State Language Day of the Kyrgyz Republic (23/09)

State language of Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyz. State Language Day is celebrated in the country annually on September 23, according to the Decree of the President of the Republic of September 22, 2009 UP № 358, in honor of the adoption on this day in 1989 by the Supreme Council of the Kyrgyz SSR of the law «On the state language of the Kyrgyz SSR».

This document assigned the status of the state language to the Kyrgyz language, and also recognized that:

In the Kyrgyz SSR, the free development of languages of other nationalities living in the republic is ensured. In the Kyrgyz SSR, every citizen has the right to freely choose the language of communication.

Article 16 of this law provided that local government and administrative bodies in the territory of compact residence of national groups (Uzbeks, Tajiks, Germans, Dungan, Uyghurs and others), along with the state language, have the right to use their native language. Persons who do not speak these languages are provided with appropriate translation.

The adoption of the Law «On the State Language of the Kyrgyz SSR» made a great contribution to the further development of the Kyrgyz language, contributed to raising the national identity of the Kyrgyz people, and increasing the prestige of the state language.

Kyrgyz language — is the language of the Kyrgyz-Kypchak subgroup, according to another definition of the — Eastern Hun branch of the Turkic languages. It distinguishes three dialects: northern (the main base of the modern literary language), southeastern and southwestern.

Three periods are distinguished in the history of the Kyrgyz language: Old Kyrgyz (8th-9th centuries), Middle Kyrgyz (10th-15th centuries) and Novokyrgyz (since the 15th century). Within the framework of the latter, four stages are distinguished: from the 15th to the mid-18th century, when Kyrgyz tribes, being in the south of Kyrgyzstan, maintained close ties with each other (Arab-Persisms of this era are distinguished by homogeneous adaptation); from the mid-18th century until the October Revolution of 1917, when dialect differences deepened; Soviet, when with the consolidation of the nation a single national language of the Kyrgyz is formed; post-Soviet period, the determining trend of which is the rapid development of the national language on a folk basis while simultaneously mass borrowing of vocabulary from English and other Western languages.

The Kyrgyz language has deep and rich folk-poetic traditions, its history is connected with the local ancient Turkic and ancient Kyrgyz runic and written monuments of the East Turkic version of the Turk. The victory of the Yenisei Kyrgyz over the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 is associated with the beginning of the formation of the colossal Kyrgyz epic «Manas», which would have taken 6 months to be fully performed. The name of the main character of the epic is associated with the Mausoleum of Manas (14th century) on the Talas River. In addition to him, Dastans — folk poems «Kedeikhan», «Kurmanbek», «Er Toshtyuk», «Janysh-Baish», «Er Tabyldy», «Sarynji and Boko», «Oldjobai and Kishimdzhan», etc. were created in the Kyrgyz language.

The written literary tradition is based on the work of the akyns Caligul and Arystanbek (19th century), Toktogul Satylganov (1864-1933), Baimbet Abdrakhmanov — Togoloka Moldo (1860-1942) and their followers. The foundations of Kyrgyz linguistics were laid by outstanding Turkologists Igor Batmanov (1906-1969) and Konstantin Yudakhin (1890-1975).

On the holiday itself, various cultural and educational events are held in Kyrgyzstan.

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