DUSAHNBE, July 24, Asia-Plus - On Saturday July 22, Tajikistan marked a Language Day.  Tajikistan adopted the language in 1989.

At present some 90 percent of organizations and enterprises in the republic are keeping office work in the Tajik language, Professor Abdughaffor Jurayev, deputy head of the commission for the implementation of the RT Law “On the Language”, said.

“At present there are still some ministries and organizations keeping their office works in two languages (Russian and Tajik),” Mr. Abdughaffor Jurayev said. 

“Over the past 17 years, since the language law was adopted, the Tajik language has been enriched with new words and terms, which had been used before but later were no longer in use,” said Mr. Jurayev, “Now, these words and terms have been introduced into the language again, an a major part of these words have been borrowed from the Persian-language countries.”   

According to information from the Institute of Language and Literature at Tajikistan ’s National Academy of Sciences, after adoption of the language law many barriers that had existed in the Soviet were lifted and the Tajik language has become rich considerably.  

“By September of this year, we plan to publish a new brief dictionary of general political terms,” the source in the Language and Literature Institute said, adding that the new dictionary will contain new word borrowed mainly from the European languages.  “The dictionary will contain totaling 78,000 words and terms,” the Asia-Plus interlocutor said.  

The results of a survey conducted by the “Panorama” Public Foundation last year have shown that of those polled, only 11.9 percent of ethnic Russians, 30.1 percent of ethnic Uzbeks and 45.1 percent of ethnic Tajiks studying at the Russian-language educational institutions in Tajikistan may speak and write in the Tajik language.  25.9 of ethnic Russians and 30.1% of ethnic Uzbeks may just speak Tajik.