Uyghur alphabets

Uyghur language
Uyghur language
Uyghur dialects
Uyghur phonology
Uyghur grammar
Uyghur alphabet
Sogdian · Old Uyghur · Old Turkic
Arabic · Latin · Yengi Yeziⱪ · Cyrillic

Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, administered by China, by the Uyghur people. It is a language with a long literary tradition, and has been written using numerous writing systems through time. Today, an Arabic-based Uyghur Arabic Alphabet - Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi (Uyghur Arabic Script) is the official writing system used for Uyghur in Xinjiang, but other alphabets( Latin-based Uyghur Latin Alphabet - Uyghur Latin Yëziqi (Uyghur Latin Script) and Cyrillic-based Uyghur Cyrillic Alphabet - Uyghur Siril Yëziqi (Uyghur Cyrillic Script) ) are still in use, especially outside Xinjiang.

History

5th to 19th century

Historically there have been five major periods of writing in the literary tradition of Uyghur, with the first beginning in the 5th century with Uyghur being written for the first time using the Sogdian alphabet. This fell out of use during the 10th century, when it evolved into the Old Uyghur alphabet, although it was taken into use again between the 15th and 16th century. While the Sogdian alphabet was still in use, the language also began being written in the Old Turkic script from the 6th century and onwards until the 9th century.

The Old Uyghur alphabet stayed in use until the 18th century, being used alongside an Arabic alphabet introduced along with Islam in the 10th century. The Arabic-derived alphabet stayed in use, unlike the Old Uyghur alphabet, and is still in use today, although it was only used little during the mid-20th century.

The Arabic-derived alphabet taken into use first came to be the so-called Chagatai script, which was used for writing the Chagatai language and the Uyghur language, but fell out of use in the early 1920s, when the Uyghur-speaking areas variously became a part of, or under the influence of, the Soviet Union.

The Syriac alphabet has also been used for writing Uyghur at some time between the 5th century and 19th century.

20th to 21st century

The writing of Uyghur saw many changes during the 20th century mostly to do political decisions, both from Soviet and Chinese side. The Soviet Union first tried to romanize the writing of the language, but soon after decided to promote a Cyrillic-derived alphabet during the late 1920s, known as Uyghur Siril Yëziqi, fearing that a romanization of the language would strengthen the relationship of the Uyghur people to other Turkic peoples.

With the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and change to communism, the promotion of a Cyrillic-derived alphabet also began, but when the tensions between the Soviet Union and China grew bigger during the late 1950s, the Chinese devised a new alphabet based upon Pinyin and Cyrillic (the character structure looks like the Uniform Turkic Alphabet – a Cyrillic-influenced Latin alphabet, full of Latin letters like Ə, Ƣ, Ⱨ, Ɵ, etc.), which is known as Yengi Yeziⱪ, and promoted this instead, and which soon became the official alphabet of usage for almost 10 years.

Due to the unpopularity of the Pinyin-based alphabet, the Arabic alphabet was reinstalled, although in a new modified form, which came to be known as Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi. However, due to the increasing importance of information technology, there have been requests for a Latin alphabet, for easier use on computers. This resulted in five conferences between 2000 and 2001, where a Latin-derived alphabet was devised, known as Uyghur Latin Yëziqi.

Present situation

Today the Uyghur language is being written using four different alphabets.

Comparative alphabets: Arabic-Script Uyghur, Latin-Script Uyghur; Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi, Uyghur Latin Yëziqi sélishturma élipbesi

• UEY: Arabic-based Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi or
• ULY: Latin-based Uyghur Latin Yëziqi or
• USY: Cyrillic-based Uyghur Siril Yëziqi or
• UPNY: Mixed Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi, also called Yengi Yeziⱪ

In the table below the alphabets are shown side-by-side for comparison, together with a phonetic transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

#	IPA	UEY	ULY	USY	UPNY		#	IPA	UEY	ULY	USY	UPNY
1	/ɑ/	ئا‎	A a	А а	A a		17	/q/	ق‎	Q q	Қ қ	Ⱪ ⱪ
2	/æ/	ئە‎	E e	Ə ә	Ə ə		18	/k/	ك‎	K k	К к	K k
3	/b/	ب‎	B b	Б б	B b		19	/ɡ/	گ‎	G g	Г г	G g
4	/p/	پ‎	P p	П п	P p		20	/ŋ/	ڭ‎	Ng ng	Ң ң	Ng ng
5	/t/	ت‎	T t	Т т	T t		21	/l/	ل‎	L l	Л л	L l
6	/d͡ʒ/	ج‎	J j	Җ җ	J j		22	/m/	م‎	M m	М м	M m
7	/t͡ʃ/	چ‎	Ch ch	Ч ч	Q q		23	/n/	ن‎	N n	Н н	N n
8	/x/	خ‎	X x	Х х	H h		24	/h/	ھ‎	H h	Һ һ	Ⱨ ⱨ
9	/d/	د‎	D d	Д д	D d		25	/o/	ئو‎	O o	О о	O o
10	/r/	ر‎	R r	Р р	R r		26	/u/	ئۇ‎	U u	У у	U u
11	/z/	ز‎	Z z	З з	Z z		27	/ø/	ئۆ‎	Ö ö	Ө ө	Ɵ ɵ
12	/ʒ/	ژ‎	Zh zh	Ж ж	Ⱬ ⱬ		28	/y/	ئۈ‎	Ü ü	Ү ү	Ü ü
13	/s/	س‎	S s	С с	S s		29	/v/~/w/	ۋ‎	W w	В в	V v
14	/ʃ/	ش‎	Sh sh	Ш ш	X x		30	/e/	ئې‎	Ë ë	Е е	E e
15	/ʁ/	غ‎	Gh gh	Ғ ғ	Ƣ ƣ		31	/ɪ/	ئى‎	I i	И и	I i
16	/f/	ف‎	F f	Ф ф	F f		32	/j/	ي‎	Y y	Й й	Y y

As it can be seen, each of the alphabets have a total of 32 letters. Uyghur Siril Yëziqi, however, also has two additional letters, ⟨Я⟩ and ⟨Ю⟩, representing /ja/ and /jo/, respectively. Also, loanwords of Russian origin are often spelled as they are in Russian, and thus not adopted to the Uyghur orthography.

In the Uyghur Latin Yëziqi the /ʒ/ may be interchangeably represented in two ways, either as ⟨zh⟩ or as ⟨j⟩, although the latter is also used for /dʒ/. This variation is due to several opposing arguments, and therefore it was accepted that both are acceptable.

Another notable feature of Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi is the use of the letter <Ƣ> to represent /ʁ/. This letter has erroneously been named LATIN LETTER OI in Unicode, although it is correctly referred to as gha.

MS Windows Uyghur keyboard layout

One of the major differences between the four alphabets is the rules of when the glottal stop /ʔ/ is written. In Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi it is consistently written, using the hamza ⟨ﺋ⟩, also at the beginning of words. In Uyghur Siril Yëziqi and Uyghur Pinyin Yëziqi the glottal stop is only written word-medially, using an apostrophe, but it is not required and thus not very consistent. And finally, in Uyghur Latin Yëziqi it is written between consonants and vowels, also using an apostrophe, and also to separate ⟨sh⟩, ⟨ng⟩, and ⟨gh⟩ when these represent two phonemes, for instance, consider the Uyghur word bashlan'ghuch, pronounced /bɑʃlɑnʁutʃ/ and meaning beginning, which would have been pronounced /bɑʃlɑŋhutʃ/ without the apostrophe.

Example

Below is the same text in Uyghur, but written using each of the four alphabets in common use today.

The text is taken from the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

UEY	ھەممە ئادەم تۇغۇلۇشىدىنلا ئەركىن، ئىززەت-ھۆرمەت ۋە ھوقۇقتا باب-باراۋەر بولۇپ تۇغۇلغان. ئۇلار ئەقىلگە ۋە ۋىجدانغا ئىگە ھەمدە بىر-بىرىگە قېرىنداشلىق مۇناسىۋىتىگە خاس روھ بىلەن مۇئامىلە قىلىشى كېرەك.
ULY	Hemme adem tughulushidinla erkin, izzet-hörmet we hoquqta babbarawer bolup tughulghan. Ular eqilghe we wijdan'gha ige hemde bir-birige qërindashliq munasiwitige xas roh bilen muamile qilishi kërek.
USY	Һәммә адәм туғулушидинла әркин, иззәт-һөрмәт вә һоқуқта баббаравәр болуп туғулған. Улар әқилғә вә виджданға игә һәмдә бир-биригә қериндашлиқ мунасивитигә хас рох билән му’амилә қилиши керәк.
UPNY	Ⱨəmmə adəm tuƣuluxidinla ərkin, izzət-ⱨɵrmət wə hoⱪuⱪta babbarawər bolup tuƣulƣan. Ular əⱪilƣə wə wijdanƣa igə ⱨəmdə bir-birigə ⱪerindaxliⱪ munasiwitigə has roh bilən mu’amilə ⱪilixi kerək.
English	All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

References

General

• Duval, Jean Rahman; Janbaz, Waris Abdukerim (2006), An Introduction to Latin-Script Uyghur, Salt Lake City: University of Utah, http://www.uyghurdictionary.org/excerpts/An%20Introduction%20to%20LSU.pdf 
• Hahn, Reinhard F. (1991), Spoken Uyghur, London and Seattle: University of Washington Press, ISBN 978-0-295986-51-7 

External links

• Web tool for converting between Uyghur alphabets