Autumn 2000 (8.3)
Page 11

Reader's Forum
Kyrgyz Language

On September 6, 2000, Reuters reported from Bishkek on a situation about the Kyrgyz language that is relevant to current legislature under discussion in Azerbaijan's Parliament regarding Azeris who run for high office who in the future will have to prove that they, too, are fluent in Azeri. We include the Kyrgyz incident below:

"It's official - the president of Kyrgyzstan speaks Kyrgyz. The Central Electoral Commission made the announcement after subjecting President Askar Akayev to a 2-1/2-hour exam to see if he speaks the language well enough to run in a presidential election on October 29, as required by the constitution.
He passed after reading an excerpt from a novel and taking a written paper on the development of the

Kyrgyz state since 1917 - but not without a few punctuation and spelling mistakes, the commission said. Following the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991 into 15 independent states, many top officials in several new republics speak only Russian and are unable to converse in the official languages of the countries in which they now live."

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From Azerbaijan International (8.3) Autumn 2000.
© Azerbaijan International 2000. All rights reserved.

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