I haven't blogged here today, but not because I haven't been blogging. I've been embroiled in an argument with Angus Dwyer about judicial review at Originalisms, the Yale Fed Society blog.

Our posts are here, here, here, here, and here.

__stani: Who am I to say that the respected Martha Brill Olcott, Nathan Hamm, and noted journalists at RFE/RL are using flawed style and language to refer to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan? A seriously stubborn and opinionated woman is who I am.

Repeat after me, and after the CIA World Factbook and the U.S. State Department: it's Kazakhstani, Kyrgyzstani, Tajikistani, and Uzbekistani if you are talking about the government, the private sector institutions, and anything else that is not based in culture (it is, however, simply Turkmen, but don't let that through you). "Kazakh," "Kyrgyz," "Tajik," and "Uzbek" refer to the titular ethnic groups that now form the majority in their respective nations, the Turkic that members of these ethnic groups traditionally speak, and other aspects of these ethnic groups' culture. But the governments and institutions of these nations is also the government of the ethnic Germans, Dungans, Germans, Karakalpaks, Kurds, Koreans, Russians, Tartars, Turks, Ukrainians, Uyghurs, and others who are Kazakhstani, Kyrgyzstani, Tajikistani, and Uzbekistani citizens.

To say otherwise in English is to speak inaccurately. I had a (on my end, somewhat emotional) conversation about this last Friday while speaking with a native Russian speaker who was trying to explain to me that the words Kazakhstani, Kyrgyzstani, Tajikistani, and Uzbekistani simply do not translate into Russian, and Russian uses Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek as adjectives referring to those countries. Yes, I said, but can't you simply coin others? --- I'm an Amerikanka; a woman from Kazakhstan would be a Kazakhstanka. Apparently it's not so easy in Russian. But that has no bearings whatsoever on proper English word choice.

Andijan: I realize that at this point, I'm beating the grave where a dead horse once lay, but please, in the name of whatever bone in your body causes you to be slightly interested in learning anything at all, if the word "Andijan, Uzbekistan" does not connote the slightest sense of government forces firing on civilian protesters (some armed, but many unarmed), then please, take the time to read this Guardian summary. It troubles me that, despite attention to the story in major U.S. and U.K. papers, I meet a great deal of people for whom "Andijan" draws a blank stare. The Economist calls Andijan "the worst massacre of demonstrators since Tiananmen Square"; unlike that sad event, there's no famous photograph or CNN/BBC live coverage, and it occurred in China, a country that even most Americans can locate on a map. In Uzbekistan, the was West-based reporting consisted of a lone correspondent for the London’s Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Galima Bukharbaeva, who now carries a notebook and press card marked by bullet holes.