Back Ауазбақь бызшәа Abkhazian Узбекыбзэ ADY Oesbekies Afrikaans ዑዝበክኛ Amharic اللغة الأوزبكية Arabic اوزبيكى ARZ Idioma uzbecu AST Özbək dili Azerbaijani اؤزبک تورکجه‌سی AZB Үзбәк теле Bashkir

Uzbek language

Uzbek
oʻzbekcha, oʻzbek tili,
ўзбекча, ўзбек тили,
اۉزبېکچه، اۉزبېک تیلی
Uzbek in Latin, Perso-Arabic Nastaliq, and Cyrillic scripts
PronunciationUzbek pronunciation: [ɵzˈbektʃʰæ, ɵzˈbek tʰɪˈlɪ]
Native toUzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia and China
RegionCentral Asia
EthnicityUzbeks
Native speakers
34 million (incl. both Northern Uzbek & Southern Uzbek) (2022–2024)[1]
Early forms
Dialects
Official status
Official language in
Recognised minority
language in
Language codes
ISO 639-1uz
ISO 639-2uzb
ISO 639-3uzb – inclusive code
Individual codes:
uzn – Northern
uzs – Southern
Glottologuzbe1247
Linguaspheredb 44-AAB-da, db
A map, showing that Uzbek is spoken throughout Uzbekistan, except the western third (where Karakalpak dominates) and Northern Afghanistan.
Dark blue = majority; light blue = minority
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Uzbek[b] is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language endonymically called Türki or Türkçe, as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.[4]

According to the Joshua Project, Southern Uzbek and Standard Uzbek are spoken as a native language by more than 34 million people around the world, making Uzbek the second-most widely spoken Turkic language after Turkish.[5] There are about 36 million Uzbeks around the world, and the reason why the number of speakers of the Uzbek language is greater than that of ethnic Uzbeks themselves is because many other ethnic groups such as Tajiks, Kazakhs, Russians who live in Uzbekistan speak Uzbek as their second language.

There are two major variants of the Uzbek language: Northern Uzbek, or simply "Uzbek", spoken in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and China; and Southern Uzbek, spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[6][7] Both Northern and Southern Uzbek are divided into many dialects. Uzbek and Uyghur are sister languages and they constitute the Karluk or "Southeastern" branch of Turkic.

External influences on Uzbek include Arabic, Persian, and Russian.[8] One of the most noticeable distinctions of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is the rounding of the vowel /ɑ/ to /ɒ/ under the influence of Persian. Unlike other Turkic languages, vowel harmony is almost completely lost in modern Standard Uzbek, though it is still observed to some degree in its dialects, as well as in Uyghur.

Different dialects of Uzbek show varying degrees of influence from other languages such as Kipchak and Oghuz Turkic (for example, in grammar) as well as Persian (in phonology), which gives literary Uzbek the impression of being a mixed language.[9]

In February 2021, the Uzbek government announced that Uzbekistan plans to fully transition the Uzbek language from the Cyrillic script to a Latin-based alphabet by 1 January 2023. Similar deadlines had been extended several times.[10][11] As of 2024, some institutions still use both alphabets.[12][13]

  1. ^ Uzbek language at Ethnologue (28th ed., 2025) Closed access icon
  2. ^ Scott Newton (20 November 2014). Law and the Making of the Soviet World: The Red Demiurge. Routledge. pp. 232–. ISBN 978-1-317-92978-9.
  3. ^ Ethnic Groups and Religious department, Fujian Provincial Government (13 September 2022). "少数民族的语言文字有哪些？". fujian.gov.cn (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 28 October 2022. Retrieved 28 October 2022.
  4. ^ Yusuf Has Hacib. Kutadğu Bilig. Translated by Mustafa S. Kaçalin. T. C. Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Kütüphaneler ve Yayımlar Genel Mudürlüğü. p. 3. ISBN 978-975-17-3359-7.
  5. ^ Uzbek language at Ethnologue (28th ed., 2025) Closed access icon
  6. ^ "Uzbek, Southern". Ethnologue. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  7. ^ "Uzbek, Northern". Ethnologue. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
  8. ^ Dalby, Andrew (1998). Dictionary of languages : the definitive reference to more than 400 languages. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 1-4081-0214-5. OCLC 320322204.
  9. ^ Turaeva, Rano (19 November 2015). Migration and Identity in Central Asia. Routledge. ISBN 9781317430070.
  10. ^ Uzbekistan Aims For Full Transition To Latin-Based Alphabet By 2023, 12 February 2021 12:54 GMT, RadioFreeEurope
  11. ^ "В Узбекистане в 2023 году узбекский алфавит в делопроизводстве переведут с кириллицы на латинскую графику".
  12. ^ "Uzbekistan's Drawn-out Journey From Cyrillic to Latin Script". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
  13. ^ "Uzbekistan: Keeping the Karakalpak Language Alive". 17 May 2019. Archived from the original on 17 May 2019. Retrieved 14 April 2022.


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