Uyghur language
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| Uyghur language | |
|---|---|
| Name | Uyghur |
| Nativename | ئۇيغۇر تىلى, Уйғур тили |
| States | China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey |
| Region | Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region |
| Ethnicity | Uyghurs |
| Speakers | ~10 million |
| Familycolor | Altaic |
| Fam1 | Turkic |
| Fam2 | Common Turkic |
| Fam3 | Karluk |
| Script | Perso-Arabic script (official, Uyghur Arabic alphabet), Cyrillic script, Latin script |
| Nation | Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (China) |
| Iso1 | ug |
| Iso2 | uig |
| Iso3 | uig |
| Glotto | uigh1240 |
| Glottorefname | Uighur |
Uyghur language is a Turkic language spoken primarily by the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. It is an official language of the region alongside Standard Chinese and belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic family, sharing close ties with Uzbek. The language has a rich literary history and is written primarily in a modified Perso-Arabic script known as the Uyghur Arabic alphabet.
Classification and history
The language is classified within the Common Turkic group, specifically the southeastern or Karluk branch, making it a close relative of Uzbek and the extinct Chagatai language. Its historical development is marked by several distinct stages, beginning with Old Turkic, as evidenced by inscriptions like the Orkhon inscriptions, and evolving through Old Uyghur, which was used in the Buddhist and Manichaean texts of the Kingdom of Qocho and the Uyghur Khaganate. The subsequent Chagatai language, which served as a literary lingua franca in Central Asia under the Timurid Empire, forms a direct ancestor, heavily influencing modern vocabulary. Throughout its history, it has absorbed significant lexical influences from Persian, Arabic, and, more recently, Russian and Standard Chinese.
Geographic distribution
The vast majority of speakers reside in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, particularly in the southern Tarim Basin and areas like Kashgar, Hotan, and Aksu Prefecture. Significant diaspora communities exist in Central Asian states such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, primarily descendants of those who fled during the Xinjiang conflict in the mid-20th century. Smaller communities are also found in Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and among Uyghur exiles in Europe and North America, notably in Munich, Washington, D.C., and Toronto.
Phonology
The phonological system features vowel harmony, a characteristic of Turkic languages, distinguishing between front and back vowels. It has eight primary vowel phonemes and a typical Turkic consonant inventory, including voiced and voiceless stops, fricatives, and affricates. Notable consonantal features include the presence of the voiced velar fricative and the occurrence of final devoicing. Stress generally falls on the final syllable of a word, though it can shift in loanwords from Persian or Arabic, and the language employs various phonetic processes such as assimilation and elision.
Grammar
The grammar is agglutinative, forming words and expressing grammatical relationships through the systematic addition of suffixes to a root. It follows a subject-object-verb word order and lacks grammatical gender. Nouns are inflected for number, possession, and case, with six primary cases including nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, and ablative. Verb conjugation is complex, marking tense, aspect, mood, voice, person, and number, and features a rich system of participles and gerunds used to form subordinate clauses. Evidentiality, indicating the source of information, is a notable feature of the verbal system.
Writing systems
Historically, it has been written in several scripts, including the Old Uyghur alphabet (derived from Sogdian), the Syriac alphabet used by Nestorian Christians, and a modified Perso-Arabic script adopted with the spread of Islam. The modern official script is a Perso-Arabic script variant known as the Uyghur Arabic alphabet, which includes specific letters for vowel sounds. In the 20th century, a Latin script-based alphabet was introduced in the 1960s, followed by a brief shift to a Cyrillic script in the Soviet Union-influenced regions. Today, the Perso-Arabic script is dominant in Xinjiang, while diaspora communities may use Latin or Cyrillic.
Status and use
It holds official status in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region alongside Standard Chinese, and is used in domains such as primary education, local media, and certain government publications. However, policies promoting bilingual education and the increasing dominance of Standard Chinese in higher education, government, and commerce have raised concerns about language shift. The language is used in publications by outlets like Radio Free Asia and the World Uyghur Congress, and is a subject of academic study at institutions such as Xinjiang University and the University of Washington. Its vitality remains a central issue for Uyghur cultural identity amidst broader geopolitical tensions involving the Chinese government, the United Nations, and various human rights organizations.