{"id":1734,"date":"2009-09-03T09:30:14","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T07:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sprogmuseet.dk\/?p=1734"},"modified":"2009-09-03T09:30:14","modified_gmt":"2009-09-03T07:30:14","slug":"uyghur-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sprogmuseet.schwa.dk\/index.php\/2009\/09\/03\/uyghur-language\/","title":{"rendered":"Uyghur language"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Maskinovers\u00e6ttelse til dansk her<\/a>]<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\u00d8stturkestan\"
East Turkestan (Chinese: \u65b0\u7586 (Xinjiang)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The uproar of Uyghurs<\/a> against the Chinese administration in summer 2009 caused for the first time a bigger response among journalists world-wide. There have been uproars again and again during the last decades without any reaction in the West. This time doubtlessly the revolt of the Tibetans against the Chinese occupation during early summer has caused an interest in the Uyghur revolt.<\/p>\n

\"East
East Turkestan's flag is illegal in East Turkestan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the Dalai Lama is a personality respected world-wide and Nobel prize winner, the situation of the Tibetans has always gained more interest among Western journalists and a small part of politicians. It has always been very different with the Uyghurs who also fight against the destruction of their culture, but have neither a leader who represents them on an international level, nor seems hardly anything being known about who they actually are.<\/p>\n

This became clear from the first reports in the news media, where they were referred to as for example \u201ca Muslim group in China<\/a>\u201d or similar. In fact the Uyghurs are closely related to the Turks<\/a> and are one of the most numerous Turkic ethnic entity, speaking a language that is closer related to the Turkish of Turkey than Kazakh or Kyrghyz are.<\/p>\n

\"Rebiya
Dragon Fighter, Rebiya Kadeer's autobiography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before becoming Muslims in a long process lasting from the 11th to the 15th century they were mostly Buddhists and also after accepting Islam never became fanatically religious. The relation of Turkic peoples to religion had in general always a tendency towards tolerance. This will become clearer in a few lines further down. A growing interest in Islam can be explaned as a reaction to a suppression that has been going on for decades unnoticed by the West.<\/p>\n

Who wants to get a thorough information about the situation of the Uyghurs should read the autobiography<\/a> of Rebiya Kadeer<\/a>, who lives in exile in the USA and can be regarded as a spokeswoman<\/a> of her people.<\/p>\n

Classical Uyghur<\/h3>\n
\"The
The Orkhon Stone, 7-800 AD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Uyghurs are mentioned for the first time in Turkish language in the Old Turkish Stone Inscriptions<\/a> near the Orkhon river in Mongolia in the early 8th<\/sup> century A.D.<\/p>\n

At that time they were a turcophone tribal group under the government of the stronger tribal group \u201cT\u00fcrk\u201d who gave later their name to all tribes speaking a dialect of their language. After having overthrown the power of the \u201cT\u00fcrk\u201d around 745 they governed the Mongolian steppe and adjacent areas until they were defeated by the Kyrghyz coming from the North West.<\/p>\n

Parts of the Uyghurs fled to the area which today is called \u201cEastern Turkestan\u201d or since some time \u201cXinjiang\u201d using the Chinese name. In the biggest oasis area, around Turfan, they founded a kingdom, living peacefully together with Iranians. They had come as Manichaeans, taking over Buddhism under the influence of Sogdians and Tocharians. A smaller Uyghur kingdom was founded in Kansu, where up to today the \u201cYellow Uyghurs<\/a>\u201d live, being followers of Tibetan Lamaism and speaking Yellow Uyghur, Tibetan and Chinese.<\/p>\n

Manichaean, Nestorian Christian, but far more Buddhist literature in Uyghur language has come down to us, which are still continuously analyzed by scientists, mostly in Germany, Japan and China. The language of these Uyghur texts is called \u201cClassical Uyghur\u201d and every religion used its own alphabet. Only the so-called Old Uyghur alphabet is rather neutral and was also used for other texts than religious ones, like contracts or private letters.<\/p>\n

Modern Uyghur<\/h3>\n

As Classsical Uyghur had taken over rather a lot of loanwords, loanblends and loan translations mainly from Iranian and Tocharian, Modern Uyghur, although still being under Iranian influence, accepted many Persian loanwords, but even more Arabic words coming into the language via Persian due to Islamic influence, which found its culminating point in the 15th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

For some time the Uyghur alphabet and the Arabic alphabet were used side by side. There are manuscipts which are not only identical in their text but also written in an interlinear form, i.e. one line in Uyghur, the following line in the Arabic alphabet, not only the text being identical but even the orthographical system.<\/p>\n

Before 1937 Uyghurs used the Chaghatay writing system, the graphic system of the Chaghatay language<\/a>, the common Central Asian Turkish language written in the Arabic alphabet, but differing from Ottoman in the West, the Ottoman Empire. In that year the attempt was made to render the linguistic Uyghur pecularities with the Chaghatay-based writing system.<\/p>\n

Chinese influence had been very weak during the first decades of the 20th<\/sup> century, when only 5% of the population in Eastern Turkestan\/Xinjiang were Chinese. According to a census 1949 less than 300 000 Chines people lived in that area, today the majority of ca. 19 mio. inhabitants are Chinese, making the ca. 9 mio. Uyghurs a minority, the rest of the population being mainly Kazakhs and Kyrghyz.<\/p>\n

Among all Non-Chinese peoples of Eastern Turkestan Uyghur is spoken as the Lingua Franca, while the knowledge of Turkic languages among the Chinese population is almost non-existent.<\/p>\n

Dialects<\/h3>\n

There are different opinions about the dialectical classification of Uyghur. The difficulties in classifying the dialects have their origion certainly in the lack of research. Another problem is that the population of Eastern Turkestan\/Xinjiang live small towns and villages often far from each other. This isolation has created dialects in many regions having again several sub-dialects which partly vary only little from each other on the one side and on the other showing surprising differences in phonetics, loanwords and even vocabulary.<\/p>\n

\"
East Turkestan's provinces<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most widely accepted opinion is that Uyghur has three dialect groups:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Central group which is divided into a northern and a Southern sub-group. The Northern one is for example spoken in the capital \u00dcr\u00fcmqi<\/a>, in Ili<\/a>, Turfan<\/a> etc., the Southern one in Kashgar<\/a> and along the Southern edge of the Tarim Basin<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. The Khotan dialect group is spoken in Khotan<\/a> (Hoten), Cherchen and Charklik.<\/li>\n
  3. The dialect of Lopnur<\/a> in the South-East of the country (the area where China tests its nuclear weapons).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Standard Uyghur<\/h3>\n

    Standard Uyghur, the official language and language of all publications is based on the Northern dialect. It is very similar to Uzbek<\/a> and much closer to the Turkish of Turkey than Kazakh<\/a> and Kyrghyz<\/a> are. The greatest difference is found in the high number of verbal compositions which Turkish has to a much smaller degree. Some examples will follow later.<\/p>\n

    Some remarks to phonetics<\/h3>\n

    Many phonetic pecularities are typical for most of the Central Asian Turkic languages (ST. in the following for Standard Turkish of Turkey).<\/p>\n