The Status of Uzbek Language Within Turkic Languages

Abstract

This paper critically investigated the recent dissemination of narratives among Afghan-Uzbek intellectuals across social media platforms, wherein assertions are either through misinterpretation or deliberately made that "We are not Uzbek, but Turk; our language is not Uzbek, but Turkish." Drawing upon a wide range of authoritative philological and historical sources. This study contends that such claims are fundamentally flawed from both theoretical and empirical standpoints. From a diachronic linguistic perspective, it is demonstrated that the Old Turkic literary language, once the common linguistic medium among early Turkic-speaking populations has long ceased to function as a living language and nearly thirty distinct Turkic languages have evolved as each exhibiting independent phonological, morphological, and syntactic systems. The research further substantiates that the Uzbek language is not a regional dialect or a sub-branch of another Turkic language rather, it has developed as an autonomous language since the second half of the 13th century. In contemporary times, Uzbek holds the status of the official state language of the Republic of Uzbekistan and is recognized as the national language of Uzbeks globally. The arguments presented herein are anchored in the analysis of historical written monuments, the diachronic development of the Uzbek literary language, historical Uzbek grammar, and comparative studies within Turkic linguistics. The findings reinforce the position of Uzbek as a distinct fully independent member of the Turkic language family.