| The Uzbek (O’zbek) nationality in China is a transnational ethnic group originated from Central Asia. There is a larger population of Uzbek people living in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and other countries compared to the smaller Uzbek population in China. They live mainly in the cities and counties of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The majority of them are located in the North, Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture and Tacheng District, in the south, Kashgar District. According to the census from2000, China has12,370Uzbeks,90%of them live in the city with a few in rural or in the pasture area. In the city, the Uzbeks live among Uyghur, Han and other ethnic groups. In the pastures, the Uzbeks live among the Kazakh people. These unique living environments resulted in the different language characteristics used by the Uzbeks in their respective area. Since the birth of new China, studies had been conducted on minority languages and the study showed that Uzbek people use Uzbek language in their home. Outside of their homes, they use Uyghur and Kazakh languages. With the passing of times and progress in the society, Uzbek language had experienced some degrees of change. However, researches showed that comprehensive and systematic research on Uzbek language has not been carried out. There is no relevant statistical data on the use of this language in relationship to the daily life of the people. Therefore, in China there is a great necessity to conduct an in-depth and thorough study on the use of Uzbeks’language.To get a better understanding of Uzbeks’language use in China, this study mainly applied the social linguistics research methods, intergrated with the other methods in ethnology, anthropology, cultural studies. In order to achieve a scientific conclusion, statistical tools are used in data analysis. The basis principles for sampling are typical, representative and comprehensive. Random sampling method is mainly applied so that data can be collected on a wider base. The study is conducted in three areas where Uzbek people are more concentrated, namely:Yining City in Yili Kazakh Autonomous State, Kashgar District, Uzbek Autonomous Township in Muri Autonomous county. Participants covering people of different ages, occupations and education levels. The study focuses especially on representative Uzbek family in the community. Research instruments used are questionnaires and interview guides. For every Uzbek family in the community to participate in the study is given the questionnaires to be filled out. This enables a better reflection of the language use of different family members.In addition to the questionnaire, some subjects are interviewed individually for more details. Interviews are audio-taped and video-taped for further studies.This study involves a total number of1008Uzbek participants, including438in Yining city,435in Kashgar District, and135in Muri. Based on the Uzbek population in year2000, this study surveyed8.3%of the total population. Respondents age covers all ages6years old and above. Respondents’ occupation includes various trades and industries engaged by the Uzbeks, such as:cadres, farming herdsman, teachers and students. Majority of the participants are self-employed. The education level of majority of the respondent is junior middle school. This is by far the largest and most extensive study conducted regardless of the number of respondents, age distribution, varying occupation and people from different education levels. The results of the research can truly reflect the facts on the language use of Uzbeks in China.From a thorough and meticulous survey and study on the language use of Uzbeks at the three districts, the conclusion drawn is that China’s Uzbek people have not been using their mother tongue. Uzbek language is no longer the common language used in their daily life. More specifically, the current use of mother tongue among the Uzbek people has these three distinct types:1. Uzbek language is being endangered in terms of the extent of use, numbers of users, ages of speakers etc.2. Full conversion to Uyghur language. This is especially evidence in the Uzbek people living in Yining city and Kashgar District. They are using Uygur language in their daily life, work, education and in every other aspects of life. The Uzbek people have well mastered Uyghur language and it has become the first language of the young generation.3. Full conversion to Kazakh language. From the three locations surveyed, only the Uzbek people in Muri County completely use Kazakh language. They have a high proficiency in the use of Kazakh language and it has become their first language.The result from combination of questionnaire survey and interview can be summarized into four types:use of Chinese and Uyghur language are mainly concentrated in the adult and youth groups living in the Yining city and Kashgar District; use of Chinese and Kazakh language are mainly concentrated in the adult and youth groups living mainly in the Uzbek ethnic township in Muri county; concurrent use of Uyghur and Uzbek languages are mainly concentrated in the older age group who are geographically situated in Yining and Kashgar District; combination use of Chinese, Uyghur, Uzbek and Kazakh languages, it has a very small number of people. Those of this hybrid use of language mainly concentrated in the city of Yining.The reasons for the Uzbek people to have such diversified languages usage are due to the following causes:firstly, a small population of the Uzbeks who scattered and live among other ethnic groups, which resulted in their language conversion. Secondly, long-term inter-marriage is the important factors to influence the use of language. Thirdly, inter-nationality adaptation is the key foundation in accepting another language. Based on the field research, Uzbek’s native language may develop in two directions. One direction is that it will naturally in the course of time, totally become an extinct language in China. The other direction is to intentionally protect the language and gradually restore it. In view of the difference in the written text of Uzbek language within and outside of China, it is necessary to find out which writing system is acceptable by the China’s Uzbek people. Results show that China’s Uzbek people hope to use the Arabic letter-based text.This finding provides a helpful scientific base to promote theUzbek language later on.Th significance of this study as follows:to filling up the gap left by research done for nearly20years on the language used by a less population minority group as Uzbeks; to reveal more specific picture on the language use of Uzbek people in China; to provides more comprehensive first-hand language materials on the use of spoken and written language for the China’s Uzbek people; to serve as valuable references for studies on other endangered languages in China.The limitations of this study are two folds, on the one hand, reference materials are insufficient due to the few researches have been done on Uzbek language in China. On the other hand, difficulty in collecting data, less corpus, which affect thorough analysis and research result. Therefore, this is just the beginner’s first step research into the Uzbek language and current language use of Uzbek people in China. The first-hand data collected and collated from field research serve as a bite for future catch. We need more in-depth discussions.This dissertation consists five chapters. Chapter one is introduction, which includes background, objectives and significance of the study, and research methods employed are also discussed. Chapter two introduces the Uzbek nationality in China in terms of its origin, population, economic life, language and religious belief ect. Chapter three analyses the Uzbeks’language use in three areas, namely Yining city, Kashgar area and Muri Uzbek autonomous township. Chapter four concludes the data collected from three areas, and presents a whole picture of the language use of Uzbek people in China. Chapter five discusses the limitation of the study and recommendation for the future research. |
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