The Kazakh does not worry whether his prayers please God or not. He does what other people do: he gets up and falls face to the ground in supplication. He treats God as though He were a merchant who has come to collect a debt: “That’s all I have, take it if You will, but if You will not — don’t ask me to get livestock out of nowhere!” The Kazakh will not take trouble to learn and purify his faith: “Well, that’s all I know, I can’t get any wiser at my age. It’s enough that people cannot reproach me for not praying. And if my speech is uncouth, that doesn’t matter in the least.”

But is his tongue made differently from other people’s, I won­der?