There are different situations.
The first is when a tourist enters the store and addresses the seller in his own language, and the seller knows the buyer’s language, but does not speak it in principle.
I have often seen this attitude in France. Many French people are jealous of the English language and do not want to speak it, although they know how. Here lies an old resentment that the French language once ceded its world domination to English.
But this behavior of French sellers is hardly reasonable. A tourist comes to Paris for only a few days, and for this it makes no sense for him to learn French.
Similarly, it is stupid to demand knowledge of the Kazakh language from a visiting Russian. He will escape from mobilization here and in a few months he will go home. What’s the point of him learning Kazakh? And to take out resentment on him for his colonial past and, taking advantage of his difficult situation, to dirty in revenge for the oppression of the Kazakh language under the Soviet Union is ignoble. Vindictiveness is not the best human quality.
It seems to me that this is exactly the situation that Ramil Mukhoryapov condemned.
It’s another matter when the Kazakh seller really does not know how to speak Russian and responds to the buyer in the only language he knows – Kazakh. At the same time, he shows friendliness and participation and tries to help the buyer. Such a seller deserves respect.
Russian Russian, yes, there are cases when the seller, knowing the Russian language, does not speak it with the buyer in principle, if he sees that he is in front of a Kazakh or a local Russian. I myself would not approve of the behavior of such a seller, but at least it can be understood. He is offended that the citizens of Kazakhstan, and especially the Kazakhs, do not speak their native language. So he wants to encourage them to study the Kazakh language.
Another situation is also possible: in Kazakhstan, a Russian-speaking customer enters a store and demands to be served in Russian. And it does not matter whether it is a visiting Russian chauvinist who escaped from the war, but at the same time considers Kazakhstan an inferior country dependent on Russia, or it is a local Russian-speaking Kazakhstani who does not want to learn the language of his Homeland, because there are no textbooks, no methodology, no teachers, etc., etc. In any case, to demand from the seller-Kazakhs in Kazakhstan speaking Russian is illegal and illegitimate.
But in the opposite case: when a Kazakh-speaking citizen in Kazakhstan enters a store and asks to be served in the state Kazakh language, the seller, whoever he is, is obliged to answer such a buyer in Kazakh. Because this is Kazakhstan, and Kazakh is the state language.
As you can see, there are many situations. You can’t row everything under one comb.
But in all cases, it seems to me, it is necessary to adhere to the following basic principles:
1. Tourists (temporary residents) should not be required to know the official language of the country. But if they show respect for the country of temporary residence and try to learn at least the basics of the local language, then such people should be encouraged and expressed gratitude to them.
2. Local residents need to be involved with tourists (temporary residents) and provide assistance in their language, if the locals speak it.
3. Native speakers of the state language should not demand knowledge of it from their clients. But if, on the contrary, a native speaker of the state language requires to serve him in the state language, then such an opportunity should be provided to him by law.
4. Tourists (visitors) should not demand to be served in their native language. They can only hope for it and be grateful if it happens, but in no case demand it.
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