Turkic · ISO 639-3 uzb · uz
Uzbek Language o‘zbek
Uzbek is a Turkic language spoken by about 27 million people in 6 countries. It is an official language of Uzbekistan. It is written in the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.
Where Uzbek is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Uzbek
Language family
- Turkic
- Common Turkic
- Kipchak-Turkestan
- Uzbek
Writing system
Latin and Cyrillic scripts
Related languages
About the Uzbek language
Uzbek (o‘zbek) is spoken by about 27 million people. It belongs to the Turkic language family and, more precisely, to the Kipchak-Turkestan group within the Kipchak-Turkestan branch.
Where is Uzbek spoken?
Uzbek is used in 6 countries. The largest communities live in Uzbekistan (31 million), Afghanistan (1.9 million), Turkmenistan (516,973), Russia (239,395) and China (5,664). More than half of the population speaks it in Uzbekistan — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Uzbek: Uzbekistan 85% (31 million), Afghanistan 4.7% (1.9 million), Turkmenistan 9% (516,973), Russia 0.2% (239,395), China <0.1% (5,664) and Türkiye <0.1% (2,018).
Uzbek is an official language in 1 country: Uzbekistan. It also has regional official status in Afghanistan.
Writing system and status
Uzbek is written in the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Northern Uzbek, Kazakh, Uighur, Tatar, Kirghiz, Southern Uzbek and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 uz, ISO 639-3 uzb.
Frequently asked questions about Uzbek
How many people speak Uzbek?
Where is Uzbek spoken?
In which countries is Uzbek an official language?
What language family does Uzbek belong to?
What is Uzbek called in Uzbek?
Is Uzbek an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.