Talk:Shymkent

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[edit] Requiring a Citation

In my opinion, it is foolish to require a citation to change an article on something as completely unknown as Shymkent.

My specific complaint involves the history of the name of the city.

The city, as marked on maps appearing in Soviet textbooks [which I am not about to cite] throughout the Soviet Union is Chimkent. This is not the Russian name, or even a word in the Russian language. It is Uzbek, because the city lies in a historically Uzbek part of Kazakhstan. The demographics have changed over the last 80 years with the coming of the Russians and the forced settlement of nomadic Kazakhs. The Uzbeks were the settled inhabitants of the cities of Central Asia, along with their Tajik neighbors.

I think that, since no citation is required to state that the name has always been Shymkent, it is hypocritical to assert that a citation is required to point out the "controversial" and 'true' fact that the city was known as Chimkent up to the Russian renaming of Chernayev, and then renamed to Chimkent in the 1920s.

Otherwise, why the article make a point of "renaming" the city after Kazakhstan's Independence? You can't 'rename' a city that has always born that name. They renamed it in the Kazakh language to reflect the countries independence. Any scholar of Central Asia will agree that there is no love lost between Kazakhs and Uzbeks, and the Kazakhs are generally ashamed of the southern city of Shymkent as being dirty, unlawful, and 'Uzbek.' In the official literature they claim Shymkent with a different history than that written in Soviet or pre-Soviet times, one that emphasizes the minor involvement of the Kazakh tribes after resettlement.

This is 'not' original research, any more than the article as it stands now. Is Wikipedia just a matter of 'first come, first serve?'

Michael Hancock (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 21:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Requiring a Citation

Actually I lived in South Kazakhstan for several years, too.

1. Soviet Union period and Maps. Since Russian language doesn't have "enough" letters in the alphabet, like kazakh "Ә","І", "Ң", "Ғ", "Ү", "Ұ", and "Қ", and has specific grammar rules (like "ЖЫ, ШЫ пиши с буквой И!"),they had to spell the personal Kazakh names in the way as they do it right know. For instance: (Kazakh vs. Russian spelling) Жамбыл - Джамбул, Мәншүк - Маншук, Шу - Чу, Қапшағай - Капчагай, Алматы - Алма-ата or even Қазақстан (Kazakstan) and Казахстан (Kazakhstan). Russian people can't pronounce and spell these words correctly (the same way as Kazakhs), so they made others to do as they do. Another example, Шымбүлақ - Чимбулак, it starts from the same "Чим", however, it wasn't a part of Uzbek territory.

Almost all maps were created and printed in former Russian SFSR for whole Soviet Union (it can be seen on the right bottom of the map). Of course, the most popular language, at that time, was Russian, so people used to pronounce names as it was shown on these maps.

2. Generally, there wasn't any "Kazakhstan" or "Uzbekistan" at that time. Some period in history, Tashkent was a part of "Kazakh" territory.

3. What I found is "Слово Шымкент состоит из двух корней: тюркского "шым" - "дерн" и иранского "кент" - "поселение, город" ГОРОД НА ШЕЛКОВОМ ПУТИ (as I understand you know Russian). It doesn't say about 'Uzbek' or 'Kazakh' origin. It says 'Turkic'.

3. Renaming, in this case, means return its correct or historical name. For example, Алма-ата (Alma-ata) - > Алматы (Almaty), Кустанай (Kustanai) - > Костанай (Kostanai), Kзыл-орда (Kzyl-orda) -> Қызылорда (Kyzylorda), Джамбул (Dzhambyl) -> Тараз (Taraz), and so on.

4. I agree that Wikipedia is just 'first come, first serve'. However, it dosn't mean editing percentage so it won't sum up to 100% :) Encyclopedia has to be encyclopedia with some reliable information.

Best, BernardTom (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 08:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Re: Citation

I especially enjoyed your point regarding Шымбүлақ - Чимбулак. And I agree that the differences between Kazakh and Uzbek are largely artificial and recent, especially in the "border" areas between Shymkent and Uzbekistan, similar to the "borders" drawn between Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan/Kyrgyzstan. Your reasoning is, over all, excellent.

The root of my complaint is that, while Uzbek and Kazakh were both called "Turki" at some point, that doesn't mean the same language was being spoken from Mazar-i-Sharif to the northern steppes of Kazakhstan. I know you wouldn't suggest that, either. There are differences, and the fact that I would like to see on Wikipedia [though I'm not sure where to find it in a book, like most facts regarding Kazakh/Uzbek relations] is that the Tashkent/Chimkent/Jetisay/Forish regions were another language dialect, a mixing of Uzbek and Kazakh. Kazakhs and Uzbeks outside these districts seem to agree that Forish and Chimkent Uzbek are very "Kazakhified" and that Jetisay, Shymkent, and Toshkent Kazakh are very "Uzbekified." In that same way, I think there has probably long been large percentages of people who knew Shymkent as Chimkent, and not just because of the Russian respelling. Chimkent, unlike Dzhambul, actually does mean something in Uzbek. Kazakhs themselves admit to being nomadic people not prone to settling in cities, while the Uzbeks certainly would like to claim chunks of southern Kazakhstan as definitely within their territory [consider the hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks that have always lived there - they are not recent immigrants, though their numbers are certainly swelling as Kazakhstan's star continues to rise]. The population density and large population in general in South Kazakhstan Oblast is due in part to the Uzbeks, their birth rate and tendency to return and raise families in their home towns. Kazakhs are leaving in droves to Astana and other ports of call, while the Uzbeks claim to have always been called back to their "'mahallah'" neighborhoods.

I'm very glad we had this discussion. I would like to attempt a slight rewording in the article, but I'll post it here first for your approval. I would like to print something, in effect, that mentions the excellent points you make, while also pointing out the Uzbek influence in South Kazakhstan. You know it's silly to call Tashkent a "Kazakh" city, like calling Samarkand a "Tajik" city. They are historically cities of mixing between classes and races, languages and tribes. Consider Sayram or Karabulak, a city with three times the population of Sayram, also near Shymkent, where 96% of the population is Uzbek. Consider the number of Uzbeks living in Turkistan, or in the poorer quarters of Shymkent. And Remember, please, that even the Official Census of Kazakhstan points out that only the South Kazakhstan Oblast has more Uzbeks than Russians, and that Uzbeks [like Kazakhs] drastically under-report their family sizes to the census, refusing to count infants and pregnancies, for fear of calling down God's wrath or the 'evil eye'. I noticed that myself while I was there - interesting amount of humility, except it plays with the numbers.

Thanks for your analysis, though! Hope we can reach a compromise. I understand that Shymkent is a Kazakh-majority city - but I also think there's a possibility that that might not always be the case, and I believe that prior to the "nationalities" being proclaimed, most city-dwellers would have been speaking a language closer to Uzbek than Kazakh. However, that's neither here nor there...

Thanks again! Michael Hancock