The Language Choices and Script Debates among the Uyghur in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China

Abstract

The overwhelming majority of the more than 10 million Uyghur – Turkic Muslims who inhabit Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China – speaks the Uyghur language. Currently, Uyghur is written with the help of a modified Arabic script, just as it was in Xinjiang before the 1920s. Yet the majority of the twentieth century abounded in linguistic experiments and frequent switches between Cyrillic-, Latin- and Arabic-based alphabets. This paper focuses on changes made to written Uyghur following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. It also discusses the current prospects of Uyghur script in Xinjiang in light of three significant developments: The government's plan to broadly introduce bilingual education (shuangyu jiaoyu) for the Uyghur; the growing emphasis on the use of standard Chinese in Xinjiang's public space and in official communication; and the growing use of Latin-based transliterations in Internet and mobile-phone communication.