Language Learners Around the World Prove Kazakh a Global Language

Karina Sorsa is what one would consider a polyglot.

A wife and mother of three children, the 33-year-old native of Finland grew up surrounded by languages, she says from the Helsinki home she and her family just moved into. Of Russan descent, she grew up speaking the Slavic language, used Finnish in public and learned like others her age Swedish, German, English and Spanish. Later in life, she even took up Hindi for a while and, more recently, has even found time to learn French. Sorsa, who also works full-time in IT, directs her attention to her 4-year-old daughter before explaining how she now takes Korean and Kazakh virtually at least a few times a week. But it’s to the latter language that she feels most connected.

“I think it’s like in the crossroads of all the places where I’ve been and places my interest have fallen. Since I was little, I’ve been interested in Far East Asia. Then later it came closer to South Asia, and then I have my own Russian heritage.”

Sorsa reflects a growing global interest in Kazakh language learning. Since 2019, when nonprofit organization Otandastar Qory first began administering virtual lessons with just a few dozen students, the number of online learners has exploded. Last year over 500 students, including Sorsa, joined their online language classes, divided among 10 groups based on one of four source languages: Russian, English, Persian and Turkish. The success of Otandastar Qory and the growing interest in Kazakh language demonstrates how a language with only 16 million speakers alongside major rises to the level of major research and commerce languages like Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish.

Kagan Arik, the Ayaslı Lecturer in Modern Turkish and Turkic Languages at University of Chicago, has been teaching Uzbek and Turkish for at least 25 years, and Kazakh for nearly 15. Arik attributes this growing interest in the language spoken by people in Kazakhstan, the western province of Bayan-Ögli and the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of western China to a number of factors. Before 1991, during the Soviet period, Kazakhstan, like much of the other Union of Socialist Republics, remained closed off to the outside world. Only within the last 30-plus years, since gaining independence, have people begun to discover Kazakhstan, its people and culture.

Kazakhstan’s own ambassadors, Arik says, have done well over the decades in spreading Kazakh culture and tradition, adding to appeal of the language. Since 1993, for example, the government has invested heavily on sending its brightest students and scholars abroad through its Bolashak (future in Kazakh) Program. More than 10,000 of “their most-promising scholars have been sent to the four corners of the world, so people met, actually, got to know the early Kazakhs who went to school with them,” Arik says, adding, “I’m not at all surprised that people want to learn more about where they come from.”

Arik also point to the country’s ranking on a number of global indices in terms of economic and political stability. From its natural resources, in terms of minerals, gas, oil and coal, for example, Kazakhstan consistently ranks among the top 10 producers. It isn’t uncommon, therefore, for Arik to see most of the students that join his Kazakh language class come from a business background. “So, it's inherently an interesting place full of potential. So, it's not just sort of an ethnographic curiosity—it’s a very lively up-and-coming dynamic country,” he says.

But Arik also recognizes where the language was born from. Nomadic customs and the heritage of Kazakhs have formed their language today. The territory of Kazakhstan has served as the home of Turkic-speaking nomads for millennia. “That's where they've been all along. And they're still there. That shows up in the language, and it also shows up in the culture,” he says.

Sorsa’s own journey with Kazakh began in 2016 while her husband was working in the Finnish embassy in Kazakhstan’s capital of Astana, Sorsu participated in an exchange program organized by Turun University, her alma mater. While there she took up dance classes hosted by the Indian Embassy in the Kazakh capital, providing her opportunity to meet with Kazakhs. Learning the language felt like the right thing to do for Sorsa. “It’s just polite to learn some of their language even though everyone speaks Russian as well.”

But it was more than just politeness that compelled Sorsa to study Kazakh. For Sorsa, culture and people drew her. Her own interest in Kazakh, a Turkic language belonging to the Central Asian Kipchak-Nogai branch that also includes Cuman, Bashkir and Siberian Tatar, has allowed her to connect with the people on a deeper level. “Languages open a key to understanding the culture better than just reading about it in a different language,” she says, adding “You get to see things that otherwise you would not get to see otherwise.”

Iga Turek also shares a similar affinity for Kazakh culture and its people. Fluent in Polish, English, French, Italian and Portuguese, Turek also spends time studying Kazakh with Otandastar Qory. The Oxford-based forensics scientist notes the familial traditions and hospitality of Kazakh people that have inspired her to continue studying the language. “I have a lot of Kazakh things in my heart somewhere, because there’s so many things in Kazakhstan or in nomadic culture that really draws my interest,” she says.

For Turek, Kazakh traditions remind her of her of her own upbringing with her grandparents. She feels that time reflected a more authentic form of respect and connection to others. She has been able to reconnect to those times through Kazakh. “For me, people are one thing, but the old history of the nomadic life and culture shine through even in the 21st century,” she says, adding, “In many European countries, we are losing our connections to our customs, to our traditions.”

Roberto Carlos Pavón Carreón, a fifty-something-year-old professor of Semitic languages at la Academia de Lenguas Clásicas Fray Alonso de la Veracruz, in Mexico, like Sorsa and Turek, shares a passion for languages, precisely because they work as windows into the people.

Carreón’s introduction to Kazakh language began around five years ago when he came across an announcement from the Embassy of Kazakhstan to Mexico offering Kazakh classes. It wouldn’t be until 2021, however, through Otandastar Qory’s virtual classes, that he would take up learning the language.

Carreón’s interest in learning Kazakh goes beyond just learning the grammar or learning how to speak. His mission is to delve deeper into the culture of Kazakhs via the language. “I want to discover the human being in the world and the language is best way for me is to understand his thinking, his wisdom, his values in the language.”

Otandastar Qory groupmate and friend, Maha Gaida, is a 35-year-old theater and dance instructor in Tunisia. Gaida has been able to form long-lasting bonds with Kazakhs on a more interpersonal level as a result of learning the language. Through the course, she has developed her skills in Kazakh so much that she has been able to create meaningful friendship with Kazakhs.

“They don’t have like racism or something like ‘We don’t want to deal with you,” she says, adding, “They accepted me as I am. They accepted me among them.”

Ali Böekeyhan Suerer, a 30-year-old IT worker from Heidelberg, Germany, also plays rugby for the Turkish Rugby League Association. For him, learning Kazakh goes much deeper. Although he has always lived in Germany, he has recently set forth on a journey of self-discovery through the language.

Suerer and his German-based family trace their lineage to the Kerei, a Kazakh tribe who once called North West China their ata-meken (fatherland). But generations of family displacement since the 1930s, from across much of Asia into Pakistan, Iran and then Turkey, eventually even into Germany, has resulted in his own disconnection from the language of his ancestors. “It makes me feel like my soul is finding a home,” he says.

Suerer grew up speaking bits and pieces of Kazakh, but much of that has been lost. Living in Germany affords him little opportunity to speak in Kazakh. And even though, Kazakh communities are sprouting up across German’s largest cities such as Berlin and Munich, Suerer has been unable to bond with them. “We don’t have the connection to them because of language barriers, and they speak Russian, and we are more like German and Turkish,” he says.

Otandastar Qory, however, has given him and other Kazakh expats a lifeline for experiencing their heritage. Not only has the program provided language lessons free of charge, but they have brought hundreds of young people back home to experience that connection. As a result, Suerer and other participants were able to immerse themselves culturally and linguistically. “When I participated in that, it opened up a new or forgotten world for me,” he says, adding, “Even if I couldn’t speak with the people in the first days because of my language, I just had a good feeling. I was smiling 24/7.”

And it’s precisely from these linguistic and cultural connections that the appeal of Kazakh stems. Dilara Cansin, for instance, lives in Ankara, Turkey. A recent graduate majoring in international relations at Hoca Ahmet Yesevi University in the same city, Cansin works as a journalist. Having started learning Kazakh through Otandastar Qory’s virtual classes only since March 2023, she can already understand more than fifty percent of the language because of its close connection to Turkish. “It’s just mind blowing for me,” she says, before asking, “Do they see themselves as part of a Turkic family? It’s like 70 percent similar. Even the structures, like everything is similar.”

The arts of Kazakhstan have also been instrumental in drawing interest into the language. Arik points to how it has exploded in the last 30 years or so.

“The art scene is absolutely booming—film, theater, visual arts, all of that is extremely well-developed in Kazakhstan. Music, especially, has become extremely well-developed, both traditional music and more recent music forms,” he says.

But perhaps the most-famous ambassador of Kazakh culture and language has been Dimash Kudaibergen, who burst on the world stage while competing in China’s 2017 The Singer competition. His performance captivated the world.

Turek was one of those spellbound by Kudaibergen’s gift. Her initial exposure to Kazakh language only came after coming across YouTube videos of performances by Kudaibergen during the competition. So enthralled by his voice, she spent hours afterward Googling for more on Dimash Kudaibergen and searching YouTube videos of his performances. This led her down a rabbit hole, fueling her intrigue in the language. “I was enchanted. … My brain was swallowing it all,” she says.

Turek soon found herself gravitating toward the harmonic structure of Kazakh as well. “The melody of the language was very pleasant to my ear,” she says. “I really wanted to learn more about it,” she adds.

Tita Sriwahuni Kossatita has a similar experience. At 63 years old, Kossatita resides in Bekasi, West Java, Indonesia. Her own introduction into Kazakh occurred via a fascination with Kudaibergen’s vocal prowess. She went so far as to create the 10,000-member Indonesian Dears Fan Club For Dimash Kudaibergen, for which she serves as president.

But it was her quest to uncover meaning behind his lyrics that spurred her to study Kazakh with Otandastar Qory. “I wanted to understand the meaning of his songs,” she says, “so I learned Kazakh language.”

Four years have passed since Kossatita began learning Kazakh. She has mastered the language so much so that the Embassy of Kazakhstan to Indonesia invited her to recite a poem of Mukhtar Auezov during a public celebration of the 125th anniversary of the literary figure’s birth. The event coincidentally enough also marked the fifth year of the Kudaibergen fan club she has led. “When I meet Dimash,” she says smiling, “I can speak to him in Kazakh.”

And all students of Otandastar share Kossatita’s feeling in learning the language. They look forward to speaking to Kazakhs in their language.

Back home in Finland, Sorsa, like so many others, looks toward the future. She dreams of traveling back to Kazakhstan with her husband and children to put into practice everything she has learned. “I would like to go to Kazakhstan and speak to people there in Kazakhstan,” she says. “I want to show them [my kids] places where we can do that.”