Uyghur Arabic alphabet facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Uyghur alphabet
Example of writing in the Uyghur alphabet: Uyghur
Type	Alphabet
Spoken languages	Uyghur, Sarikoli
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Arabic Perso-Arabic Uyghur alphabet
Unicode range	U+0600 to U+06FF U+0750 to U+077F U+FB50 to U+FDFF U+FE70 to U+FEFF
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

The Uyghur Arabic alphabet (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر ئەرەب يېزىقى, romanized: Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi or UEY) is a special version of the Arabic alphabet. It is used to write the Uyghur language, mostly by Uyghurs who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This alphabet is one of several ways the Uyghur language can be written. It has been the official alphabet for Uyghur since 1982.

The very first alphabet for Uyghur that came from the Perso-Arabic script was created around the 10th century. This happened when Islam became known in the area. This early alphabet was used to write the Chagatai language, which was a common written language back then. Today, we call it the Chagatai alphabet (Uyghur: كونا يېزىق, romanized: Kona Yëziq, lit. 'old script'). It was almost the only alphabet used until the early 1920s.

However, the Chagatai alphabet had some challenges. It didn't always show the Uyghur vowel sounds clearly. Also, its spelling could be a bit mixed up. Sometimes, letters meant for long vowel sounds were used for short ones. This was because many people speaking Turki (an older form of Uyghur) found it hard to tell the difference between long and short vowels. The older alphabet used special Arabic diacritics (small marks) to show short vowel sounds.

How the Uyghur Alphabet Changed Over Time

Over time, new ways to write Uyghur started to appear. These new alphabets slowly took the place of the Chagatai alphabet. Between 1937 and 1954, the Perso-Arabic alphabet used for Uyghur was updated. Some letters that were not needed were removed, and new marks were added to show vowel sounds better.

Later, other alphabets were introduced. The Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet came around 1937. Then, a Latin-based alphabet called the Uyghur New Script was created in 1958. The modern Uyghur Perso-Arabic alphabet we use today became official in 1978. The Chinese government made it official again in 1983, with more changes to help show Uyghur vowel sounds correctly.

The modern Uyghur Arabic alphabet was made simpler. It removed letters that were only used for sounds found in Arabic. Also, words borrowed from Arabic and Persian, like religious terms, are now spelled as they sound in Uyghur. They are not spelled the way they were originally written in Arabic or Persian.

What is the Current Official Uyghur Alphabet?

The table below shows all 32 letters of the official Uyghur alphabet used in Xinjiang. The letters are listed in alphabetical order. It also shows how each letter sounds using the IPA.

• Note:* The letter ئ‎ can also make a /ʔ/ sound. This sound is usually not noticed at the beginning of words. But you can hear it in the middle of a word, like in سائەت /saʔɛt/ which means hour.

How Suffixes Are Spelled

Uyghur spelling was greatly influenced by the older Chagatai language. The way suffixes (word endings) are spelled in Uyghur often matches the Chagatai spellings. These spellings stayed mostly the same over time.

Here is a short list of how some suffixes are spelled and their different forms based on vowel harmony (where vowels in a word change to match each other). In the past, some Chagatai suffixes were separated from the main word. But in modern Uyghur, the word and its suffix are usually joined together.

Comparing Old and Modern Spellings

It's interesting to see how words were spelled in the older Perso-Arabic alphabet (Kona Yëziq) compared to the modern Uyghur Arabic alphabet. The modern alphabet makes it easier to read and write Uyghur words.

Images for kids

• 

  This image shows a computer keyboard layout for Uyghur. Notice how vowel sounds are made using two Arabic letters, starting with an alef with hamza. You have to type these separately. This keyboard was designed based on an older Latin alphabet for Uyghur.

See also

In Spanish: Alfabeto uigur para niños