other minority groups reflect the movements during the soviet period and include uighurs ukrainians and germans iac kazakh is considered the language of the republic and according to the census is understood by two thirds of the population russian is considered the language of interethnic communication as it is understood by virtually everyone of the population english is understood by of the population the positive discrimination of the kazakh language to strengthen national identity and to affirm it as the primary language of communication has translated into a growing number of schools using kazakh as the language of instruction in the language of instruction in most of the schools was kazakh schools followed by russian uzbek uighur and tajik iac