Uzbek language - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Uzbek
Oʻzbekcha, Oʻzbek tili, Ўзбекча, Ўзбек тили, اوزبیکچه, اوزبیک تیلی
Native toUzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, China
EthnicityUzbeks
Native speakers
32 million (2017)[1]
Early forms
Latin, Cyrillic and Arabic (used in Afghanistan and China), Uzbek Braille
(Uzbek alphabets)
Official status
Official language in
 Uzbekistan
 Afghanistan (3rd official language)
Recognised minority
language in
Regulated byTashkent State University of Uzbek language and literature
Language codes
ISO 639-1uz
ISO 639-2uzb
ISO 639-3uzb – inclusive code
Individual codes:
uzn – Northern
uzs – Southern
Glottologuzbe1247
Linguasphere44-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 (O'zbek tili or O'zbekcha in Latin script, Ўзбек тили or Ўзбекча in Cyrillic script, أۇزبېك تیلی in Arabic script) is a Turkic language. It is the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 40 million native speakers. It is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Uzbek belongs to the southeastern Turkic or Uyghur family of Turkic languages.

References[change | change source]

  1. Uzbek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Northern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
    Southern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  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.