Old Uyghur () was a Turkic language spoken in Qocho from the 9th–14th centuries as well as in

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

History

Old Uyghur evolved from Old Turkic, a Siberian Turkic language, after the Uyghur Khaganate broke up and remnants of it migrated to Turfan, Qomul (later Hami), and

in the ninth century. The Uyghurs in Turfan and Qomul founded Qocho and adopted Manichaeism and

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

as their religions, while those in Gansu first founded the Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom and became subjects of the Western Xia; their descendants are the Yugurs of Gansu. The Western Yugur language is the descendant of Old Uyghur. The Kingdom of Qocho survived as a client state of the

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...

but was conquered by the Muslim Chagatai Khanate, which conquered Turfan and Qomul and Islamized the region. Old Uyghur then became extinct in Turfan and Qomul. The Uyghur language that is the official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is not descended from Old Uyghur. It is a descendant of the Karluk languages spoken in the Kara-Khanid Khanate, in particular the ''Khākānī'' language described by Mahmud al-Kashgari. The only surviving descendant of Old Uyghur is Yellow Yughur, spoken in the

region of China.

Features

Old Uyghur had an anticipating counting system, which is passed on to Western Yugur.

Literature

Much of Old Uyghur literature is religious texts regarding Manichaeism and

, 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.

References

Citations

Sources

* * Chén Zōngzhèn & Léi Xuǎnchūn. 1985. Xībù Yùgùyǔ Jiānzhì oncise grammar of Western Yugur Peking. * *