Osh is unique in many ways, but perhaps one of its most unique aspects is the sheer number of languages that are spoken in its streets. Perhaps only in New York City, New Delhi, Kabul, or Paris are so many languages spoken by so many, but Osh is unique in that so many residents understand every single one of these languages.

Part of this seems to come from Osh’s 3000 year history at the crossroads of trade and empire. Osh’s current demographics reflect some of this history; 48% of its population is Uzbek, 43% Kyrgyz, 3% Russian, 1% Tatar, 1% Tajik, and 4% comes from other linguistic groups, such as Dungans, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, Uighurs, etc.

There are historically two major linguistic groups interacting in Central Asia: the Persian langauges (Farsi, Dari, and Tajik), and the Turkic languages (Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Uzbek, Uiyghur, Turkmen, Azeri, Turkish, Tatar, Karakalpak, and a whole bunch of others). Russian, as a more recent addition, also supplies considerable vocabulary into these languages as well, and also has borrowed many words from Turkic languages (the Russian word for money, dengi, comes from the Turkic word tenge, which is also now the name of the Kazakh currency).

Now, historically, Central Asia had a lot of people living together from these various groups; the whole “stan” divisions are a product of the Soviet era. Because of this mixing, a considerable amount of vocabulary and grammar is shared between these languages. For instance, many people consider Farsi, Dari, and Tajik a single language because they are so closely related and are almost fully mutually intelligible. Along the same lines, many people here in Osh point out that they understand Uzbek, Kazakh, and Uighur in addition to their native Kyrgyz. If this sounds a little familiar, its the same as how Spaniards, Italians, and the French often can understand each other despite speaking distinct languages.

This mutual intelligibilty is what makes this city (and, really, all of Central Asia) so intriguing and engaging to me. People most noticeably code switch between their language and Russian or vice versa, but you also hear people code-switching between two of the related languages. In northern Tajikistan, it’s extremely common to hear the Uzbek “mi” question ending tacked onto the end of yes/no question sentences. In Osh, you hear Kyrgyz people do the same thing. In the Alay region south of Osh, many Kyrgyz people drop the “J” sound at the beginning of words, as is done in Uzbek. One of my counterparts will often use Uzbek words and not even realize he used an Uzbek instead of a Kyrgyz word. Because so much Uzbek vocabulary is actually shared with Farsi, I’ll also understand him, without even registering that he didn’t use a Kyrgyz word.  Here’s a link to a diagram of a bunch of shared vocabulary across Turkic languages.

All of these languages mixing weaves an ever-unique set of localized language with vocabulary sometimes varying from town to town and person to person. Every conversation teaches you something new.

This linguistic diversity sometimes gets taken to the very extreme; one time, I was discussing a lesson plan with a Tajik trainer, and in the course of a single sentence, you could hear Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajik, and Russian. In another meeting, a trainer would speak to the group in English, a translator would translate to Russian, then people would respond in Uzbek-tinged Kyrgyz. In that same training, I dropped a few Tajik words when I didn’t know the correct Kyrgyz or Russian term, and nobody blinked. My head was very quickly spinning. And I haven’t even brought up the fact that Kyrgyzstan also has minority populations that speak German, Turkish, Dungan (a language related to Chinese), Uighur (Turkic), and Tatar (Turkic) at home.

In the US, I’d be lucky to hear more than one language a day. Here, I literally have to use words from five different languages in a single sentence. If that’s not teaching me how to communicate creatively and effectively, then I don’t think anything ever will.