Uyghur language

Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people

Uyghur (ئۇيغۇرچە, Uyghurche;[3][4] formerly known as Eastern Turkish) is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. There are several writing systems used to write Uyghur. While Uyghurs usually use the Uyghur alphabet, an alphabet based on the Arabic alphabet, there are also two Latin and one Cyrillic alphabet that can be used to write Uyghur.

Uyghur
Uighur
ئۇيغۇرچە / ئۇيغۇر تىلى
Uyghur written in Perso-Arabic script
Pronunciation[ʊjʁʊrˈtʃɛ], [ʊjˈʁʊr tili]
Native to China
 Mongolia
 Russia
 Kazakhstan
 Kyrgyzstan
 Tajikistan
 Afghanistan
 Pakistan
 India
EthnicityUyghur
Native speakers
25 million (2016)[1]
Early forms
Karakhanid
Arabic (official, Uyghur alphabet)
Latin
Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in
 China
Regulated byWorking Committee of Ethnic Language and Writing of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Language codes
ISO 639-1ug Uighur, Uyghur
ISO 639-2uig Uighur, Uyghur
ISO 639-3uig Uighur, Uyghur
Glottologuigh1240  Uighur
Uyghur is spoken in Northwest China
Geographical extent of Uyghur in China
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References change

  1. Uyghur at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. "China". Ethnologue.
  3. In English, the name of the ethnicity and its language is spelled variously as Uyghur, Uighur, Uygur and Uigur, with the preferred spelling being Uyghur. Many English speakers pronounce it as /ˈwiː.ɡər/, though the native pronunciation is [ʔʊjˈʁʊr]. See Mair, Victor (13 July 2009). "A Little Primer of Xinjiang Proper Nouns". Language Log. Retrieved 16 July 2009.
  4. Its name in other languages in which it might be often referred to is as follows: