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Silk Road travel: should I study Russian or a Turkic language (or Persian)?

It’s a question we get asked from time to time here at Caravanistan: what’s the most useful language on the Silk Road: Russian or a Turkic language? It’s worth a discussion, especially because English gets you precious little. While in the past the standard answer was Russian, the Soviet Union has disappeared out of people’s lives for more than 20 years now.

So is Russian still as useful as it once was? It really depends on what you are aiming for.

Russian language skills in decline

The newly independent republics where once Russian was the lingua franca are increasingly promoting their own language. The most radical ones, like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, banned Russian from the education system early on. This means that many young people without higher education have had little contact with Russian and speak only their native language.

In big urban areas and capitals of the former Soviet Union, most of the elite and their children are still heavily russified (or of Slavic descent). Remote areas are different: little villages in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have more or less forgotten about the Russian language. It’s only the labour migrants who bring back some knowledge of Russian. In Kazakhstan Russian is still the main language, as many people don’t understand or speak proper Kazakh. In the Caucasus, Russian is still widely understood, especially by the older generation.

The large spread of Turkic languages

turkic language mapCountering the dominance of the Soviet Union is the huge geographic spread of Turkic languages, from Gagauz and Turkish in the west to Uyghur and Yakut in the east.

Of course there are many differences between all these languages, but often the basic vocabulary is similar. Water for instance is su in Turkish, Tatar, Azeri, Kazakh and probably many more. Then again it’s ab in Uyghur and Ui in Yakutia. Don’t expect to understand Uzbek if you know Turkish, but you will definitely get some simple words.

Most importantly, speaking the local language rather than the colonial language will shift people’s mindset to you. You could be reciting poetry by Pushkin in fluent Russian and not raise an eyebrow: people just think it’s normal, just like everyone in the West is supposed to speak perfect English. But if you know a few words of Uzbek, Kazakh, Azeri, etc., people will be astounded that you bothered to learn their language, and doors will open.

An example: an American friend of mine was stopped by the police on the streets of Almaty, apparently for jaywalking (he was having a bad day). They began to speak in Russian and the young policeman was not in a good mood. He was threatening to take him back to the office. When the American switched to Kazakh, suddenly it was smiles all around. “You speak Kazakh, bro? Where did you learn that? Have a nice day, and always welcome to my place for a beer!”

Persian perhaps?

At first sight, Farsi or Persian seems to be only interesting for those Persophiles wishing to spend most of their time in Iran. But remember that Tajik and Dari (in Afghanistan) are 2 languages very close to Farsi, and that Tajik is still widely spoken in the main culture cities of Uzbekistan like Bokhara and Samarkand.

Conclusion

Although Russian-language skills are in decline throughout the region, it is still the single one language understood by most people in Central Asia. The fact that many people speak it just as poorly as you is perhaps another advantage nowadays. If you are also planning to spend a bit of time in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan or Russia itself, you should probably still go for Russian and learn some polite phrases in the local language as you enter each new country.

Even if you are not keen to dig into it, spend 3-5 hours to get to grips with the Cyrillic alphabet. It’s really not that difficult, and it will open your world (you cannot point your translator app at everything).

Turkic languages are spoken all over the Silk Road, but their great diversity means you cannot really learn 1 language and be done with it. However, you get a million brownie points if you can string a few sentences together. If you are bypassing Georgia and Armenia and  spending quite a bit of time in Turkey, Post-Soviet Central Asia and Uyghur Xinjiang, you should perhaps dive in a bit deeper if you feel like it.

Persian, Tajik and Dari are very close to each other, and if you’re planning to spend some time in these countries and would like to talk to people, we recommend you pick up some Persian.

Update: A debate broke out on Twitter after publishing this post, and I would like to share some comments that add more insight to the discussion. You are welcome to add your voice too in the comments section.

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