The Kazakhstani minority in Vienna
language identity and language situation among the students
General information about
the project
We are a group of 3 students of the University of Vienna, Austria. As a part of a seminar on minority research, we decided to dive into the topic of Kazakhstani students in Vienna.
Factbox:
- According to Statistic Austria¹, 1418 Kazakh citizens are permanently living in Austria. Vienna is a leading city hosting 972 Kazakhs
- The Facebook group "Kazakhstan Student Society in Austria" has 1.497 members²
- In 1938, the teaching of Russian at all non-Russian schools became obligatory (Suleimenova, 1997, p. 152).
- At the beginning of the 1950s, the Kazakh language was severely repressed. A number of Kazakh schools, mostly in cities, Kazakh departments at universities, Kazakh newspapers and magazines were closed.
- In the 1980s_90s, there were only two Kazakh schools in Almaty, then the capital of
Kazakhstan. Any attempts to improve the situation in education were considered nationalist.
- The Republic of Kazakhstan (RK) became independent in 1991.
- According to the Law on Languages, both Kazakh and Russian are used for official purposes in state and local government structures, courts, and the military.
- Among ethnic Kazakhs, proficiency in Russian amounts to 75% (Smailov,
2004).
- A quarter of Kazakhs are monolingual Kazakh speakers, but the actual use of Kazakh varies significantly from region to region; it is used universally in the south and west; in the north and east, however, less than 50% of Kazakhs speak the language.
- The main languages used in the school system are Kazakh (1,631,500 pupils) and
Russian (1,326,500 pupils), with parents choosing the language of education for their
children.
- The number of students receiving higher education in their native language is insignificant: 401 students study in Uzbek, 11 students in Korean,14 students in German, and 16 students in Uighur.