President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov commented on the statement of the Speaker of the Parliament Nurlanbek Shakiev that all content in Russian and English languages should be blocked on the Internet. He shared his opinion in an interview with Kabar news agency.
The head of state noted that everyone supports the proposals on development of the Kyrgyz language. No one is against it. But Nurlanbek Shakiev’s words about Russian and English languages are his personal opinion.
The state policy is completely different, Sadyr Japarov said. Russian and English are world languages.
«There are Russian and English among the official languages of the UN. It is impossible to work in CIS countries without Russian. When making official visits, not only to the Commonwealth states, but also to some European countries, the United States and a number of others, speakers speak Russian and listen to simultaneous translation in this language. I have seen this many times in the last three years. And English is used all over the world. I always say to the Minister of Education: «If possible, look for teachers who teach in two languages,» he said.
The president believes it would be good if one teacher taught in Russian and English, without increasing the number of teachers. Kyrgyzstan needs Russian language teachers, especially in rural areas.
«I haven’t heard our children speaking Russian since the childhood. On the contrary, there are cases when students leave school without knowing a word in Russian and go to Russia. They go there, and they have problems with the language. That is why I personally took the initiative and asked Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) to build nine Russian-language schools for us. Construction work will begin soon,» he said.
If there are those who want to build an English-language school, the door is always open, Sadyr Japarov said.
He believes it would be good if our young people could speak five languages fluently instead of three. The more languages the people know, the broader their outlook and worldview will be. They will learn the customs, set of mind and knowledge of many nations, the head of state said.
We need to look at the world more broadly, he said. The Kyrgyz language will never die. It will develop and live forever.
«We should thank God. How can we say that our language is in the same state as it was in the 90s? In the 90s, there were people in our villages who did not speak Kyrgyz. Now, on the contrary, the vast majority of people in the regions do not speak Russian. The reason is that there are not enough Russian language teachers in the villages. Without Russian and English, our young people will not be able to go beyond Kyrgyzstan.
Therefore, we should never be against other languages. Of course, we pay special attention to Kyrgyz. Could it, which was not lost in the past, be lost now? As for Arabic names, it is everyone’s business how to name their children. The main thing is to remain Kyrgyz in your heart and soul. For example, we also have the name Mohammed. We have a lot of similar names,» Sadyr Japarov concluded.
