View source for Old Uyghur language

{{Infobox language
|name=Old Uyghur
|nativename=
|era=9th–14th century
|states=[[Uyghur Khaganate]], [[Kingdom of Qocho]], [[Gansu Uyghur Kingdom]]
|region=[[Hami City]], [[Turpan]], [[Gansu]]
|familycolor=Altaic
|fam1=[[Turkic languages|Turkic]]
|fam2=[[Common Turkic languages|Common Turkic]]
|fam3=[[Siberian Turkic languages|Siberian]]
|ancestor=[[Old Turkic language]]
|script=[[Old Turkic alphabet]],<ref name="Erdal1991">{{cite book|author=Marcel Erdal|title=Old Turkic Word Formation: A Functional Approach to the Lexicon|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1r6EeUA2s8oC&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false|year=1991|publisher=Otto Harrassowitz Verlag|isbn=978-3-447-03084-7|pages=5–}}</ref> [[Old Uyghur alphabet]] 
|iso3=oui
|glotto=oldu1238
|glottorefname=Old Uighur
}}

The '''Old Uyghur language''' ({{zh|t=回鶻語|回鶻語|s=回鹘语|回鹘语|p=Huíhú yǔ}}) was a [[Turkic languages|Turkic language]] which was spoken in the [[Kingdom of Qocho]] from the 9th–14th centuries and in [[Gansu]].

==History==
[[File:Yuntai Uyghur east wall.jpg|thumb|Uyghur inscription on the east interior wall of the [[Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass]].]]

[[File:Yuntai Uyghur west wall.jpg|thumb|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 Gansu and Turfan and Hami in the 9th century. The Uyghurs in Turfan and Qomul founded the [[Kingdom of Qocho]] and adopted Manichaeism and Buddhism as their religions, while those in Gansu first founded the [[Gansu Uyghur Kingdom]] (Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom) and then 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 [[Uyghur language]] is not descended from Old Uyghur; rather, it is a descendant of the [[Karluk languages]] spoken by the [[Kara-Khanid Khanate]],<ref>Arik 2008, p. 145</ref> in particular the ''Xākānī'' language described by [[Mahmud al-Kashgari]] while [[Western Yugur language|Western Yugur]] is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur, and is also called "Neo-Uygur" according to Gerard Clauson.{{sfn|Clauson|1965p=57}} 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 languages|Siberian Turkic]]).{{sfn|Coene|2009|p=75}}<ref>Roos, Martina Erica. 2000. The Western Yugur (Yellow Yugur) Language: Grammar, Texts, Vocabulary. Diss. University of Leiden. Leiden, page 5.</ref>

==Features==
Old Uyghur had an anticipating counting system and a [[copula (linguistics)|copula]] ''dro'', which is passed on to Western Yugur.<ref>Chen et al, 1985</ref>

==Literature==
Much of Old Uyghur literature is religious texts regarding [[Manichaeism]] and [[Buddhism]],<ref>[http://hk.plm.org.cn/e_book/xz-11348.pdf 西域、 敦煌文献所见回鹊之佛经翻译]{{dead link|date=March 2014}}</ref> 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==
{{main article|Old Uyghur alphabet}}
Old Uyghur was written in the [[Old Uyghur alphabet]] which was derived from the [[Sogdian alphabet]].

==References==
{{reflist}}
* {{cite book|title= One Thousand Languages: Living, Endangered, and Lost |first=Kagan|last=Arik|editor-first=Peter|editor-last=Austin|volume=|edition=illustrated|year=2008|publisher=University of California Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3tAqIU0dPsC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false|isbn=0520255607|accessdate=10 March 2014| ref = {{harvid||}} }}
* Chén Zōngzhèn & Léi Xuǎnchūn. 1985. Xībù Yùgùyǔ Jiānzhì [Concise grammar of Western Yugur]. Peking.
* {{Cite journal | ref=harv | last1 = Clauson | first1 = Gerard  | last2 = | first2 =  | year = Apr 1965 | title = Review  An Eastern Turki-English Dictionary by Gunnar Jarring | journal = The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland  | volume =  | issue =  1/2 | publisher = Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland | jstor = 25202808}}
* {{cite book|ref=harv|last=Coene|first=Frederik|title=The Caucasus - An Introduction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FqFMmVbfRfEC&pg=PA75|date=8 October 2009|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-203-87071-6}}

==Further reading==
*[https://archive.org/details/tisastvustikeini00tishuoft Tisastvustik; ein in türkischer Sprache bearbeitetes buddhistisches Sutra. I. Transcription und Übersetzung von W. Radloff. II. Bemerkungen zu den Brahmiglossen des Tisastvustik-Manuscripts (Mus. A. Kr. VII) von Baron A. von Stäel-Holstein (1910)]
*{{cite book|author=Kahar Barat|title=The Uygur-Turkic Biography of the Seventh-Century Chinese Buddhist Pilgrim Xuanzang: Ninth and Tenth Chapters|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NilkAAAAMAAJ|year=2000|publisher=Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies|isbn=978-0-933070-46-2}}
*{{cite book|author=Giovanni Stary|title=Proceedings of the 38th Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC): Kawasaki, Japan, August 7-12, 1995|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rlULAQAAMAAJ|year=1996|publisher=Harrassowitz Verlag in Kommission|isbn=978-3-447-03801-0}}

{{Turkic languages}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yugur, Western, Language}}
[[Category:Agglutinative languages]]
[[Category:Uyghurs]]
[[Category:Turkic languages]]
[[Category:Languages of China]]
[[Category:Extinct languages of Asia]]