What is Uyghur?
An introduction for newcomers: family, letters, sounds, writing systems, dialects and greetings.
What is Uyghur?
Uyghur is a Turkic language (some sources place it in the Karluk branch, others in a Uyghuric group). It is spoken mainly in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, with speakers also in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere. Estimates of native speakers vary; one source gives 8 to 13 million (2021).
Letters — 32
The standard script has 32 letters based on the Arabic script. A 20th-century reform made every vowel written.
See all 32 letters on the letter board (Language page) See all 32 lettersSounds
There are eight vowels: front (ئە ئۆ ئۈ), back (ئا ئو ئۇ) and neutral (ئې ئى). Vowel harmony keeps the vowels of a word in step. There are 24 consonants.
Writing systems
The standard is the Arabic script. The Latin script (ULY) was settled at Xinjiang University in 2001 and serves as an aid to the Arabic script, for example on the internet. Cyrillic is used in the former Soviet countries. Here is one word in all three.
Dialects
Sources divide the dialects differently. Some name three groups, central, southern and eastern; others name central, Hotan and Lop Nur.