DUSHANBE, October 4, 2011, Asia-Plus  -- Tajikistan will celebrate State Language Day tomorrow, October 5.

On this occasion, a number of events will take place in the Tajik capital tomorrow.  The main event with participation of representatives of Tajik intelligentsia will take place in Dushanbe’s Park named after Roudaki tomorrow evening, Shavkat Saidov, a spokesman for the Dushanbe mayor’s office, said.  

The State Language Day had been celebrated annually on July 22, the anniversary of the designation of Tajik as the state language in 1989, until 2010, when on July 21 President Rahmon amended the date to October 5.

A new law on official languages that went into effect in Tajikistan in October 2009 removed Russian as the “language for interethnic communication.”  The new law states that all official papers and education in the country should be conducted only in the Tajik language.  However, the law also says that all minority ethnic groups in the country have the right to choose in which language they want their children to be educated.