Uyghur language
Turkic language of Xinjiang, formerly called Turki or Eastern Turki.
Uyghur, historically referred to as Turki or Eastern Turki, is a Turkic language belonging to the Karluk branch, with an estimated 8 to 13 million native speakers. It is spoken primarily by the Uyghur people, most of whom reside in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China, where it functions as a lingua franca across social and official domains, including print, television, and radio. Significant Uyghur-speaking communities also exist in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and other countries, and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang use Uyghur as a common language.
Linguistically, Uyghur shares the Karluk branch with languages such as Uzbek. It is agglutinative, lacks noun classes and grammatical gender, and follows a left-branching structure with subject–object–verb word order. Vowel harmony in Uyghur is described as being in atrophy, similar to the situation in Uzbek. Distinctive phonological processes include vowel reduction and umlauting, especially in northern dialects. Historically, Uyghur has been strongly influenced by Arabic and Persian, and more recently by Russian and Chinese.
The most common writing system in China is a modified Arabic-derived alphabet that, unlike most Arabic-derived scripts, mandates the marking of all vowels due to 20th-century modifications to the Perso-Arabic script. Two Latin alphabets and one Cyrillic alphabet are also used, though less extensively. The Arabic-based and both Latin-based alphabets each have 32 characters, while the Cyrillic alphabet includes two iotated vowel letters.
Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur; rather, it traces its lineage to the Karluk language of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, documented by Mahmud al-Kashgari in the 11th-century *Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk*. The true descendant of Old Uyghur is Western Yugur, which belongs to a different branch of the Turkic family—the Siberian Turkic languages. After the 13th century, Middle Turkic languages evolved into Chagatai, a literary language used across Central Asia until the early 20th century. Following Chagatai’s decline, standard Uyghur and Uzbek developed from its dialects, carrying abundant Chagatai influence, including numerous Persian loanwords. Modern Uyghur religious literature includes *tazkirat*—hagiographies of Muslim saints—such as the *Tazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams*, which recounts the Karluk persecution of Old U
- language_family
- Turkic, Karluk branch
- primary_region
- Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Western China
- writing_systems
- Modified Arabic-derived alphabet (standard in China); also Latin and Cyrillic alphabets
- notable_feature
- Mandatory marking of all vowels in Arabic script; vowel reduction and umlauting in northern dialects
- historical_ancestor
- Karluk language of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, not Old Uyghur
Lore & Background
Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur but from the Karluk language spoken by the Kara-Khanid Khanate, as described by Mahmud al-Kashgari in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. According to Gerard Clauson, Western Yugur is the true descendant of Old Uyghur. Frederik Coene notes that Modern Uyghur and Western Yugur belong to entirely different branches of the Turkic language family—Karluk and Siberian Turkic, respectively. Robert Barkley Shaw wrote that the inhabitants of Kashgar and Yarkand knew their tongue simply as Túrki, not Uïghur. The Middle Turkic languages, through Perso-Arabic influence after the 13th century, developed into the Chagatai language, a literary language used across Central Asia until the early 20th century. After Chaghatai fell into extinction, standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chagatai-speaking region. Uyghur today shows considerable Persian influence from Chagatai.
Reader's Guide
The Uyghur language is significant as the lingua franca of Xinjiang, used by millions of Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities in the region. It belongs to the Karluk branch of Turkic languages, closely related to Uzbek and the extinct Chagatay. Its three main dialects—Central, Southern, and Eastern—are mutually intelligible to some extent, with Central dialects spoken by 90% of speakers. The language displays agglutination, lacks noun classes or grammatical gender, and has subject–object–verb word order. Vowel harmony is described as 'in atrophy,' similar to Uzbek. Historically influenced by Arabic and Persian, and more recently by Russian and Chinese, Uyghur uses a modified Arabic alphabet with mandatory vowel marking, alongside Latin and Cyrillic alphabets for auxiliary purposes. The Lop dialect, part of the Eastern branch, is critically endangered but valuable for comparative research. The language's modern identity was shaped by 20th-century political decisions, not direct descent from Old Uyghur, a point of scholarly consensus.
Did You Know?
- Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur but from the Karluk language of the Kara-Khanid Khanate.
- The Uyghur Arabic alphabet is unique among Arabic-derived scripts in mandatorily marking all vowels.
- The Lop dialect of Uyghur is classified as critically endangered, spoken by less than 0.5% of Uyghur speakers.
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