THE QUESTION OF LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THE JADID SCHOOLS

Abstract

Abstract. This article examines how the Jadid enlighteners of Turkestan approached the question of language in their new-method schools at the turn of the twentieth century. It analyses their shared principle of native-language primary instruction, the cautious limits they placed on the “Turkicization” of education, and the ambiguity of the very concept of “Turkic” in their thought. Special attention is given to Mahmudkho’ja Behbudiy’s articles – above all “Not two but four languages are necessary” (1913) and “The language question” (1915) – and to the strong influence of Ismoil Gaspirali’s newspaper “Tarjimon” on the literary language of the Jadid textbooks. A linguistic analysis of those textbooks reveals a characteristic mixture of an Ottoman-Uzbek register in the prefaces and a more vernacular Uzbek-Turkic in the main reading material.