Uyghur Written Language and Lexicography

Abstract

The Uyghur written language is a young written language that is the continuation of the Chagatai written language. While the Chagatai written language left its place to new written languages in the first quarter of the 20th century, it continued to be localized in East Turkestan until the 1950s. The years between 1950 and 1980 is a period of uncertainty for the emerging new Uyghur written language. The reason for this uncertainty is the alphabet change discussions on the one hand and the “Cultural Revolution” that started in China on the other. The life of the Latin alphabet, which was adopted after the Cultural Revolution, lasted only nine years and the Uighur Turks started to use the Arabic alphabet again in 1983. This period of thirty years of uncertainty has been influential in the current state of the Uyghur written language. Studies on the language used in East Turkestan coincide with the end of the 1800s. However, it can be said that the studies carried out in this period formed the basis for the policies that would first be implemented by governments of the Republic of China and Tsarist Russia, and later by the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union in the East Turkestan and on the Uyghurs. Grammar and lexicography studies, which started intensively among Uyghurs in the 1980s, emerged on the basis of studies conducted by foreigners until this period, and the purposes of these studies were not questioned. In the studies carried out on this subject, it is noteworthy that the region is mentioned as the Uyghur Autonomous region and the language as Uyghur in the studies carried out within the borders of the Soviet Union, while the studies conducted in Europe refer to the region as a dialect of compilations made from the “Eastern Turkestan” language in Turkish. Those working on the subject in Turkey preferred the terminology used by the scientists of the Soviet Union. In addition, considering that people of Uyghur origin came to Turkey from East Turkestan in the 1960s, it cannot be said that there were serious studies on this issue until the 1990s. The reasons behind the scientific studies started to be published one after the other like a heavy rain in the 1980s is the Chinese government’s effort to open up the issue as well as the awareness of the people of the region, which has been the cultural center of the Turkish world for a long time. Although most of the works are through institutions under the control of the Chinese government, the giving of thousands of works in a short time can be explained by the literacy and fondness of the people of the region, while the written language has also entered the course of development.

Ethical committee approval is not required for this research.

The author declares no conflicts of interest in this study.

This research received no external funding.