Uyghur (also known as Uighur, Uygur, Uigur, Weiwuer) is a member of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family. It is spoken by 7.2 million people in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China, also known as Chinese Turkestan, Eastern Turkistan, or Uyghuristan. Its capital is Ürümqi. It is also spoken by some 300,000 people in Kazakhstan. In addition, there are Uyghur-speaking communities in most countries of Central Asia, as well as in the United States and United Kingdom. The total population of Uyghur speakers around the world is estimated at 7.6 million people (Ethnologue).

In ancient times, the Uyghurs lived in an area of present-day Mongolia, where they had established a state which existed until 840 AD when it was defeated by Kyrgyz invaders. After their defeat, some Uyghurs moved to Ordos in northern China. They are believed to be the ancestors of Yugur, or Yellow Uyghurs, whose language is different from Uyghur. A much larger group of Uyghurs moved to Turfan in northeastern China, where they established another state which endured until the 15th century. These people spoke what is now the Turfan and Qashgar dialects of Uyghur.

Following the establishment of the Central Asian kingdom Chagatai Khanate, the term Uyghur gradually disappeared. The official language was Chagatai, an artificial literary language based on Uyghur and Uzbek. The term Uyghur re-appeared in 1921 when it was officially re-eastablished as the name of the Uyghur people.

Standard Modern Uyghur differs from the Uyghur spoken before the establishment of the Chagatai Khanate. In the 19th century, large numbers of Uyghurs from different parts of Eastern Turkestan settled in areas along the Ili River. Their dialect arose from a mixture of the varieties spoken by the new settlers and the local Ili variety that played a dominant role in the formation of modern standard Uyghur.

• China
  The Uyghurs are one of the fifty-six official nationalities in China, and Uyghur is the official regional language of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. It is widely used in all domains, including education and print and electronic media with over 50 newspapers and magazines, and half-a-dozen TV channels. Education in Uyghur is available from the secondary to the university level (the latter requires proficiency in Chinese as well). Monolingual speakers are found mostly among the older population. Most young people and educated Uyghurs speak Chinese.
• Kazakhstan
  Of the 300,000 Uyghur speakers in Kazakhstan, over 80% speak it as their first language. Most young people and educated Uyghurs also speak Russian.

Ethnologue identifies three dialect groups of Uyghur which are further broken down into subdialects.

Standard Uyghur is based on on the Ili dialect.

• Between the 8th and the 16th century, Uyghur was written with an alphabet known as Old Uyghur which was based on old Sogdian which itself was derived from Syriac. The Old Uyghur alphabet was written from left to right in vertical columns. Letters had three different shapes, depending on their position in a word: initial, medial, or final.Below are the three versions of the letter "m."

• From the the 16th century until the early 20th century, Uyghur was written with the Chagatai version of the Arabic alphabet.
• During the 20th century, Uyghur was written with several versions of the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets adapted to represent the sounds of Uyghur.
• In 1987, Arabic script, known as Қona yezik, replaced the Latin alphabet as the official script for writing Uyghur in China. In this version, all vowels are spelled out.

Click here to find out where Uyghur is taught in the United States.
Click here to find materials for studying Uyghur.

Online resources for the study of Uyghur
Indiana University Center for Central Asian Region
Ethnologue report on Uyghur
UCLA language profile for Uighur
Wikipedia article on Uyghur language
Omniglot guide to Uyghur alphabets
Central Asian Language Modules
Uyghur Dictionaries
Orientaal's links to Uyghur
UyghurLanguage.com
Uyghur American Association