The modified Arabic-derived writing system is the most common and the only standard in China,[6] although other writing systems are used for auxiliary and historical purposes. Unlike most Arabic-derived scripts, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet has mandatory marking of all vowels due to modifications to the original Perso-Arabic script made in the 20th century. Two Latin alphabets and one Cyrillic alphabet are also used, though to a much lesser extent. The two Latin-based and the Arabic-based Uyghur alphabets have 32 characters each; the Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet also uses twoiotated vowel letters (Ю and Я).
Robert Barkley Shaw wrote, "In the Turkish of Káshghar and Yarkand (which some European linguists have called Uïghur, a name unknown to the inhabitants of those towns, who know their tongue simply as Túrki), ... This would seem in many case to be a misnomer as applied to the modern language of Kashghar".[13]Sven Hedin wrote, "In these cases it would be particularly inappropriate to normalize to the East Turkish literary language, because by so doing one would obliterate traces of national elements which have no immediate connection with the Kaschgar Turks, but on the contrary are possibly derived from the ancient Uigurs".[14]
Probably around 1077,[15] a scholar of the Turkic languages,Mahmud al-Kashgari fromKashgar in what is nowXinjiang, published a Turkic language dictionary and description of the geographic distribution of many Turkic languages,Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. The book, described by scholars as an "extraordinary work,"[16][17] documents the rich literary tradition of Turkic languages; it contains folk tales (including descriptions of the functions ofshamans)[17] and didactic poetry (propounding "moral standards and good behaviour"), besides poems and poetry cycles on topics such as hunting and love[18] and numerous other language materials.[19] Other Kara-Khanid writers wrote works in the Turki Karluk Khaqani language.Yusuf Khass Hajib wrote theKutadgu Bilig. Ahmad bin Mahmud Yukenaki (Ahmed bin Mahmud Yükneki) (Ahmet ibn Mahmut Yükneki) (Yazan Edib Ahmed b. Mahmud Yükneki) (w:tr:Edip Ahmet Yükneki) wrote theHibat al-ḥaqāyiq (هبة الحقايق) (Hibet-ül hakayik) (Hibet ül-hakayık) (Hibbetü'l-Hakaik) (Atebetüʼl-hakayik) (w:tr:Atabetü'l-Hakayık).
Modern Uyghur religious literature includestazkirat orhagiographies of Muslim religious figures andsaints inAltishahr. Written sometime in the period between 1700 and 1849, the Chagatai-languageTazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams provides an account of theKarluk persecution of the Old Uyghur Buddhist kingdoms, containing a story about how four imams from "Mada'in" (a city, possibly in Iraq) travelled to help the conquest ofKhotan,Yarkand, andKashgar by Yusuf Qadir Khan, theKara-Khanid khaghan.[21] The shrines of saints are revered inAltishahr as one of Islam's essential components and the tazkirah literature reinforced the sacredness of the shrines. The tazkirat state that anyone who does not believe in the stories of the saints will be punished in the hellfire. It is written, "And those who doubt Their Holinesses the Imams will leave this world without faith and on Judgement Day their faces will be black" in theTazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams.[22] Shaw translated extracts from theTazkirat al-Bughra on the war against theinfidel Khotan.[23] The Turki-languageTadhkirah i Khwajagan was written by M. Sadiq Kashghari.[24] Historical works like theTārīkh-i amniyya andTārīkh-i ḥamīdi were written byMusa Sayrami.
The historical term "Uyghur" was appropriated for the language that had been known as "Eastern Turki" by government officials in theSoviet Union in 1922 and in Xinjiang in 1934.[25][26]Sergey Malov was behind the idea of renaming Turki to Uyghurs.[27] The use of the term Uyghur has led to anachronisms when describing the history of the people.[28] In one of his books the term Uyghur was deliberately not used byJames A. Millward.[29] The name Khāqāniyya was given to theQarluks who inhabited Kāshghar and Bālāsāghūn, the inhabitants were not Uighur, but their language has been retroactively labelled as Uighur by scholars.[12] The Qarakhanids called their own language the "Turk" or "Kashgar" language and did not use Uighur to describe their own language, Uighur was used to describe the language of non-Muslims but Chinese scholars have anachronistically called a Qarakhanid work written by Kashgari as "Uighur".[30] The name "Altishahri-Jungharian Uyghur" was used by the Soviet educated Uyghur Qadir Haji in 1927.[31]
It is widely accepted that Uyghur has three main dialects, all based on their geographical distribution. Each of these main dialects have a number of sub-dialects which all aremutually intelligible to some extent.
Central: Spoken in an area stretching fromKumul southward toYarkand
Southern: Spoken in an area stretching fromGuma eastward toQarkilik
Eastern: Spoken in an area stretching fromQarkilik northward toQongköl [zh]. TheLop dialect (also known as Lopluk) that falls under the Eastern dialect of the Uighur language is classified as a critically endangered language.[32] It is spoken by less than 0.5% of the overall Uighur speakers population but has tremendous values in comparative research.
The Central dialects are spoken by 90% of the Uyghur-speaking population, while the two other branches of dialects only are spoken by a relatively small minority.[33]
Vowel reduction is common in the northern parts of where Uyghur is spoken, but not in the south.[34]
TheUyghurs are one of the 56recognized ethnic groups in China and Uyghur is an official language ofXinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, along withStandard Chinese. As a result, Uyghur can be heard in most social domains in Xinjiang and also in schools, government and courts.[35] Of the other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, those populous enough to have their ownautonomous prefectures, such as theKazakhs and theKyrgyz, have access to schools and government services in their native language. Smaller minorities, however, do not have a choice and must attend Uyghur-medium schools.[37] These include theXibe,Tajiks,Daurs andRussians.[38]
Early in the PRC era, Uyghurs had a choice of two separate secular school systems, one conducted in their own language and one offering instructions only in Chinese.[39] Many Uyghurs linked the preservation of their cultural and religious identity with the language of instruction in schools and therefore preferred Uyghur language schools.[40][41] During the 1980s theChinese government pursued a new policy of cultural liberalization in Xinjiang and adopted a flexible language policy nationally. Despite a positive response among party officials and minority groups, the policy was viewed as unsuccessful and from the mid-1980s its official pluralistic language policy became increasingly subordinate to a covert policy of minority assimilation motivated by geopolitical concerns. Consequently, and in Xinjiang particularly, multilingualism and cultural pluralism were restricted to favor a "monolingual, monocultural model". In 2000, a special senior-secondaryboarding school program for Uyghurs, the Xinjiang Class, with course work conducted entirely in Chinese was established.[42] In 2002,Xinjiang University, originally a bilingual institution, had ceased offering courses in the Uyghur language. From 2004 onward, the government policy has been that classes should be conducted in Chinese as much as possible and in some selected regions, instruction in Chinese began in the first grade.[43] By the 2010s, the Chinese government have implemented bi-lingual education in most regions of Xinjiang.[44] The primary medium of instruction is Standard Chinese, with only a few hours a week devoted to Uyghur literature. The bi-lingual education system teaches Xinjiang's students all STEM classes using only Mandarin Chinese, or a combination of Uighur and Chinese. However, research have shown that due to differences in the order of words and grammar between the Uighur and the Chinese language, many students face obstacles in learning courses such as Mathematics under the bi-lingual education system.[45] Despite this policy, few Han children are taught to speak Uyghur. By the late 2010s, more Uyghur students have been attending residential schools far from their home communities where they are not able to speak Uyghur, thus making the language vulnerable of extinction.[46] In 2020, A monolingual Chinese language education is known to have been introduced in an influential high school in Kashgar that formerly provided bilingual education.
Uyghur has been described as an endangered language by the language instituteINALCO in 2021.[47]
Outside of China, Radio Free Europe broadcast a 15-minute daily Uyghur-language program from the late 1960s until 1979, when it was shut down by order of then-national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in an effort to enlist China's support against the Soviet Union.Radio Free Asia began its Uyghur-language service in 1998, and was shut down by the Trump administration in 2025 due to spending cuts.[50]
Poet and activistMuyesser Abdul'ehed teaches the language to diaspora children online as well as publishing a magazine written by children for children in Uyghur.[51]
Uyghur has a seven-vowel inventory, with[i] and[e] not distinguished.[52] The vowel letters of the Uyghur language are, in their alphabetical order (in the Latin script),⟨a⟩,⟨e⟩,⟨ë⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨ö⟩,⟨u⟩,⟨ü⟩. There are no diphthongs.Hiatus occurs in some loanwords. Uyghur vowels are distinguished on the bases of height, backness and roundness. It has been argued, within a lexical phonology framework, that/e/ has a back counterpart/ɤ/, and modern Uyghur lacks a clear differentiation between/i/ and/ɯ/.
Uyghur vowels are by defaultshort, but long vowels also exist because of historical vowelassimilation (above) and through loanwords. Underlyingly long vowels would resist vowel reduction anddevoicing, introduce non-final stress, and be analyzed as |Vj| or |Vr| before a few suffixes. However, the conditions in which they are actually pronounced as distinct from their short counterparts have not been fully researched.[53]
The high vowels undergo some tensing when they occur adjacent toalveolars (s,z,r,l),palatals (j),dentals (t̪,d̪,n̪), and post-alveolaraffricates (t͡ʃ,d͡ʒ), e.g.chiraq[t͡ʃʰˈiraq] 'lamp',jenubiy[d͡ʒɛnʊˈbiː] 'southern',yüz[jyz] 'face; hundred',suda[suːˈda] 'in/at (the) water'.
Both[i] and[ɯ] undergo apicalisation after alveodental continuants in unstressed syllables, e.g.siler[sɪ̯læː(r)] 'you (plural)',ziyan[zɪ̯ˈjɑːn] 'harm'. They are medialised after/χ/ or before/l/, e.g.til[tʰɨl] 'tongue',xizmet[χɨzˈmɛt] 'work; job; service'. After velars, uvulars and/f/ they are realised as[e], e.g.giram[ɡeˈrʌm] 'gram',xelqi[χɛlˈqʰe] 'his [etc.] nation',Finn[fen] 'Finn'. Between two syllables that contain a rounded back vowel each, they are realised as back, e.g.qolimu[qʰɔˈlɯmʊ] 'also his [etc.] arm'.
Any vowel undergoes laxing and backing when it occurs inuvular (/q/,/ʁ/,/χ/) andlaryngeal (glottal) (/ɦ/,/ʔ/) environments, e.g.qiz[qʰɤz] 'girl',qëtiq[qʰɤˈtɯq] 'yogurt',qeghez[qʰæˈʁæz] 'paper',qum[qʰʊm] 'sand',qolay[qʰɔˈlʌɪ] 'convenient',qan[qʰɑn] 'blood',ëghiz[ʔeˈʁez] 'mouth',hisab[ɦɤˈsʌp] 'number',hës[ɦɤs] 'hunch',hemrah[ɦæmˈrʌh] 'partner',höl[ɦœɫ] 'wet',hujum[ɦuˈd͡ʒʊm] 'assault',halqa[ɦɑlˈqʰɑ] 'ring'.
Lowering tends to apply to the non-high vowels when a syllable-final liquid assimilates to them, e.g.kör[cʰøː] 'look!',boldi[bɔlˈdɪ] 'he [etc.] became',ders[dæːs] 'lesson',tar[tʰɑː(r)] 'narrow'.
Official Uyghur orthographies do not mark vowel length, and also do not distinguish between/ɪ/ (e.g.,بىلىم/bɪlɪm/ 'knowledge') and back/ɯ/ (e.g.,تىلىم/tɯlɯm/ 'my language'); these two sounds are incomplementary distribution, but phonological analyses claim that they play a role in vowel harmony and are separate phonemes.[54]/e/ only occurs in words of non-Turkic origin and as the result of vowel raising.[55]
Uyghur has systematicvowel reduction (or vowel raising) as well as vowel harmony. Words usually agree in vowel backness, but compounds, loans, and some other exceptions often break vowel harmony. Suffixes surface with the rightmost [back] value in the stem, and/e,ɪ/ are transparent (as they do not contrast for backness). Uyghur also has rounding harmony.[56]
Uyghur voiceless stops are aspirated word-initially and intervocalically.[57] The pairs/p,b/,/t,d/,/k,ɡ/, and/q,ʁ/ alternate, with the voiced member devoicing in syllable-final position, except in word-initial syllables. This devoicing process is usually reflected in the official orthography, but an exception has been recently made for certain Perso-Arabic loans.[58] Voiceless phonemes do not become voiced in standard Uyghur.[59]
Suffixes display a slightly different type of consonant alternation. The phonemes/ɡ/ and/ʁ/ anywhere in a suffix alternate as governed byvowel harmony, where/ɡ/ occurs with front vowels and/ʁ/ with back ones. Devoicing of a suffix-initial consonant can occur only in the cases of/d/ →[t],/ɡ/ →[k], and/ʁ/ →[q], when the preceding consonant is voiceless. Lastly, the rule that /g/ must occur with front vowels and/ʁ/ with back vowels can be broken when either[k] or[q] in suffix-initial position becomes assimilated by the other due to the preceding consonant being such.[60]
Loan phonemes have influenced Uyghur to various degrees./d͡ʒ/ and/χ/ were borrowed from Arabic and have been nativized, while/ʒ/ from Persian less so./f/ only exists in very recent Russian and Chinese loans, since Perso-Arabic (and older Russian and Chinese)/f/ became Uyghur/p/. Perso-Arabic loans have also made the contrast between/k,ɡ/ and/q,ʁ/ phonemic, as they occur as allophones in native words, the former set near front vowels and the latter near back vowels. Some speakers of Uyghur distinguish/v/ from/w/ in Russian loans, but this is not represented in most orthographies. Other phonemes occur natively only in limited contexts, i.e./h/ only in few interjections,/d/,/ɡ/, and/ʁ/ rarely initially, and/z/ only morpheme-final. Therefore, the pairs*/t͡ʃ,d͡ʒ/,*/ʃ,ʒ/, and*/s,z/ do not alternate.[61][62]
The primarysyllable structure of Uyghur is CV(C)(C).[36] Uyghur syllable structure is usually CV or CVC, but CVCC can also occur in some words. When syllable-coda clusters occur, CC tends to become CVC in some speakers especially if the first consonant is not asonorant. In Uyghur, any consonant phoneme can occur as the syllableonset orcoda, except for/ʔ/ which only occurs in the onset and/ŋ/, which never occurs word-initially. In general, Uyghurphonology tends to simplifyphonemicconsonant clusters by means ofelision andepenthesis.[63]
A signboard in front of theBingtuan Military Museum of Xinjiang written in Uyghur (using Arabic script) andStandard ChineseA sign inGhulja, Xinjiang, written in Uyghur (using Arabic script) and Chinese (bothHanzi andPinyin)Internet café (on the left) and barbershop (on the right) inKhotan oasis city in theXinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Address written in Uyghur with theArabic script.
The Karluk language started to be written with the Perso-Arabic script (Kona Yëziq) in the 10th century upon the conversion of the Kara-Khanids to Islam. This Perso-Arabic script (Kona Yëziq) was reformed in the 20th century with modifications to represent all Modern Uyghur sounds including short vowels and eliminate Arabic letters representing sounds not found in Modern Uyghur. Unlike many other modernTurkic languages, Uyghur is primarily written using aPerso-Arabic-based alphabet, although aCyrillic alphabet and twoLatin alphabets also are in use to a much lesser extent. Unusually for an alphabet based on the Arabic script, full transcription of vowels is indicated. (Among the Arabic family of alphabets, only a few, such asKurdish, distinguish all vowels without the use of optionaldiacritics.)
The four alphabets in use today can be seen below.
The corelexicon of the Uyghur language is ofTurkic stock, but due to different kinds oflanguage contact throughout its history, it has adopted manyloanwords.Kazakh,Uzbek andChagatai are allTurkic languages which have had a strong influence on Uyghur. Many words ofArabic origin have come into the language throughPersian andTajik, which again have come through Uzbek and to a greater extent, Chagatai. Many words of Arabic origin have also entered the language directly throughIslamic literature after the introduction ofIslam around the 10th century.
Chinese in Xinjiang andRussian elsewhere had the greatest[vague] influence on Uyghur. Loanwords from these languages are all quite recent, although older borrowings exist as well, such as borrowings fromDungan, aMandarin language spoken by theDungan people ofCentral Asia. A number of loanwords ofGerman origin have also reached Uyghur through Russian.[66]
Code-switching withStandard Chinese is common in spoken Uyghur, but stigmatized in formal contexts.Xinjiang Television and other mass media, for example, will use the rare Russian loanwordaplisin (апельсин,apel'sin) for the word "orange", rather than the ubiquitous Mandarin loanwordjuze (橘子;júzi). In a sentence, this mixing might look like:[67]
Hemme adem zatidinla erkin, izzet-hörmet we hoquqta bapbarawer bolup tughulghan. Ular eqilghe we wijdan'gha ige hemde bir-birige qërindashliq munasiwitige xas roh bilen muamile qilishi kërek.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
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