The Kazakh language is relatively young. It is constantly growing and forming. It received rapid development especially in recent years, after gaining independence. On a wave of euphoria from the getting independence from the former metropolis – Moscow – there was a tilt towards the direction of the epidemic invention of own words to new phenomena and objects. As if out of spite of Russia we have replaced many words that, as it turned out, did not come from them, but from Americans, Germans, French and other distant nations, which we basically did not have anything against. During this period, words such as “Kyisandyq” (a trunk with songs) – piano, “Auejay” – an airport, “Galamtor” – the Internet appeared in the Kazakh language, “Ushaq” – an airplane and so on.
And then an interesting thing happened. A separate part of the Kazakhs began to ridicule these neologisms and in fact the nationalists were crucially against allowing borrowed words in the Kazakh language. The wave of public opinion turned 180 degrees. And now the bad manner was to say “Auejai” and “Galamtor” instead of “airport” and “Internet”. Some of the dictionaries even managed to shamefully remove such translations.
All this reminds me of the teenage coming of age period and juvenile maximalism.
Personally, both extremes seem ridiculous to me.
I think that we should not fundamentally prevent the entry of new foreign words into our lexicon. For example, the words poshta (post), zauyt (factory), kumpit (candy), after pronunciation processing and transforming thanks to that, organically entered our lexicon once, because they were new unknown concepts to Kazakh steppe people.
To the contrary, the underlined disregard for the Kazakh language and the blind copying of foreign words, in my opinion, humiliates our dignity. For example, I really like the words “Auejai” (airport) and “Galamtor” (Internet). They are both euphonious for the Kazakh ear and at the same time accurately convey the meaning of their concepts. Why should we blindly copy the original? Why, falling under the opposite trend of fashion, should we return to the original and not keep our own and accustomed word?
The same thing with other words.
I think, like in any other matters, there is no need to run to extremes, not to follow the imaginary notions of jealousy, independency, and national pride, on the one hand, and blindly worship everything foreign on the other hand, but calmly, judiciously and sensibly approach every word, every innovation. Evaluate for convenience, practicality and make use of it, if they are really useful to us.
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