English – without subtitles – has become the preferred language to boost opportunity in the impoverished former Soviet state of Tajikistan.
Viewers can now watch Hollywood films in the original language, which is challenging the once-pervasive Russian as the most popular foreign tongue.
In January, Tajiks were treated to American hits in prime-time slots including Scoop, Woody Allen's romantic comedy starring Scarlett Johansson, and A Few Good Men starring Cruise – all in English.
Isolated Tajikistan is the poorest ex-Soviet Central Asian state. Its economy depends heavily on remittances from Russia, where many young men work as labourers and street cleaners.
Only a tiny fraction of the population understands English well but many are keen to learn, hoping to study abroad or work for an international company.
Dubbing films into the local language is the norm in much of the former Soviet Union.
“Does TV help me learn English? Of course. And it’s absolutely free. But you can only understand when you have got a grip on the spoken language,” says Anvar, a third-year economics student who is learning English at a private language centre.
But he believes it will even help improve vocabulary for those who only “catch ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ and nothing more” at the moment.
A reporter for Tajik state television says the channel picks films with “plenty of dialogue; plenty of positive, memorable moments of colloquial language”.
What matters is not the popularity of Hollywood stars but “that the viewer is able to memorise words and expressions and, most importantly, hear the pronunciation,” says the reporter.
Channel One state television shows two or three films in English a week in the evening. The films are shown without ad breaks, unlike films shown in Tajik or Russian.
“Showing films in English is to help those viewers who are starting to learn English or already know it but do not have much exposure to the language. From films, they get a chance to hear native speakers,” a spokesman for Tajik state television says.
The state television also shows news broadcasts in English, read by Tajiks.
In 2010, Zarrina Rakhmonova, the 16-year-old daughter of President Emomali Rakhmon, read the news in English as a summer job while on holiday from her British school.
Language courses teaching English have proliferated. Many Tajiks are eager to go abroad to study, particularly to the United States, or hope to work at an international organisation where English is a job requirement.
“In Tajikistan, the number of those who speak or are studying English is several times higher than in the Soviet Union,” says Parvon Dzhamshedov, the head of Tajikistan’s association of English teachers.
The numbers are still tiny, however. “Out of more than 8 million people, only 3 or 4 per cent know English,” Dzhamshedov says, adding that they are mainly school pupils and students, particularly in the capital.
During the Soviet era, Russian was widely taught in Tajikistan. Dozens of newspapers and magazines came out in Russian and many schools taught all their lessons in Russian.
In the late 1990s, however, Rakhmon issued a decree that citizens should study both Russian and English.
But most Russian speakers left the country after the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union, followed by a devastating civil war in Tajikistan, and today there is a lack of Russian teachers to work in schools.
In 1989, the country had 8 per cent Russian (ethnic) population, while in 2010 it was 0.46 per cent. Russian films are still shown daily on all Tajik television channels, and Tajiks can watch news broadcasts in Russian.
But English is increasingly seen as the key to economic opportunity and “Russian is starting to lose ground to English”, says Latofat Saidova, a linguist.
Already a few international conferences held in the capital, Dushanbe, have used English, rather than Russian, as the second language.
“Better-off young people who are studying English try to leave and go to western countries, to the US,” Saidova says. “You want to go and study abroad? Then learn English.”
