The chief official of the Western Regions was a Chinese military official in charge of the Western Regions during the Eastern Han , Cao Wei and Jin dynasties.
87-499: East Turkestan or East Turkistan ( Uyghur : شەرقىي تۈركىستان , ULY : Sherqiy Türkistan , UKY : Шәрқий Туркистан ), also called Uyghuristan ( ئۇيغۇرىستان , Уйғуристан ), is a loosely-defined geographical region in the northwestern part of the People's Republic of China , which varies in meaning by context and usage. The term was coined in the 19th century by Russian Turkologists , including Nikita Bichurin , who intended
174-470: A Perso-Arabic-based alphabet , although a Cyrillic alphabet and two Latin 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 as Kurdish , distinguish all vowels without the use of optional diacritics .) The four alphabets in use today can be seen below. In
261-631: A "cultural backwater" compared to the other Central Asian states during the Islamic Golden Age . Local British and US consuls , also intrigued by the separatist government, published their own histories of the region. The Soviet Uyghur histories produced during its support of the ETR remain the basis of Uyghur nationalist publications today. At the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, with Xinjiang divided between Kuomintang forces and ETR secessionists,
348-522: A constitution which mandated Sharia law in the short-lived Islamic republic. The First ETR gave political meaning to the erstwhile geographical term of East Turkestan. It was not recognized by any country, however. Chinese warlord Sheng Shicai (盛世才) quickly defeated the ETR and ruled Xinjiang for the decade after 1934 with close support from the Soviet Union . Eventually, the Soviet Union exploited
435-637: A female slave from the period of the Gaochang kingdom under the rule of Qu clan from 639 CE mentioned the Sogdian word "twrkstn", which may have referred to the lands to the east and north of Syr Darya in the realm of the First Turkic Khaganate . The Gökturks , known in ancient Chinese with pronunciation as Tutkyud as well as modern Chinese pronunciation as Tujue (Tu-chueh; Chinese : 突厥 ; pinyin : Tūjué ; Wade–Giles : T'u-chüeh ), united
522-1000: A few suffixes. However, the conditions in which they are actually pronounced as distinct from their short counterparts have not been fully researched. The high vowels undergo some tensing when they occur adjacent to alveolars ( s, z, r, l ), palatals ( j ), dentals ( t̪, d̪, n̪ ), and post-alveolar affricates ( 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
609-519: A misnomer as applied to the modern language of Kashghar". 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". Probably around 1077,
696-619: A province and the name Xinjiang was popularized, superseding "Xiyu" in writing. At the same time as the Chinese consolidation of control in Xinjiang, explorers from the British and Russian Empires explored, mapped, and delineated Central Asia in a competition of colonial expansion . Several influential Russians would propose new terms for the territories, as in 1805 when the Russian explorer Timovski revived
783-650: A role in vowel harmony and are separate phonemes. /e/ only occurs in words of non-Turkic origin and as the result of vowel raising. Uyghur has systematic vowel 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. Uyghur voiceless stops are aspirated word-initially and intervocalically. The pairs /p, b/ , /t, d/ , /k, ɡ/ , and /q, ʁ/ alternate, with
870-633: 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 in uvular ( /q/, /ʁ/, /χ/ ) and laryngeal (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
957-525: A scholar of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from Kashgar in modern-day Xinjiang , published a Turkic language dictionary and description of the geographic distribution of many Turkic languages, Dīwān ul-Lughat al-Turk (English: Compendium of the Turkic Dialects ; Uyghur: تۈركى تىللار دىۋانى , Türki Tillar Diwani ). The book, described by scholars as an "extraordinary work," documents
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#17328487137331044-450: A suffix alternate as governed by vowel 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
1131-759: A useful geographic descriptor and was not used. During the sixteenth century, the Chagatai Khanate completed the Islamification and Turkification of western Xinjiang and the surrounding region, known then as Moghulistan , while China's Ming dynasty held the Eastern Areas . After the Fall of the Ming dynasty , a western Mongol group established a polity in "Chinese Tartary ", as it was sometimes known, or in eastern Xinjiang, expanding southward into southern Xinjiang. In 1755,
1218-574: Is CV(C)(C). 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 a sonorant . In Uyghur, any consonant phoneme can occur as the syllable onset or coda , except for /ʔ/ which only occurs in the onset and /ŋ/ , which never occurs word-initially. In general, Uyghur phonology tends to simplify phonemic consonant clusters by means of elision and epenthesis . The Karluk language started to be written with
1305-582: Is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8–13 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China . Apart from Xinjiang, significant communities of Uyghur speakers are also located in Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Uzbekistan , and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur
1392-417: Is a left-branching language with subject–object–verb word order. More distinctly, Uyghur processes include vowel reduction and umlauting , especially in northern dialects. In addition to other Turkic languages, Uyghur has historically been strongly influenced by Arabic and Persian , and more recently by Russian and Mandarin Chinese . The modified Arabic-derived writing system is the most common and
1479-670: Is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; it is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio. Other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang also use Uyghur as a common language . Uyghur belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family , which includes languages such as Uzbek . Like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination , lacks noun classes or grammatical gender , and
1566-473: Is common in spoken Uyghur, but stigmatized in formal contexts. Xinjiang Television and other mass media, for example, will use the rare Russian loanword aplisin ( апельсин , apel'sin ) for the word "orange", rather than the ubiquitous Mandarin loanword juze ( 橘子 ; júzi ). In a sentence, this mixing might look like: مېنىڭ Më-ning 1sg - GEN تەلەفونىم telfon-im cellphone- POSS . 1sg گۇئەنجى، guenji, Chief Official of
1653-401: Is coterminous with Xinjiang or the independent state that they would like to lead in Xinjiang. Proponents of the term "East Turkestan" argue that the name Xinjiang is arrogant, because if the individual Chinese characters are to be taken literally and not as a proper name , then Xinjiang means "New Territory". Some Chinese scholars have advocated a name change for the region or a reversion to
1740-710: Is more closely related to the Siberian Turkic languages in Siberia. Robert Dankoff wrote that the Turkic language spoken in Kashgar and used in Kara Khanid works was Karluk, not (Old) Uyghur. 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
1827-455: Is no consensus among separatists about whether to use "East Turkestan" or "Uyghurstan". "East Turkestan" has the advantage of also being the name of two historic political entities in the region, while Uyghurstan appeals to modern ideas of ethnic self-determination . East Turkistan was also used in the context of Yaqub Beg's Kashgaria in the mid-1800s. Uyghurstan is also a difference in emphasis in that it excludes more peoples in Xinjiang than just
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#17328487137331914-625: The Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk . According to Gerard Clauson , Western Yugur is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur and is also called "Neo-Uyghur". According to Frederik Coene, Modern Uyghur and Western Yugur belong to entirely different branches of the Turkic language family, respectively the Southeastern Turkic languages and the Northeastern Turkic languages . The Western Yugur language , although in geographic proximity,
2001-578: The Chagatai language , a literary language used all across Central Asia until the early 20th century. After Chaghatai fell into extinction , the standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chagatai-speaking region, showing abundant Chaghatai influence. Uyghur language today shows considerable Persian influence as a result from Chagatai, including numerous Persian loanwords . Modern Uyghur religious literature includes
2088-580: The Chief Official of the Western Regions instead. Since the Han, successive Chinese governments had to deal with secessionist movements and local rebellions from different peoples in the region. However, even when Xinjiang was not under Chinese political control, Xinjiang has long had "close contacts with China" that distinguish it from the independent Turkic countries of Central Asia. A Sogdian sale contract of
2175-779: The Cultural Revolution and the Revolution's campaigns against "local nationalism", the government had come to associate the term East Turkestan with Uyghur separatism and " foreign hostile forces [ zh ] " and forbade its usage. Uyghur nationalist historian Turghun Almas and his book Uyghurlar (The Uyghurs) and Uyghur nationalist accounts of history were galvanized by Soviet stances on history, "firmly grounded" in Soviet Turcological works, and both heavily influenced and partially created by Soviet historians and Soviet works on Turkic peoples. Soviet historiography spawned
2262-648: The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The government of China conflates the violence of differing separatist groups, such as the ETIM and the East Turkestan Liberation Organization , as coming simply from "East Turkestan forces". Chinese diplomatic missions have objected to foreigners' use of "East Turkestan". They argue that the term is political and no longer geographical or historical and that its use represents "a provocation" to
2349-535: The Han , but the "East Turkestan" movement is still a Uyghur phenomenon. Kazakhs and Hui Muslims are largely alienated from the movement, as are Uyghurs who live closer to the eastern provinces of China. Separatist sentiment is strongest among the Uyghur diaspora , who practice what has been called "cyber-separatism", encouraging the use of "East Turkestan" on their websites and literature. Historically, "Uyghurstan" referred to
2436-580: The Han dynasty to the Tang dynasty had called an overlapping area the " Western Regions ". Starting in the 20th century, Uyghur separatists and their supporters used East Turkestan as an appellation for the whole of Xinjiang (the Tarim Basin and Dzungaria ) or for a future independent state in present-day Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They reject the name Xinjiang (meaning "New Frontier" in Chinese) because of
2523-605: The Ili valley in Xinjiang and continued to negotiate with the Qing for trading and settlement rights for Russians. Regardless of the new Russian appellations, the original inhabitants of Central Asia generally continued not to use the word "Turkestan" to refer to their own territories. After a spate of annexations in Middle Asia, Russia consolidated its holdings west of the Pamir Mountains as
2610-693: The Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz , 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. These include the Xibe , Tajiks , Daurs and Russians . According to reports in 2018, Uyghur script was erased from street signs and wall murals, as the Chinese government has launched a campaign to force Uyghur people to learn Mandarin. Any interest in Uyghur culture or language could lead to detention. Recent news reports have also documented
2697-644: The Kutadgu 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 the Hibat al-ḥaqāyiq (هبة الحقايق) ( Hibet-ül hakayik ) (Hibet ül-hakayık) (Hibbetü'l-Hakaik) (Atebetüʼl-hakayik) ( w:tr:Atabetü'l-Hakayık ). Middle Turkic languages , through the influence of Perso - Arabic after the 13th century, developed into
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2784-658: The Qing dynasty defeated the Mongol Dzungar Khanate and captured two territories in Xinjiang. The northern territory, where the Dzungars lived, was called Dzungaria , while the southern areas, which the Dzungars controlled and mined, were called Huijiang (Hui-chiang; Chinese : 回疆 ; pinyin : Huíjiāng ; Wade–Giles : Hui-chiang ; lit. 'Muslim territory') or Altishahr . The term "Xinjiang", which, up until that time, simply meant all territories new to
2871-528: The Tarim Basin in southern Xinjiang or sometimes Xinjiang as a whole during the Qing dynasty . The term "Uyghuristan" means 'land of Uyghurs'. The latter name was given to the region by medieval Muslim geographers . In China, the term Western Regions ( Chinese : 西域 ; pinyin : Xīyù ; Wade–Giles : Hsi-yü ; Uyghur : Qurighar, Қуриғар) referred to the regions west of the Yumen Pass . During
2958-717: The Tarim Basin ; the areas north of the Tian Shan mountains were called Dzungaria or Zungaria. Tursun Rakhimov, a Uyghur historian for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split, argued in his 1981 book "Fate of the Non-Han Peoples of the PRC" that "both" East Turkestan and Dzungaria were conquered by China and "renamed" Xinjiang. Occasionally, he used East Turkestan and Xinjiang interchangeably. Concurrently, during
3045-934: The Tian Shan . In 1912, the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty and created a Republic of China . As Yuan Dahua, the last Qing governor, fled from Xinjiang, one of his subordinates, Yang Zengxin (楊增新), took control of the province and acceded in name to the Republic of China in March of the same year. In 1921, the Soviet Union officially defined the Uyghurs as the sedentary Turkic peoples from Chinese Turkestan as part of their nation building policy in Central Asia . Multiple insurgencies arose against Yang's successor Jin Shuren (金树仁) in
3132-540: The Turkestan Governorate or "Russian Turkestan" in 1867. It is at this time that Western writers began to divide Turkestan into a Russian and a Chinese part. Although foreigners acknowledged that Xinjiang was a Chinese polity, and that there were Chinese names for the region, some travelers preferred to use "names that emphasized Turkic, Islamic, or Central Asian, i.e., non-Chinese characteristics". For contemporary British travelers and English-language material, there
3219-549: The United States ( New York City ). The Uyghurs are one of the 56 recognized ethnic groups in China and Uyghur is an official language of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region , along with Standard Chinese . As a result, Uyghur can be heard in most social domains in Xinjiang and also in schools, government and courts. Of the other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, those populous enough to have their own autonomous prefectures , such as
3306-529: The extinct language Chagatay (the East Karluk languages), and more distantly to Uzbek (which is West Karluk). 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 are mutually intelligible to some extent. The Central dialects are spoken by 90% of the Uyghur-speaking population, while
3393-412: The 'chief scribe') did not have a regular office or seat. It corresponded to that of the assistant (郡丞) for the commandery, who received orders from the governor of Dunhuang . So in certain extent, the various statelets of Indo-European in the possession of the chief official would be under the jurisdiction of the governor of Dunhuang. The first to assume the duty was Ban Chao in 83, and subsequently
3480-515: The 2nd century BC, Chinese writers called the city states of the northern and southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert the "Walled city-states of the Western Regions". In 60 BC, the Han dynasty established the Protectorate of the Western Regions "in charge of all the oasis-states of the Tarim Basin " which they ruled in indirectly with small agricultural military colonies. The Protector General
3567-670: The Arabic-based Uyghur alphabets have 32 characters each; the Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet also uses two iotated vowel letters (Ю and Я). The Middle Turkic languages are the direct ancestor of the Karluk languages , including Uyghur and the Uzbek language . Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur , rather, it is a descendant of the Karluk language spoken by the Kara-Khanid Khanate , as described by Mahmud al-Kashgari in
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3654-578: The Chinese perspective reflected in the name, and prefer East Turkestan to emphasize the connection to other, western Turkic groups. The First East Turkestan Republic existed from November 12, 1933, to April 16, 1934, and the Second East Turkestan Republic existed between November 12, 1944, and June 27, 1946. East Turkestan is a founding member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) formed in 1991, where it
3741-626: The Communist leadership persuaded both governments to surrender and accept the succession of the People's Republic of China government and negotiated the establishment of Communist provincial governments in Yining (Ghulja) and Dihua. On October 1, 1955, Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong designated Xinjiang a "Uyghur Autonomous Region", creating a regionwide Uyghur identity which overtook Uyghurs' traditionally local and oasis -based identities. Although
3828-801: The Imams will leave this world without faith and on Judgement Day their faces will be black ..." in the Tazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams . Shaw translated extracts from the Tazkiratu'l-Bughra on the Muslim Turki war against the "infidel" Khotan. The Turki-language Tadhkirah i Khwajagan was written by M. Sadiq Kashghari. Historical works like the Tārīkh-i amniyya and Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi were written by Musa Sayrami . The Qing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on
3915-410: The Islamic conquest of Khotan, Yarkand and Kashgar by Yusuf Qadir Khan, the Qarakhanid leader. The shrines of Sufi Saints are revered in Altishahr as one of Islam's essential components and the tazkirah literature reinforced the sacredness of the shrines. Anyone who does not believe in the stories of the saints is guaranteed hellfire by the tazkirahs. It is written, "And those who doubt Their Holinesses
4002-400: The PRC's claim to East Turkestan, a white paper was published in 2019 which made a statement that 'East Turkestan' never existed and it was only called 'Xinjiang' and been part of China since early history. East Turkestan was historically not treated as an inseparable part of China, but rather colonized by Han Chinese who had little in common with the Uyghur population. On February 28, 2017, it
4089-413: 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 modern Turkic languages , Uyghur is primarily written using
4176-409: The Qing, gradually shifted in meaning for the Qing court to exclusively mean Dzungaria and Altishahr taken together. In 1764, the Qianlong Emperor made this use of Xinjiang as a proper name official and issued an imperial order defining Xinjiang as a "provincial administrative area". After General Tso (Tso Ts'ung T'ang) suppressed the Dungan revolt in 1882, Xinjiang was officially reorganized into
4263-429: The Soviet Union initially suppressed the publications of its past Uyghur studies programs, after the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s, it revived its Uyghur studies program as part of an "ideological war" against China. The term "East Turkestan" was popularized in academic works, but inconsistently: at times, the term East Turkestan only referred to as the area in Xinjiang south of the Tian Shan mountains, corresponding to
4350-482: The Taẕkirah, biographies of Islamic religious figures and saints. The Taẕkirah is a genre of literature written about Sufi Muslim saints in Altishahr . Written sometime in the period between 1700 and 1849, the Chagatai language (modern Uyghur) Taẕkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams provides an account of the Muslim Karakhanid war against the Khotanese Buddhists, containing a story about Imams, from Mada'in city (possibly in modern-day Iraq) came 4 Imams who travelled to help
4437-427: The Turkic peoples and created a large empire, which broke into various Khanates or Khaganates; the Western Turkic Khaganate inherited Xinjiang, but West Tujue became part of China's Tang dynasty until the ninth century. However, the terms for West Tujue and East Tujue do not have any relation with the terms West and East Turkestan. "Turkestan", which means "region of the Turks", was defined by Arab geographers in
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#17328487137334524-458: The Uyghur language is of Turkic stock, but due to different kinds of language contact throughout its history, it has adopted many loanwords . Kazakh , Uzbek and Chagatai are all Turkic languages which have had a strong influence on Uyghur. Many words of Arabic origin have come into the language through Persian and Tajik , which again have come through Uzbek and to a greater extent, Chagatai. Many words of Arabic origin have also entered
4611-431: The Western Regions Since the Eastern Han no longer maintained the post of protector general , the duty was assumed by the chief official in the course of his management of the Western Regions during the period of the Qiang 's attacks towards the end of the Eastern Han dynasty in the latter part of the 2nd century CE. Unlike the protector general of the Western Regions , the chief official (sometimes referred to as
4698-504: 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 default short , but long vowels also exist because of historical vowel assimilation (above) and through loanwords. Underlyingly long vowels would resist vowel reduction and devoicing , introduce non-final stress, and be analyzed as |Vj| or |Vr| before
4785-470: The change in power from Sheng to Kuomintang officials to create the puppet Second East Turkestan Republic (1944–1946) in present-day Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture to exploit its minerals, later justifying it as a national liberation movement against the "reactionary" Kuomintang regime. Amid the anti-Han programs and policies and exclusion of " pagans ", or non-Muslims , from the separatist government, Kuomintang leaders based in Dihua (Ürümqi) appealed to
4872-738: The disputed territory of Aksai Chin ), as well as parts of western Gansu (including Subei Mongol Autonomous County , Aksay Kazakh Autonomous County , Dunhuang city, and Guazhou County ) and Qinghai ( Lenghu and Mangnai ). The World Uyghur Congress considers East Turkestan to be the area of Xinjiang along with territory claimed to be annexed by a "neighboring Chinese province" in 1949. Uyghur language Uyghur or Uighur ( / ˈ w iː ɡ ʊər , - ɡ ər / ; ئۇيغۇر تىلى , Уйғур тили , Uyghur tili, Uyƣur tili , IPA: [ʊjˈʁʊɾ.tɪ.lɪ] or ئۇيغۇرچە , Уйғурчә , Uyghurche, Uyƣurqə , IPA: [ʊj.ʁʊɾˈtʃɛ] , CTA : Uyğurçä; formerly known as Turki or Eastern Turki )
4959-522: The early 1930s throughout Xinjiang, usually led by Hui people . "East Turkestan" became a rallying cry for people who spoke Turki and believed in Islam to rebel against Chinese authorities. In the Kashgar region on November 12, 1933, Uyghur separatists declared the short-lived and self-proclaimed East Turkestan Republic (ETR), using the term "East Turkestan" to emphasize the state's break from China and new anti-China orientation. Influenced by pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism , these separatists established
5046-487: The existence of mandatory boarding schools where children are separated from their parents; children are punished for speaking Uyghur, making the language at a very high risk of extinction. The Chinese government have implemented bi-lingual education in most regions of Xinjiang. 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
5133-484: The former set near front vowels and the latter near a 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. The primary syllable structure of Uyghur
5220-480: The government of China lifted its ban on state media's using the terms "Uyghurstan" or "East Turkestan", as part of a general opening up after the September 11 attacks to the world about political violence in Xinjiang and a plea for international help to suppress East Turkestan terrorists. In 2004, the East Turkistan Government in Exile was established in Washington, D.C. under the leadership of Anwar Yusuf Turani to strive for East Turkistan's independence. To justify
5307-445: The history of the people. In one of his books the term Uyghur was deliberately not used by James A. Millward . The name Khāqāniyya was given to the Qarluks who inhabited Kāshghar and Bālāsāghūn, the inhabitants were not Uighur, but their language has been retroactively labelled as Uighur by scholars. The Qarakhanids called their own language the "Turk" or "Kashgar" language and did not use Uighur to describe their own language, Uighur
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#17328487137335394-521: The language directly through Islamic literature after the introduction of Islam around the 10th century. Chinese in Xinjiang and Russian elsewhere had the greatest influence on Uyghur. Loanwords from these languages are all quite recent, although older borrowings exist as well, such as borrowings from Dungan , a Mandarin language spoken by the Dungan people of Central Asia . A number of loanwords of German origin have also reached Uyghur through Russian. Code-switching with Standard Chinese
5481-559: The language to diaspora children online as well as publishing a magazine written by children for children in Uyghur. Uyghur has a seven-vowel inventory, with [i] and [e] not distinguished. 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
5568-440: The long Chinese history in the region to justify its sovereignty over Xinjiang. In response, Soviet historians produced revisionist histories to help the ETR justify its own claims to sovereignty, with statements such as that the Uyghurs were the "most ancient Turkic people" that had contributed to world civilization. In June 1946, the Soviet Union withdrew its support for the ETR. Traditionally, scholars had thought of Xinjiang as
5655-418: The major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki language, such as the Pentaglot Dictionary . The historical term "Uyghur" was appropriated for the language that had been known as Eastern Turki by government officials in the Soviet Union in 1922 and in Xinjiang in 1934. Sergey Malov was behind the idea of renaming Turki to Uyghurs. The use of the term Uyghur has led to anachronisms when describing
5742-481: The name to replace the common Western term for the region, " Chinese Turkestan ", which referred to the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang or Xinjiang as a whole during the Qing dynasty . Beginning in the 17th century, Altishahr , which means "Six Cities" in Uyghur, became the Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin. Uyghurs also called the Tarim Basin " Yettishar ," which means "Seven Cities," and even "Sekkizshahr", which means "Eight Cities" in Uyghur. Chinese dynasties from
5829-409: The ninth and tenth centuries as the areas northeast of the Sir River . For those Arab writers, the Turks were Turkic -speaking nomads and not the sedentary Persian -speaking oasis dwellers. With the various migrations and political upheavals following the collapse of the Gökturk confederation and the Mongol invasions , "Turkestan", according to the official Chinese position, gradually ceased to be
5916-506: 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 in complementary distribution , but phonological analyses claim that they play
6003-440: The northeastern oasis region of " Kumul - Turfan ". "Chinese Turkestan", while synonymous with East Turkestan in historical terms, is not used today, rejected by Uyghur separatists for the "Chinese" part of the name and by China for the "Turkestan" part. In China, the terms "East Turkestan", "Uyghurstan", and even "Turkestan" alone connote old Western imperialism and the past East Turkestan republics and modern militant groups, such as
6090-506: The official and common name of Xinjiang (with its Uyghur loanword counterpart, Shinjang ) is rejected by those seeking independence. "East Turkestan", a term of Russian origin, asserts a continuity with a "West Turkestan" or the now-independent states of Soviet Central Asia . Not all of those states accept the designation of "Turkestan", however. For instance, Tajikistan 's Persian -speaking population feels more closely aligned with Iran and Afghanistan . For separatists, East Turkestan
6177-430: The older term Xiyu ("Western Regions"), arguing that "Xinjiang" might mislead people into thinking that Xinjiang is "new" to China. Other scholars defend the name, noting that Xinjiang was new to the late Qing dynasty , which gave Xinjiang its current name. In modern separatist usage, "Uyghuristan", which means "land of the Uyghurs", is a synonym for Xinjiang or a potential state in Xinjiang, like "East Turkestan". There
6264-462: The only standard in China, 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
6351-561: 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. Uyghur language has been supported by Google Translate since February 2020. About 80 newspapers and magazines are available in Uyghur; five TV channels and ten publishers serve as the Uyghur media . Outside of China, Radio Free Asia provides news in Uyghur. Poet and activist Muyesser Abdul'ehed teaches
6438-486: The other due to the preceding consonant being such. 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,
6525-596: The rendering of Uyghur history found in Uyghurlar. Almas claimed that Central Asia was "the motherland of the Uyghurs" and also the "ancient golden cradle of world culture". The global trends set by the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and the rise of global Islamism and pan-Turkism revived separatist sentiments in Xinjiang and led to a wave of political violence that killed 162 people between 1990 and 2001. In 2001,
6612-472: The rich literary tradition of Turkic languages; it contains folk tales (including descriptions of the functions of shamans ) and didactic poetry (propounding "moral standards and good behaviour"), besides poems and poetry cycles on topics such as hunting and love and numerous other language materials. Other Kara-Khanid writers wrote works in the Turki Karluk Khaqani language. Yusuf Khass Hajib wrote
6699-526: The sovereignty of China. The historical definitions for "East Turkestan" are multifarious and ambiguous, reflecting that, outside of Chinese administration, the area now called "Xinjiang" was not geographically or demographically a single region. The territorial definition, as claimed by the East Turkistan Government in Exile and International Support for Uyghurs, includes the bulk of Xinjiang (excluding
6786-804: The table below the alphabets are shown side-by-side for comparison, together with a phonetic transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet . Like other Turkic languages, Uyghur is a head-final agglutinative language with a subject–object–verb word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case , but not gender and definiteness like in many other languages. There are two numbers: singular and plural and six different cases: nominative , accusative , dative , locative , ablative and genitive . Verbs are conjugated for tense : present and past ; voice : causative and passive ; aspect : continuous and mood : e.g. ability. Verbs may be negated as well. The core lexicon of
6873-961: The two other branches of dialects only are spoken by a relatively small minority. Vowel reduction is common in the northern parts of where Uyghur is spoken, but not in the south. Uyghur is spoken by an estimated 8–11 million people in total. In addition to being spoken primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China , mainly by the Uyghur people , Uyghur was also spoken by some 300,000 people in Kazakhstan in 1993, some 90,000 in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 1998, 3,000 in Afghanistan and 1,000 in Mongolia , both in 1982. Smaller communities also exist in Albania , Australia , Belgium , Canada , Germany , Indonesia , Pakistan , Saudi Arabia , Sweden , Tajikistan , Turkey , United Kingdom and
6960-448: The use of "Turkestan" to refer to Middle Asia and "East Turkestan" to refer to the Tarim Basin east of Middle Asia in southern Xinjiang or, in 1829, when the Russian sinologist Nikita Bichurin proposed the use of "East Turkestan" to replace "Chinese Turkestan" for the Chinese territory east of Bukhara . The Russian Empire mused expansion into Xinjiang, which it informally called "Little Bukhara". Between 1851 and 1881, Russia occupied
7047-463: 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. Voiceless phonemes do not become voiced in standard Uyghur. Suffixes display a slightly different type of consonant alternation. The phonemes /ɡ/ and /ʁ/ anywhere in
7134-461: Was Xu Gan (徐干), after Ban became the protector general in 91. The post was roughly equal to the secondary position in support of the protector general. It was later assumed as the protector general in 119 under the impulse of the governor of Dunhuang to disengage the leftover Xiongnu from the Western Regions. Only five of their titles were known: Suo Ban (索班), Ban Yong (班勇), Zhao Ping (赵评), Wang Jing (王敬) and Zhang Yan (张晏). The chief official of
7221-544: Was announced by the Qira County government in Hotan Prefecture that those who reported others for stitching the ' star and crescent moon ' insignia on their clothing or personal items or having the words 'East Turkestan' on their mobile phone case, purse, or other jewelry, would be eligible for cash payments. As the history of Xinjiang in particular is contested between the government of China and Uyghur separatists ,
7308-515: Was no consensus on a designation for Xinjiang, with " Chinese Turkestan ", "East Turkestan", "Chinese Central Asia", " Serindia ", and "Sinkiang" being used interchangeably to describe the region of Xinjiang. Until the 20th century, locals used the names of cities or oases in their "territorial self-perception", which expanded or contracted as needed, such as Kashgaria out of Kashgar to refer to southwestern Xinjiang. Altishahr , or "six cities", collectively referred to six vaguely defined cities south of
7395-702: Was represented initially by the East Turkistan National Congress and later by the World Uyghur Congress post 2004. In September 2004, the East Turkistan Government in Exile was established in Washington, D.C. The term "East Turkestan" was coined in the 19th century by Russian Turkologists , including Nikita Bichurin , who intended the name to replace the common Western term for the region, " Chinese Turkestan ", which referred to
7482-515: Was stationed at Wulei (west of Karasahr ). The city-states were able to conduct their own independent policies with each other. After the Western Han period that ended in 9 AD, China lost its authority over the Western Regions until it was restored in 94 AD and officially lasted until 107 AD. After the crackdown of internal separatist forces, the Eastern Han dynasty set up another protectorate known as
7569-514: Was used to describe the language of non-Muslims but Chinese scholars have anachronistically called a Qarakhanid work written by Kashgari as "Uighur". The name " Altishahri-Jungharian Uyghur " was used by the Soviet educated Uyghur Qadir Haji in 1927. The Uyghur language belongs to the Karluk Turkic ( Qarluq ) branch of the Turkic language family . It is closely related to Äynu , Lop , Ili Turki ,
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