Ouïghour

This page relates to the language ouïghoure . For the people of Ouïghours, to see the article Ouïghours .

The ouïghour (in ouïghour: RTL ug ئۇيغۇرچە or RTL ug ئۇيغۇرتىلى tili; in Mandarin 维吾尔语 Wéiwúěryǔ ; Russian Уйгурский ) is a language belonging to the group of the Turkish Langues of the family of the altaïques Langues. He is spoken in Central Asia, mainly with the Xinjiang (eight million speakers), and with the Kazakhstan. In French, one can find the name written in the following forms: ouïgour, ouigour, ouighour, uigur.

The writings ouïghoures

The ouïghour was initially written in an alphabet derived from the Sogdien. As from the year 1000, texts ouïghours in Arabic alphabet appear, following the conversion of Ouïghours to the Islam. In 1956, the Cyrillic alphabet is adopted, but, as of 1959, one gives up it for the Latin alphabet. In 1981, the Chinese authorities decide return to the Arab writing to satisfy the claims of the Moslem elites ouïghoures.

The Arab writing ouïghoure

The Latin writing ouïghoure

The UKY (“Uyghur Kompyutér Yéziqi” or Latin writing ouïghoure), created by a committee of users, data processing specialists and linguists in 2001 like forms single romanisation in the data-processing context, uses the Latin alphabet with the most common value of the letters in the international community and by at least limiting the recourse to diacritics. It thus aims at solving the problems of entry of the ouïghour writes in the alphabets currently of use (arabo - Persan, Pinyin, Turkish Cyrillique or even ) without to add the difficulty of training of a system of too complex transcription. It should be specified here that until the appearance of the UKY, Ouïghours were constrained to have recourse to the Chinese or to create their own transcriptions, often not very systematic, to use the computer or to communicate on the Web. Thus, the letter Q could often transcribe the sound as well as the sound and the letter X generally represented the sound. The authorities of the Xinjiang decided to allow the use of the UKY on an experimental basis, which enabled him to take a fast rise. Today, certain Internet sites ouïghours and some books ouïghours on line use this transcription. There exist several software to convert between the UKY, Cyrillic the ouïghour and the writing arabo-Persian.

The introduction of the UKY does not aim at putting an end to the existence of the writing arabo-Persian. Indeed, there exists more and more of computer programs in writing arabo-Persian but socio-economic realities of the areas ouïghoures combine with the technical difficulties to limit the range of it.

Classification

The ouïghour belongs to the Turkish Langues of the east, which are gathered by certain linguists in the altaïques Langues.

Geographical distribution

The ouïghour is spoken by 8,5 million people (figures of 2004) in China, mainly in the province of Xinjiang. The ouïghour is also spoken by 300.000 people with the Kazakhstan and there exist communities ouïghourophones in Afghanistan, in Australia, Germany, India, Indonesia, with the Kirghizstan, in Mongolia, with the Pakistan, in Saudi Arabia, with Taiwan, the Tadjikistan, in Turkey, with the the United Kingdom, the the United States and in Ouzbékistan.

What the ouïghour?

Ouïghours constitute today most important (officially, nearly 9 million) of the national minorities recognized of the Autonomous region of Xinjiang (“new territory”) of China, that Ouïghours call Eastern Turkestan. Ouïghours, populates Turkish language whose name would mean “alliance, unit”, traditionally live in Central Asia, in the Oasis of the Taklamakan, the basins of Turfan and the Dzoungarie and in part of the Ferghana. The Empire ouïghour of Mongolia and the kingdoms which succeeded to him in Central Asia (Abdushükür Muhemmetimin, 2002) knew a brilliant civilization, until their absorption in the Mongolian Empire at the 13th century. During this history, Ouïghours adopted the Chamanisme, the Manichéisme, the Bouddhisme and the Nestorianisme for finally converting with the Islam sunnite as from the moment when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in 751, opening the way with the Islamization of the Central Asia. Under the influence of these religions, Ouïghours used successively and sometimes in a competing way a great number of written forms (turco-runic, Brahmi, Tokharien, Sogdien) before developing on the basis of the one of the alphabets sogdiens their own graphic system, called since writing old ouïghoure. The arrival of Islam and the absorption of the areas of settlement ouïghour in the empire Moslem turco-Mongolian of the descendants of Gengis Khan (empire Djaghataï) brought the progressive replacement of this writing by a arabo-Persan alphabet, but it passed to the Mongolian then to the Mandchous

Today, Ouïghours of the Autonomous region ouïghoure of China, after twenty years of romanisation on the basis of system inspired of the pinyin Chinese, use the arabo-Persan alphabet again (henceforth “writing ouïghoure”), but in a modified form. The last reform of alphabet ouïghour was carried out in 1983. Today, modified Arabic is the official writing of the autonomous region ouïghoure of China, which is composed of twenty-four Consonne S and eight Voyelle S. It comprises twenty-seven modified Arab letters and five letters Persians.

Official statute

The Ouïghours are one of the fifty-five minorities recognized of China, and the ouïghour is the official language of the Xinjiang.

Dialects

The dialects listed are the central ouïghour, the hotan (or hetian ) and the lop (or luobu ).

Phonology

The syllabic structure can be C V, CVC or CVCC. The ouïgour is not a tonal Langue.

Grammar

The ouïghour is a language SOV, it employs Postposition S, the complements of a name are before this one. The interrogative words are at the beginning of sentence. It is there Préfixe S and Suffixe S. the names can be under 8 different Cas, indicated by suffixes. The verbs carry the number, the person and one of the 3 degrees of respect.

Vocabulary

It comes mainly from the Turkish languages, but following the example Uzbek , it integrated many words of Persian origin . Many international words were introduced in ouïgour via the Russian , and one finds there also loans recent with the Mandarin.

Examples

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