Saturday, March 26, 2005
Helpful Explanation
This primer on pronumications in the Kyrgyz language is interesting. Indeed, much of it is also applicable to Azeri, which is also a Turkic language.
Unlike Kyrgyz, which is written in the Russian cyrillic alphabet, Azeri uses a modified Latin alphabet. Furthermore, many more Kyrgyz use Russian in daily life than do Azeris. From what I've seen, people who speak primarily Kyrygz are viewed as rubes because anyone who is educated knows Russian. The same is somewhat true in Azerbaijan, but many Azeris now reject Russian as the colonial language. Still, there are a lot of "educated" people in Azerbaijan who are much more comfortable speaking in Russian than Azeri.
These people annoy me since they respond in Russian when I try to speak to them in Azeri.
Unlike Kyrgyz, which is written in the Russian cyrillic alphabet, Azeri uses a modified Latin alphabet. Furthermore, many more Kyrgyz use Russian in daily life than do Azeris. From what I've seen, people who speak primarily Kyrygz are viewed as rubes because anyone who is educated knows Russian. The same is somewhat true in Azerbaijan, but many Azeris now reject Russian as the colonial language. Still, there are a lot of "educated" people in Azerbaijan who are much more comfortable speaking in Russian than Azeri.
These people annoy me since they respond in Russian when I try to speak to them in Azeri.
