Uyghur Arabic alphabet

The Uyghur Perso-Arabic alphabet (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر ئەرەب يېزىقى‎‎, ULY: Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi or UEY, USY: Уйғур Әрәб Йезиқи ) is an Arabic alphabet used for writing the Uyghur language, primarily by Uyghurs living in China. It is one of several Uyghur alphabets and has been the official alphabet of the Uyghur language since 1982.[1]

Uyghur alphabet
ئۇيغۇر يېزىقى
Example of writing in the Uyghur alphabet: Uyghur
Type
Alphabets
LanguagesUyghur
Parent systems
Unicode range
U+0600 to U+06FF

U+0750 to U+077F
U+FB50 to U+FDFF

U+FE70 to U+FEFF
Uyghur alphabet
ئا ئە ب پ ت ج چ خ د ر ز ژ س ش غ ف ق ك گ ڭ ل م ن ھ ئو ئۇ ئۆ ئۈ ۋ ئې ئى ي
Extended Perso-Arabic script

The first Perso-Arabic derived alphabet for Uyghur was developed in the 10th century, when Islam was introduced there. The version used for writing the Chagatai language. It became the regional literary language, now known as the Chagatay alphabet. It was used nearly exclusively up to the early 1920s. Alternative Uyghur scripts then began emerging and collectively largely displaced Chagatai; Kona Yëziq, meaning "old script", now distinguishes it and UEY from the alternatives that are not derived from Arabic. Between 1937 and 1954, the Perso-Arabic alphabet used to write Uyghur was modified by removing redundant letters and adding markings for vowels.[2][3] A Cyrillic alphabet was adopted in the 1950s and a Latin alphabet in 1958.[4] The modern Uyghur Perso-Arabic alphabet was made official in 1978 and reinstituted by the Chinese government in 1983, with modifications for representing Uyghur vowels.[5][6][7][8]

The Arabic alphabet used before the modifications (Kona Yëziq) did not represent Uyghur vowels and according to Robert Barkley Shaw, spelling was irregular and long vowel letters were frequently written for short vowels since most Turki speakers were unsure of the difference between long and short vowels.[9] The pre-modification alphabet used Arabic diacritics (zabar, zer and pesh) to mark short vowels.[10]

Robert Shaw wrote that Turki writers either "inserted or omitted" the letters for the long vowels ا ,و and ي at their own fancy so multiple spellings of the same word could occur and the ة was used to represent a short a by some Turki writers.[11][12][13]

The reformed modern Uyghur Arabic alphabet eliminated letters whose sounds were found only in Arabic and spelled Arabic and Persian loanwords such as Islamic religious words, as they were pronounced in Uyghur and not as they were originally spelled in Arabic or Persian.

MS Windows Uyghur keyboard layout. In this keyboard layout, vowels use the older alphabet from the Arabic script and not the newer plain letters of the Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi alphabet (composed of pairs of Arabic letters, starting with an alef with hamza that must be entered separately on this keyboard before the actual vowel). The keyboard layout is also based on the older Latin alphabet used for the Mixed Uyghur Yëngi Yëziq and does not allow entering all vowels correctly for the current Arabic script. It more closely matches the older Chatagai script, which is now deprecated for Uyghur and is considered suitable only for the Kona Yëziq, i.e. "old script".
Alphabetical order for the traditional Perso-Arabic Script (Kona Yëziq) used before the 20th century
Letterا‎ب‎پ‎ت‎ج‎چ‎ح‎خ‎د‎ر‎ز‎س‎ش‎
Latinabptjchhkhdrzssh
Letterع‎غ‎ف‎ق‎ك‎گ‎نگ‎ل‎م‎ن‎و‎ھ‎ى‎
LatinainGh, Ghainfqkgnglmnw, o, uhy, e, i
Vowel marks used for the traditional Perso-Arabic Script used before the twentieth century
Letterـَ‎ـِ‎ـُ‎
Namezabarzerpesh
Letterا‎ي‎و‎
Namealifyewáo
Alphabetical order for reformed modern Uyghur Arabic Script
Letterئا،ا‎ئە،ە‎ب‎پ‎ت‎ج‎چ‎خ‎د‎ر‎ز‎ژ‎س‎ش‎غ‎ف‎
IPAɑ,aɛ,æbptdʒtʃχ,xdr,ɾzʒsʃʁ,ɣf,ɸ
Letterق‎ك‎گ‎ڭ‎ل‎م‎ن‎ھ‎ئو،و‎ئۇ،ۇ‎ئۆ،ۆ‎ئۈ،ۈ‎ۋ‎ئې،ې‎ئى،ى‎ي‎
IPAqkgŋlmnh,ɦo,ɔu,ʊøy,ʏw,vei,ɨj

Several of these alternatives were influenced by security-policy considerations of the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China. (Soviet Uyghur areas experienced several non-Arabic alphabets and the former CIS countries, especially Kazakhstan, now use primarily a Cyrillic-based alphabet, called Uyghur Siril Yëziqi.)

A Pinyin-derived Latin-based alphabet (with additional letters borrowed from Cyrillic), then called “New script” or Uyghur Yëngi Yëziq or UYY, was for a time the only officially approved alphabet used for Uyghur in Xinjiang. It had technical shortcomings and met social resistance; Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi (UEY), an expansion of the old Chagatai alphabet based on the Arabic script, is now recognized, along with a newer Latin-based alphabet called Uyghur Latin Yëziqi or ULY, replacing the former Pinyin-derived alphabet; UEY is sometimes intended when the term "Kona Yëziq" is used.[14]

Old alphabet compared to modern
Old Perso-Arabic alphabet (Kona Yëziq) used before the 20th century Modern Uyghur Arabic alphabet Latin Meaning
بغرا بۇغرا bughra bull camel
ارسلان ئارىسلان arislan lion
سلطان سۇلتان sultan sultan
يوسف يۈسۈپ Yüsüp Yusuf
حسن ھەسەن Hesen Hassan
خلق خەلق xelq people
كافر كاپىر kapir infidel
مسلمان مۇسۇلمان musulman Muslim
منافق مۇناپىق munapiq hypocrite
اسلام ئىسلام Islam Islam
دين دىن din religion
كاشقر قەشقەر Qeshqer Kashgar
ختن خوتەن Xoten Khotan
ينگي حصار يېڭىسار Yëngisar Yangi Hissar
ساريق قول سارىقول Sariqol Sarikol
قيرغيز قىرغىز Qirghiz Kirghiz
دولان دولان Dolan Dolan people
كوندوز كۈندۈز kündüz day-time
ساريغ or ساريق سېرىق sériq yellow
مارالباشي مارالبېشى Maralbëshi Maralbexi County
لونگي لۇنگى Lun'gi Lungi
آلتی شهر ئالتە شەھەر Alte sheher Altishahr
آفاق خواجه ئاپاق خوجا Apaq Xoja Afaq Khoja
پيچاق پىچاق pichaq knife
gollark: Fascinating.
gollark: ~~I expect incompetent governments would have been about equally incompetent, subject to random variation.~~ Actually, with this and level of trust in governments there are probably long-term complex things here I have no idea about.
gollark: Maybe contact tracing would have been somewhat better with 2029 technology; there seems to be a lot of work on position/thing sensing using mobile devices' radios and such now, and by then it would probably have matured. (Yes, this is overly specific, but things)
gollark: And remote work and associated tooling would probably be further along.
gollark: We might have had somewhat better medical technology to combat it with initially, I guess.

References
  1. XUAR Government Document No. XH-1982-283
  2. Zhou, Minglang (2003). Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages, 1949-2002. Walter de Gruyter. pp. 166–. ISBN 978-3-11-017896-8.
  3. Johanson, Éva Ágnes Csató; Johanson, Lars (1 September 2003). The Turkic Languages. Taylor & Francis. pp. 387–. ISBN 978-0-203-06610-2.
  4. Benson, Linda; Svanberg, Ingvar (11 March 1998). China's Last Nomads: The History and Culture of China's Kazaks. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 174–. ISBN 978-0-7656-4059-8.
  5. Dillon, Michael (1999). China's Muslim Hui Community: Migration, Settlement and Sects. Psychology Press. pp. 159–. ISBN 978-0-7007-1026-3.
  6. Starr, S. Frederick (15 March 2004). Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 195–. ISBN 978-0-7656-3192-3.
  7. Dillon, Michael (23 October 2003). Xinjiang: China's Muslim Far Northwest. Routledge. pp. 27–. ISBN 978-1-134-36096-3.
  8. Millward, James A. (2007). Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang. Columbia University Press. pp. 236–. ISBN 978-0-231-13924-3.
  9. Robert Shaw (1878). A Sketch of the Turki Language: As Spoken in Eastern Turkistan ... pp. 13-.
  10. Robert Shaw (1878). A Sketch of the Turki Language: As Spoken in Eastern Turkistan ... pp. 15-.
  11. Shaw 1878
  12. Shaw 1878
  13. Shaw 1878
  14. Duval, Jean Rahman; Janbaz, Waris Abdukerim (2006). "An Introduction to Latin-Script Uyghur" (PDF). Salt Lake City: University of Utah: 1–2. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

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