Uyghur language

Uyghur (ئۇيغۇرچە, Uyghurche;[2][3] 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
Uyghurche.png
Uyghur written in Perso-Arabic script
Pronunciation[ʊjʁʊrˈtʃɛ], [ʊjˈʁʊr tili]
Native to China
 Mongolia
 Russia
 Kazakhstan
 Kyrgyzstan
 Tajikistan
 Afghanistan
 Pakistan
 India
EthnicityUyghur
Native speakers25 million  (2016)e18
Language family
Early forms:
Karakhanid
Writing systemArabic (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
ISO 639-2uig
ISO 639-3uig Uighur, Uyghur
Uyghur is spoken in Northwest China
Geographical extent of Uyghur in China

Uyghur Language Media

References

  1. "China". Ethnologue.
  2. 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.
  3. Its name in other languages in which it might be often referred to is as follows: