Abstract:
National and world news is constantly accompanied by inter-group dramas which are
permeated by the dynamics of language use and attitudes. Conflicts can arise between the state
insisting on an official language and the family and community who may support the preservation or
revitalisation of heritage languages. Kazakhstan is an example of how languages (official Kazakh, the
language of communication Russian and international English) coexist peacefully. Language policy
and planning depend on the ability and willingness of individual members of the speech community
to adopt a language. Language planning is often seen as a top-down, government-controlled activity.
This paper shows that language planning can also be carried out from below. Here, we analyze the
main initiatives of grassroots movements in promoting the status of the Kazakh language and the
emergence of new bottom-up approaches facilitated by the Internet and present sociolinguistic survey
results regarding the roles, importance and prestige of languages for the people of Kazakhstan. The
focus of the study reported in this article is to monitor the transformative character of bottom-up
approaches to language-policy study in Kazakhstan.
