Uzbekistan marks 37 years since the 1989 law that made Uzbek the state language, a step taken before independence that restored the language’s public role after centuries of literary development within the Turkic Karluk branch.

Key milestones include Mahmud al-Kashgari’s eleventh-century dictionary, Alisher Navoi’s fifteenth-century Chagatai works that elevated Turkic against Persian dominance, the Jadid reformers’ early-twentieth-century press and drama, and Soviet-era script changes and purges that still left Uzbek widely used in daily life.

Since independence, measures such as the 2019 presidential decree, the designation of 21 October as Uzbek Language Day, school competitions and digital publishing have further strengthened the language at home and abroad.

On October 21 this year, Uzbekistan will mark 37 years since Uzbek was granted the status of state language. The historic law, adopted in 1989, came nearly two years before the country gained independence and marked an important step in restoring the language’s place in public life. Today, Uzbek is spoken by millions of people across Central Asia, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. Its history stretches back centuries, shaped by poets, scholars and reformers whose works helped develop one of Central Asia’s richest literary traditions.

Uzbek belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. Over the centuries, its vocabulary and literature were influenced by Persian, Arabic and other languages spoken throughout Central Asia. One of the earliest sources of this wider linguistic history is Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, compiled in the eleventh century by the scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari. The dictionary recorded thousands of Turkic words, expressions and examples of their usage, offering valuable insight into the languages and cultures of Turkic-speaking peoples nearly a thousand years ago.

The fifteenth century marked an........

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