), but also the turksprachlichen varieties, their precursors spoken before the arrival of the Uzbek tribes in Central Asia and then or as Tschagataisch Turki were called.

Classification

The Uzbek belongs to the southeastern group of Turkic ( Uyghur languages). The most closely related with the Uzbek language is spoken in Chinese Xinjiang Uygur.

Today's Uzbek default language is the immediate successor of the language Tschagataischen.

Number of speakers and distribution areas

Worldwide there are about 27 million speakers of Uzbek.

In Uzbekistan, almost all of the local approximately 22 million Uzbeks Uzbek native speakers.

In neighboring Tajikistan speak today about 873,000 people Uzbek, in Kyrgyzstan there are 550 096, 332 017 in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, 317,000.

In Chinese Xinjiang speak for about 5,000 of the approximately 12,000 ethnic Uzbeks Uzbek there.

In Afghanistan today live about 2.9 million Uzbeks. In contrast to the Central Asian former Soviet republics here has the modern Uzbek language standard no validity. Many of the Uzbeks of Afghanistan dominate alongside their Uzbek variety also Persian. The Afghan variant of the Uzbek language is written in the Arabic alphabet. The Afghan Uzbeks belonged to the 19th century to the Emirate of Bukhara. 1886/93 the southern outskirts of the khanate came to Persia and when the Afghans independently made ​​short time later, the Uzbeks came to the Emirate of Afghanistan.

To distinguish the languages ​​spoken in Afghanistan by the shape of the Uzbek language as used in Uzbekistan and other CIS states, the names Südusbekisch and Nordusbekisch be used. These names, however, are misleading because Südusbekisch and Nordusbekisch other hand also designate two of the Uzbek dialect groups, südusbekische dialects also by a large part of the population of Uzbekistan is spoken and the local standard language is based.

In Turkey in 1982 gave exactly 1,980 native of Afghanistan ethnic Uzbeks Uzbek as their native language.

Dialects

The Uzbek language is basically divided into four dialect groups:

• The Nordusbekische is spoken by the sedentary Uzbek population in the south of Kazakhstan.
• The Südusbekische is spoken by the sedentary Uzbek population in the central and eastern Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan. Within the Südusbekischen iranisierte and teiliranisierte dialects can be distinguished. The iranisierten dialects have, because prolonged coexistence with Iranian languages ​​(Persian and Tajik ) on numerous influences of these languages ​​not only lexical, but also on phonetic area. Especially in the iranisierten dialects the vowel harmony otherwise applicable in the Turkic languages ​​is almost completely lost. In the teiliranisierten dialects, however, the vowel harmony is partly preserved. Iranisierte dialects of Südusbekischen spoken in the larger cities of central Uzbekistan, especially in Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent, as well as from the urban Uzbek population in northern Afghanistan. Teiliranisierte dialects are spoken in the rural areas between these two cities as well as in the Ferghana Valley. The iranisierten dialects belonging to the city of Tashkent dialect is based on the standard pronunciation of Uzbekistan's default language.
• The Kyptschak - Uzbek, from the point of view systemlinguistischer the Kazakh is closer than the other Uzbek dialects, is spoken of until the recent time nomadic or teilnomadisch living Uzbek populations. This live or lived in suitable for nomadic ways of life areas over the entire Uzbek settlement area scattered. They were up in the recent past still divided into tribes, so that the Kyptschak - Uzbek does not break like the other Uzbek dialects in urban and local dialects, but in tribal dialects.
• The Oghuz - Uzbek, which forms from systemlinguistischer view a transitional dialect to the neighboring Turkmen and Khorasan -Turkish is spoken by the sedentary population in the south of Uzbekistan.

Development of written language and alphabets

Tschagataisch used as a written language, which was written in Persian- Arabic letters - Since the Islamisation was in Uzbekistan until 1923 - as in all of Central Asia.

In 1923, this alphabet was reformed, adjusted the Uzbek Uzbek language and written language in Uzbekistan.

In 1929, the unified Turkish alphabet was introduced, and the Uzbek began to adapt to the Oghuz languages. Phonetically these Uzbek literary language was aligned with the Nordusbekischen grammatically and after ( teiliranisierten ) Südusbekischen Tashkent.

During the 1930s and the sound system on Südusbekischen was organized in the wake of changes in the normative grammar, which also attracted new changes in the orthography itself.

1939/40, an adapted Cyrillic alphabet was introduced, which is based on the standard for the Russian publication, but extended to include additional letters for the Uzbek specific sounds.

At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union (1988 /89) there were - in the course of re-nationalization and Islamization - moves to introduce the Perso- Arabic alphabet again. However, these were not successful due to lack of government support. Only publications in Islamic / Islamist groups, the Uzbek is now often written in Arabic script.

Once at the first meeting of all Turkic-speaking president ( Ankara, 1992), it was decided to take over for the Turkic languages ​​of the former Soviet Union, the new Turkish alphabet or to develop a Latin -based alphabet in its non-adoption, in 1993, a design for a Latin alphabet was first for submitted to the Uzbek, which contained numerous diacritics.

In 1995, the Uzbek government decided but instead impose the Latin alphabet without additional characters. This should allow, among other things, the use of standard English typewriter and computer keyboard and avoid the overhead of a separate character set. For those sounds to play them no appropriate capital letter was present, digraphs were introduced in their phonetic value of one was based on the sound values ​​of the combinations of consonants in English. Only the letters g and o use a hook as a diacritical mark, which is not identical with the apostrophe in its normatively correct form, but rather a small 6 is similar. Both the Cyrillic and the Arabic alphabet should be taught to allow access to the older literature.

Since 1997 began in the public life of a gradual transition to the Latin alphabet. The final adoption of the Latin alphabet should be completed by 2005, but were in 2005 and thereafter printed publications still in Cyrillic. In particular, those generations who were at school during the time of the Soviet Union, still prefer the Cyrillic script.

In fact, today the Cyrillic and Latin script in parallel in use, albeit by official bodies exclusively the Latin alphabet is used today. Different personal preferences, especially the older generation and the poor economic situation caused by the chronic lack of money, which hinders the pressure of new publications in the Latin alphabet, would be likely that both alphabets are even longer time to stay next to each other in use. Even the official website of Gulnora Karimova, daughter of Uzbek President, is written in Uzbek- Cyrillic, as well as the official site of the capital, Tashkent.

Notes: 1am syllable beginning, after a vowel, ъ or ь is in the Latin script to write Ye ye 2The diacritics of the letters O and G o g is not identical in normative form with the apostrophe, but is rather similar to a small 6 in cursive, it can also be replaced by a set over the letters underscore. It corresponds to the typographically Okina used in Polynesian languages ​​. In manuscripts, the characters are also found as G or ğ, or as O or O. 3Apostroph. According to the following vowels consonants at most [ ʔ ] caused by an elongation of the vowel preceding vowel; in the vernacular often silent. In the group of letters s'h it serves only to distinguish from the digraph sh. 4Digraph, not an official part of today's Latin alphabet 5Digraph, not an official part of the Cyrillic alphabet 6tritt especially in foreign and loan words to

Samples of the Uzbek

Welcome formulas:

• Assalomu Alaykum! - Good day! Good day! (originally from Arabic, literally " Peace be with you!" )
• Salom! - Hello!
• Salom berdik! - I welcome you ( you)!
• Hormang! - Hello! ( colloquially, for example, when greeting to colleagues )
• Hayrli tong ( kun, kech do )! - Good morning (day, evening, night)!
• Xush kelibsiz - Welcome

Below here, the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is listed. Firstly, in today's Latin script and the other in the old Uzbek modified Cyrillic alphabet: