Uyghur in multi-ethnic Kazakhstan. An allochthonous minority language in the interplay between language norms and language use.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Mark Kirchner
• Subject Area: Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics ; Asian Studies ; Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244676353

Uyghurs constitute the fifth largest ethnic group in Kazakhstan. The Uyghur language exists between the poles of two dominant languages: Standard Kazakh, a related Turkic language, and Russian, a genetically unrelated language. This project aims to investigate the monolingual language norms of the Uyghur minority in its interaction with the multilingual language reality of Kazakhstan. The project will focus on language contacts across the language family boundaries separating Uyghur, as a Turkic language, from Russian, as a Slavic language. It will also investigate internal language contacts within the Turkic family, between Uyghur, a South East Turkic language, and Kazakh, a North East Turkic language. The project will be based on an empirical study: Data will be collected in and around the Uyghur school No. 153 in Almaty where we have already been able to establish contact in preparation for this application. Communication within the school will be considered as normative whereas communication beyond this institution will be regarded as non-normative. Data will be collected from the following settings: communication in the classroom, informal pupil to pupil conversations during school breaks, communication within Uyghur families, and the communication of the pupil´s parents at their places of work and in public. With regards to the maintenance of norms within the Uyghur languge, the project aims to address the following questions: Who prescribes the norms of the Uyghur language in Kazakhstan? How are norms developed? How obligatory are these norms for norm subjects? Through the use of audio-recordings the project seeks to describe different competence profiles: speakers with dominant Uyghur use, Kazakhized Uyghurs, Russified speaker etc.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants