There is an opinion that the Kazakh nation reached its present level of cultural development thanks to the introduction of Russian culture and Russian language from the middle of the 18th century. It is believed that all the educated representatives of the Kazakh intelligentsia, technical specialists, and top managers achieved their successes only because they studied in Russian, which gave them the opportunity to learn the vast world of knowledge. Indeed, the volume of artistic, special, technical literature in Kazakh language is incomparable with the volume of the same literature in Russian, which is the original language for many great works and to which almost all the best contemporary world literature has been translated.
In this regard, Kazakhs who know Russian language, initially receive a huge advantage in their professional, career and even spiritual growth in comparison with those Kazakhs who own only their native language.
In fact, how can one talk about the spiritual growth of man, if he never read Shakespeare, Dyuma, Gyugo, Zol, Dostoevsky, sculptors of human spirituality on a planetary scale. Kazakh speaking Kazakhs did not read them only because their works were not translated into the only language that they own – Kazakh.
The same could be said for other branches of knowledge.
The Kazakh-speaking engineer is inferior in knowledge to the German, English, Russian engineer, because the best achievements in technology are described in German, English, and a part – in Russian. In the Kazakh language, most of the world technical literature has not yet been translated. A Kazakh-speaking marketer can not compete with American or Russian colleagues, because there is practically no relevant teaching literature in the Kazakh language or it is incomparably small.
Naturally, without having a foundation in the form of accumulated world knowledge, Kazakh scientists, writers, engineers, marketers will never be able to overtake their colleagues.
Thus, Kazakhs who speak Kazakh are doomed to trail behind the progress and receive small crumbs of foreign knowledge with a huge delay.
Which is the solution?
One could choose the way of the cultural and spiritual satellite of the neighboring major power – Russia, and continue to train its citizens in the Russian language as a tool for access to a wider range of knowledge. But this is not a way of developing a sovereign state. Paying tribute to the role that Russia played for Kazakhstan for 250 years, it must be recognized that with the acquisition of independence, Kazakhstan can not forever be in the shadow of a big neighbor and swim in its fairway. Kazakhstan should gain access to world knowledge directly, without an intermediary in the form of the Russian language.
For this, it is necessary to carry out a huge work on translating the mass of artistic, technical, and specialized literature from world languages into Kazakh. Kazakh-speaking Kazakhs should be able to learn the world’s masterpieces of literature, learn about the latest scientific developments, comprehend the depths of philosophy and esotericism, learn the basics of marketing and management, in the end, just read light entertainment detective stories and women’s novels.
This is a big task of national importance, and it should be decided by the Government of the country.
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