Number of Speakers
In the CIS countries, there are about 34.7 million people who speak dialects of Uzbek. In Uzbekistan, 25 million people speak Uzbek as their native language. There are about 1.2 million speakers in Tajikistan, 3 million in Afghanistan, 500,000 in Pakistan, 850,096 in Kyrgyzstan, 500,017 in Kazakhstan, and 450,333 in Turkmenistan. According to the 2004 census, about 14,5000 people in Xinjiang in China speak Uzbek. Because the Uzbeks in Xinjiang are so close to the Uyghur people, who form an ethnic plurality there, Uzbeks are assimilated by Uyghurs.
Read more about this topic: Uzbek Language
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