قبل از یک هفته ای مهمترین

So the end of my first semester in Tajikistan is rapidly approaching its competition (a mere 6 weeks away), and as such, now there’s a lot less to talk about regarding places I've been going, and now I’m stretching to find topics to write about wherever I can. And given that Election Day is three days away…

I’ll be talking about language in Tajikistan.

I assume by this point that a fair portion of my readers will stop after that above ‘switcheroo’ of sorts. So let’s begin. Tajikistan is, as you may imagine due to the fact I’m studying Persian here, one of only three countries which has a variety of Persian as the national language. And if you were to go by the various, Rahmon-centric propaganda posters that dominate the sides of buildings and the corners of major intersections (including a particularly amusing poster in Khujand that quite literally blocks out the sunlight for all the apartment dwellers that live behind it, leading to a scenario where Emomali Rahmon is, for a lack of a better comparison, a supervillain), Tajiki Persian is the beating heart and driving force for the past, present, and future of this lovely and interesting country.

And then you meet the Russians.

Like all of the post-Soviet republics, Tajikistan has a large population of ethnic Russians, left over from the century-plus domination of the country by powers centered in Russia. Now, just looking at Tajiki, with its block-like, ugly Cyrillic alphabet instead of its flowing Arab-Persian ancestor shows a clear legacy of its Russian past, as to the various Russian loanwords that have snuck their way into the language over the last two centuries. But simply walking down Rudaki or Ismail Somoni, you’re going to see an ethnic kaleidoscope of Tajiks, Uzbeks, Russians, Koreans, Pamiris, Chinese, Indians, and expats. And the only language that binds this disparate group is not Tajik, but Russian.

Now, as Tajikistan is the only post-Soviet republic I've ever been to, I can only speak to the effect of what I've read in that this is nothing new, and is fairly common throughout most of Central Asia. Tajikistan’s major difference seems to be that, as opposed to what I would've imagined, the degree of assimilation between the various ethnic groups in Tajikistan with the Tajik majority is more than just existent, it’s pretty active. While Russian is the unofficial language of anything more than personal conversation (and depending on the time of day, the news), I've met a good number of Russians who can, and usually with a good deal of encouragement will, speak Tajik.

But wait, doesn't this mean that Russian isn't that important you may be asking. Wait, I’m getting to the kicker. Now while there are Russians that exist that can speak Tajik, the number of Tajiks that can’t speak Tajik Persian to any relative proficiency is far…greater. Now there are plenty of reasons for this, and it’s the same kind of thing you find in many African countries in the post-colonial world (yet another reason to call Tajikistan a ‘cold Africa’). That doesn't make it any more sensible, or really understandable. A good example of this phenomenon can be found in my host family. My host mother and grandfather speak Tajiki at a level that can border on the limits of my comprehensions. The two youngest girls speak as much Tajiki as you would expect them to. The two oldest boys…five and nine years (respectively) of Russian-language school have quite literally gutted their Tajik vocabulary, to the point where ‘conversational Tajiki’ is ‘bastard Russian’ at my family. Similarly, I've had Tajiks ask me to help them with their Tajik because "They never bothered to learn it." I actually can't even think of a parallel for that last one.

As I said before, this isn't a unique phenomenon. The whole of the former Soviet Union has the same problem (although Central Asia without a doubt has it worse than their former Caucasian or Eastern European comrades), as do the former colonial states of Africa. But I would argue for Tajikistan it’s different. For the other states that have had the misfortunate of their native languages destroyed by a larger, global equivalent, the language in question is spoken only in the country of its origin, and often in only a small local. With Tajiki, you have to include the over 70 million speakers of Persian in the region alone, let alone worldwide. As long as Tajikistan is closely tied to Russia, or as it seems to tie itself closer and closer to China, one wonders what the fate of Tajiki will be.

Questions and comments welcome as usual, best of luck to the various American readers following Sandy (you’d be amazed how concerned Tajikistan has been about that) and to all of the candidates that the election goes well. As always: Tashakkur and khudo hafez.