Uyghur Arabic alphabet

The Uyghur Arabic alphabet (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر ئەرەب يېزىقى, romanized: Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi or UEY) is a version of the Arabic alphabet used for writing the Uyghur language, primarily by Uyghurs living in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is one of several Uyghur alphabets and has been the official alphabet of the Uyghur language since 1982.[1]

Uyghur alphabet ئۇيغۇر يېزىقى
Example of writing in the Uyghur alphabet: Uyghur
Script type	Alphabet
Languages	Uyghur, Sarikoli
Related scripts
Parent systems	Proto-Sinaitic Phoenician Aramaic Nabataean Arabic Perso-Arabic Uyghur alphabet
Unicode
Unicode range	U+0600 to U+06FF U+0750 to U+077F U+FB50 to U+FDFF U+FE70 to U+FEFF

The first Perso-Arabic derived alphabet for Uyghur was developed in the 10th century, when Islam was introduced there. The alphabet was used for writing the Chagatai language, the regional literary language, and is now known as the Chagatay alphabet (Uyghur: كونا يېزىق, romanized: Kona Yëziq, lit. 'old script'). It was used nearly exclusively up to the early 1920s. This alphabet did not represent Uyghur vowels and according to Robert Barkley Shaw, spelling was irregular and long vowel letters were frequently written for short vowels since most Turki speakers were unsure of the difference between long and short vowels.[2] The pre-modification alphabet used Arabic diacritics (zabar, zer and pesh) to mark short vowels.[3] Also, the ة‎ was used to represent a short [a] by some Turki writers.[4][5][6]

Alternative Uyghur scripts then began emerging and collectively largely displaced Chagatai. Between 1937 and 1954, the Perso-Arabic alphabet used to write Uyghur was modified by removing redundant letters and adding markings for vowels.[7][8] The Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet was introduced around 1937, and the Latin-based Uyghur New Script in 1958.[9] The modern Uyghur Perso-Arabic alphabet was made official in 1978 and reinstituted by the Chinese government in 1983, with modifications for representing Uyghur vowels.[10][11][12][13]

The reformed modern Uyghur Arabic alphabet eliminated letters whose sounds were found only in Arabic and spelled Arabic and Persian loanwords such as Islamic religious words, as they were pronounced in Uyghur and not as they were originally spelled in Arabic or Persian.