Old Uyghur

Old Uyghur
Old Uyghur
Native to	Uyghur Khaganate, Qocho, Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom
Region	Mongolia, Hami, Turpan, Gansu
Era	9th–14th century
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Siberian Turkic East Old Turkic Old Uyghur; ; ; ;
Writing system	Old Turkic script,[1] Old Uyghur alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	oui
Glottolog	oldu1238

Old Uyghur (simplified Chinese: 回鹘语; traditional Chinese: 回鶻語; pinyin: Huíhú yǔ; Old Uyghur:) was a Turkic language which was spoken in Qocho from the 9th–14th centuries and in Gansu.

History

Uyghur inscription on the east interior wall of the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass.

Uyghur inscription on the west interior wall of the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass.

The Old Uyghur language evolved from Old Turkic after the Uyghur Khaganate broke up and remnants of it migrated to Turfan, Qomul (later Hami) and Gansu in the 9th century. The Uyghurs in Turfan and Qomul founded Qocho and adopted Manichaeism and Buddhism as their religions, while those in Gansu first founded the Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom and became subjects of the Western Xia; and their descendants are the Yugur.

The Kingdom of Qocho survived as a client state of the Mongol Empire but was conquered by the Muslim Chagatai Khanate which conquered Turfan and Qomul and Islamisized the region. The Old Uyghur language then became extinct in Turfan and Qomul.

The modern Uyghur language is not descended from Old Uyghur; rather, it is a descendant of the Karluk languages spoken by the Kara-Khanid Khanate,[2] in particular the Xākānī language described by Mahmud al-Kashgari while Western Yugur is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur and is also called "Neo-Uygur" according to Gerard Clauson.[3]

According to Frederik Coene and Martina Roos, Modern Uyghur and Western Yugur belong to entirely different branches of the Turkic language family, respectively southeastern (Karluk) and northeastern (Siberian Turkic).[4][5]

Features

Old Uyghur had an anticipating counting system and a copula dro, which is passed on to Western Yugur.[6]

Literature

Much of Old Uyghur literature is religious texts regarding Manichaeism and Buddhism,[7] with examples found among the Dunhuang manuscripts. Multilingual inscriptions including Old Uyghur can be found at the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass and the Stele of Sulaiman.

Script

Qocho, the Uyghur kingdom created in 843, originally used the "runic" Old Turkic alphabet with a "anïγ" dialect. The Old Uyghur alphabet was adopted from local inhabitants, along with a "ayïγ" dialect, when they migrated into Turfan after 840.[8]

References

Citations

Marcel Erdal (1991). Old Turkic Word Formation: A Functional Approach to the Lexicon. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 5–. ISBN 978-3-447-03084-7.
Arik 2008, p. 145
Clauson 1965, p. 57.
Coene 2009, p. 75.
Roos, Martina Erica. 2000. The Western Yugur (Yellow Yugur) Language: Grammar, Texts, Vocabulary. Diss. University of Leiden. Leiden, page 5.
Chen et al, 1985
"西域、敦煌文献所见回鹊之佛经翻译". Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-05-19. Retrieved 2015-09-07.
Sinor, D. (1998), "Chapter 13 – Language situation and scripts", in Asimov, M.S.; Bosworth, C.E. (eds.), History of Civilisations of Central Asia, vol. 4 part II, UNESCO Publishing, p. 333, ISBN 81-208-1596-3

Sources

Arik, Kagan (2008). Austin, Peter (ed.). One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered, and Lost (illustrated ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 978-0520255609. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
Chén Zōngzhèn & Léi Xuǎnchūn. 1985. Xībù Yùgùyǔ Jiānzhì [Concise grammar of Western Yugur]. Peking.
Clauson, Gerard (April 1965). "Review An Eastern Turki-English Dictionary by Gunnar Jarring". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1/2). JSTOR 25202808.
Coene, Frederik (8 October 2009). The Caucasus – An Introduction. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-203-87071-6.