President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has called independence and the Kazakh language the foundations of the nation’s future, speaking at the 10th Kurultai of the Kazakh Tili society, reported Zakon.kz.
“Without independence our people have no future,” Tokayev said ahead of the 35th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s independence. He said it was time to update the orthographic dictionary of the Kazakh language. He also called for a national digital database of Kazakh-language resources, so that the language keeps pace with artificial intelligence.
Tokayev also backed the society’s “Dala Ormany” (Steppe Forest) project. In a year its members and partners planted 5 million trees on 400 hectares and set up four large nurseries in three regions. The plan is to create forest parks of 25 hectares near every village, 50 hectares around district centres and 100 hectares near big cities, raising Kazakhstan’s forest area to 14.5 million hectares. “This is our answer to the sceptics who did not believe that forests could rustle in the Kazakh steppe,” he said.
He also urged Kazakhstanis to reach “a new level of civility” and warned against using language issues to stir tension. The speech balances national identity politics with reassurances to Russian speakers, a sensitive issue in Kazakhstan’s relations with Moscow.
CentralasianLIGHT.org,
November 10, 2026