Uyghur People

The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the titular nationality of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.

The Uyghurs have traditionally inhabited a series of oases scattered across the Taklamakan Desert within the Tarim Basin. These oases have historically existed as independent states or were controlled by many civilizations including China, the Mongols, the Tibetans, and various Turkic polities. The Uyghurs gradually started to become Islamized in the 10th century, and most Uyghurs identified as Muslims by the 16th century. Islam has since played an important role in Uyghur culture and identity.

An estimated 80% of Xinjiang's Uyghurs still live in the Tarim Basin. The rest of Xinjiang's Uyghurs mostly live in Ghulja, Qaramay, Chocek and Ürümqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, which is located in the historical region of Dzungaria. The largest community of Uyghurs living outside of Xinjiang are the Taoyuan Uyghurs of north-central Hunan's Taoyuan County. Significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in other Turkic countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. Smaller communities live in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Australia, Japan, Canada, Russia, Sweden, and the United States.

Since 2014, the Chinese government has been accused by various governments and organizations, such as Human Rights Watch of subjecting Uyghurs living in Xinjiang to widespread persecution, including forced sterilization and forced labor. Scholars estimate that at least one million Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained in the Xinjiang internment camps since 2017; Chinese government officials claim that these camps, created under CCP general secretary Xi Jinping's administration, serve the goals of ensuring adherence to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology, preventing separatism, fighting terrorism, and providing vocational training to Uyghurs. Various scholars, human rights organizations and governments consider abuses perpetrated against the Uyghurs to amount to crimes against humanity, or even genocide.

Etymology

In the Uyghur language, the ethnonym is written in Arabic script, Уйғур in Uyghur Cyrillic and ''Uyghur'' or ''Uygur'' (as the standard Chinese romanization, GB 3304–1991) in Latin; they are all pronounced as . In Chinese, this is transcribed into characters as / , which is romanized in pinyin as ''Wéiwú'ěr''.

In English, the name is officially spelled ''Uyghur'' by the Xinjiang government but also appears as ''Uighur'', ''Uigur'' and ''Uygur'' (these reflect the various Cyrillic spellings Уиғур, Уигур and Уйгур). The name is usually pronounced in English as (and thus may be preceded by the indefinite article "a"), although some Uyghurs advocate the use of a more native pronunciation instead (which, in contrast, calls for the indefinite article "an").

The term's original meaning is unclear. Old Turkic inscriptions record the word ''uyɣur'' (); an example is found on the Sudzi inscription, "I am khan ata of Yaglaqar, came from the Uigur land." (). It is transcribed into Tang annals as / (Mandarin: ''Huíhé'', but probably * �uɒiɣətin Middle Chinese). It was used as the name of one of the Turkic polities formed in the interim between the First and Second Göktürk Khaganates (AD630–684). The ''Old History of the Five Dynasties'' records that in 788 or 809, the Chinese acceded to a Uyghur request and emended their transcription to / (Mandarin: ''Huíhú'', but �uɒiɣuətin Middle Chinese).

Modern etymological explanations for the name ''Uyghur'' range from derivation from the verb "follow, accommodate oneself" and adjective "non-rebellious" (i.e., from Turkic ''uy/uð-'') to the verb meaning "wake, rouse or stir" (i.e., from Turkic ''oðğur-''). None of these is thought to be satisfactory because the sound shift of /ð/ and /ḏ/ to /j/ does not appear to be in place by this time. The etymology therefore cannot be conclusively determined and its referent is also difficult to fix. The "Huihe" and "Huihu" seem to be a political rather than a tribal designation or it may be one group among several others collectively known as the Toquz Oghuz. The name fell out of use in the 15th century, but was reintroduced in the early 20th century by the Soviet Bolsheviks to replace the previous terms '' Turk'' and ''Turki''. The name is currently used to refer to the settled Turkic urban dwellers and farmers of the Tarim Basin who follow traditional Central Asian sedentary practices, distinguishable from the nomadic Turkic populations in Central Asia.

The earliest record of a Uyghur tribe appears in accounts from the Northern Wei (4th–6th century A.D.), wherein they were named ''Yuanhe'' (< MC ZS *''ɦʉɐn-ɦət'') and derived from a confederation named / (lit. "High Carts"), read as ''Gāochē'' in Mandarin Chinese but originally with the reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation * ɑutɕʰĭa later known as the '' Tiele'' ( / , ''Tiělè''). ''Gāochē'' in turn has been connected to the Uyghur ''Qangqil'' ( or Қаңқил).

Identity

Throughout its history, the term ''Uyghur'' has had an increasingly expansive definition. Initially signifying only a small coalition of Tiele tribes in northern China, Mongolia and the Altai Mountains, it later denoted citizenship in the Uyghur Khaganate. Finally, it was expanded into an ethnicity whose ancestry originates with the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 842, causing Uyghur migration from Mongolia into the Tarim Basin. The Uyghurs who moved to the Tarim Basin mixed with the local Tocharians, and converted to the Tocharian religion, and adopted their culture of oasis agriculture. The fluid definition of ''Uyghur'' and the diverse ancestry of modern Uyghurs create confusion as to what constitutes true Uyghur ethnography and ethnogenesis. Contemporary scholars consider modern Uyghurs to be the descendants of a number of peoples, including the ancient Uyghurs of Mongolia migrating into the Tarim Basin after the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate, Iranic Saka tribes and other Indo-European peoples inhabiting the Tarim Basin before the arrival of the Turkic Uyghurs.

Uyghur activists identify with the Tarim mummies, remains of an ancient people inhabiting the region, but research into the genetics of ancient Tarim mummies and their links with modern Uyghurs remains problematic, both to Chinese government officials concerned with ethnic separatism and to Uyghur activists concerned the research could affect their indigenous claim.

A genomic study published in 2021 found that these early mummies had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry (ANE, about 72%), with smaller admixture from Ancient Northeast Asians (ANA, about 28%), but no detectable Western Steppe-related ancestry. They formed a genetically isolated local population that "adopted neighbouring pastoralist and agriculturalist practices, which allowed them to settle and thrive along the shifting riverine oases of the Taklamakan Desert." These mummified individuals were long suspected to have been " Proto-Tocharian-speaking pastoralists", ancestors of the Tocharians, but the authors of this study found no genetic connection with Indo-European-speaking migrants, particularly the Afanasievo or BMAC cultures.

Origin of modern nomenclature

The term "Uyghur" was not used to refer to a specific existing ethnicity in the 19th century: it referred to an 'ancient people'. A late-19th-century encyclopedia entitled ''The Cyclopædia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia'' said "the Uigur are the most ancient of Turkish tribes and formerly inhabited a part of Chinese Tartary (Xinjiang), now occupied by a mixed population of Turk, Mongol and Kalmuck". Before 1921/1934, Western writers called the Turkic-speaking Muslims of the oases "Turki" and the Turkic Muslims who had migrated from the Tarim Basin to Ili, Ürümqi and Dzungaria in the northern portion of Xinjiang during the Qing dynasty were known as " Taranchi", meaning "farmer". The Russians and other foreigners referred to them as "Sart", "Turk" or "Turki". In the early 20th century they identified themselves by different names to different peoples and in response to different inquiries: they called themselves Sarts in front of Kazakhs and Kyrgyz while they called themselves "Chantou" if asked about their identity after first identifying as a Muslim. The term "Chantou" ( zh, t=纏頭, p=Chántóu, labels=no, meaning "Turban Head") was used to refer to the Turkic Muslims of Altishahr (now Southern Xinjiang), including by Hui (Tungan) people. These groups of peoples often identify themselves by their originating oasis instead of an ethnicity; for example those from Kashgar may refer to themselves as Kashgarliq or Kashgari, while those from Hotan identity themselves as "Hotani". Other Central Asians once called all the inhabitants of Xinjiang's Southern oases Kashgari, a term still used in some regions of Pakistan. The Turkic people also used "Musulman", which means "Muslim", to describe themselves.

Rian Thum explored the concepts of identity among the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs in Altishahr (the native Uyghur name for Eastern Turkestan or Southern Xinjiang) before the adoption of the name "Uyghur" in the 1930s, referring to them by the name "Altishahri" in his article ''Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism''. Thum indicated that Altishahri Turkis did have a sense that they were a distinctive group separate from the Turkic Andijanis to their west, the nomadic Turkic Kirghiz, the nomadic Mongol Qalmaq and the Han Chinese Khitay before they became known as Uyghurs. There was no single name used for their identity; various native names Altishahris used for identify were Altishahrlik (Altishahr person), yerlik (local), Turki and Musulmān (Muslim); the term Musulmān in this situation did not signify religious connotations, because the Altishahris exclude other Muslim peoples like the Kirghiz while identifying themselves as Musulmān. Dr. Laura J Newby says the sedentary Altishahri Turkic people considered themselves separate from other Turkic Muslims since at least the 19th century.

The name "Uyghur" reappeared after the Soviet Union took the 9th-century ethnonym from the Uyghur Khaganate, then reapplied it to all non-nomadic Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang. It followed western European orientalists like Julius Klaproth in the 19th century who revived the name and spread the use of the term to local Turkic intellectuals and a 19th-century proposal from Russian historians that modern-day Uyghurs were descended from the Kingdom of Qocho and Kara-Khanid Khanate formed after the dissolution of the Uyghur Khaganate. Historians generally agree that the adoption of the term "Uyghur" is based on a decision from a 1921 conference in Tashkent, attended by Turkic Muslims from the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang). There, "Uyghur" was chosen by them as the name of their ethnicity, although they themselves note that they were not to be confused with the Uyghur Khaganate of medieval history. According to Linda Benson, the Soviets and their client Sheng Shicai intended to foster a Uyghur nationality to divide the Muslim population of Xinjiang, whereas the various Turkic Muslim peoples preferred to identify themselves as "Turki", "East Turkestani" or "Muslim".

On the other hand, the ruling regime of China at that time, the Kuomintang, grouped all Muslims, including the Turkic-speaking people of Xinjiang, into the " Hui nationality". The Qing dynasty and the Kuomintang generally referred to the sedentary oasis-dwelling Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang as "turban-headed Hui" to differentiate them from other predominantly Muslim ethnicities in China. In the 1930s, foreigners travelers in Xinjiang such as George W. Hunter, Peter Fleming, Ella Maillart and Sven Hedin, referred to the Turkic Muslims of the region as "Turki" in their books. Use of the term Uyghur was unknown in Xinjiang until 1934. The area governor, Sheng Shicai, came to power, adopting the Soviet ethnographic classification instead of the Kuomintang's and became the first to promulgate the official use of the term "Uyghur" to describe the Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang. "Uyghur" replaced "rag-head".

Sheng Shicai's introduction of the "Uighur" name for the Turkic people of Xinjiang was criticized and rejected by Turki intellectuals such as Pan-Turkist Jadids and East Turkestan independence activists Muhammad Amin Bughra (Mehmet Emin) and Masud Sabri. They demanded the names "Türk" or "Türki" be used instead as the ethnonyms for their people. Masud Sabri viewed the Hui people as Muslim Han Chinese and separate from his people, while Bughrain criticized Sheng for his designation of Turkic Muslims into different ethnicities which could sow disunion among Turkic Muslims. After the Communist victory, the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Mao Zedong continued the Soviet classification, using the term "Uyghur" to describe the modern ethnicity.

In current usage, ''Uyghur'' refers to settled Turkic-speaking urban dwellers and farmers of the Tarim Basin and Ili who follow traditional Central Asian sedentary practices, as distinguished from nomadic Turkic populations in Central Asia. However, Chinese government agents designate as "Uyghur" certain peoples with significantly divergent histories and ancestries from the main group. These include the Lopliks of Ruoqiang County and the Dolan people, thought to be closer to the Oirat Mongols and the Kyrgyz. The use of the term Uyghur led to anachronisms when describing the history of the people. In one of his books, the term Uyghur was deliberately not used by James Millward.

Another ethnicity, the Western Yugur of Gansu, identify themselves as the "Yellow Uyghur" (''Sarïq Uyghur''). Some scholars say the Yugurs' culture, language and religion are closer to the original culture of the original Uyghur Karakorum state than is the culture of the modern Uyghur people of Xinjiang. Linguist and ethnographer S. Robert Ramsey argues for inclusion of both the Eastern and Western Yugur and the Salar as sub-groups of the Uyghur based on similar historical roots for the Yugur and on perceived linguistic similarities for the Salar.

"''Turkistani'' is used as an alternate ethnonym by some Uyghurs. For example, the Uyghur diaspora in Arabia, adopted the identity "''Turkistani''". Some Uyghurs in Saudi Arabia adopted the Arabic nisba of their home city, such as "''Al- Kashgari''" from Kashgar. Saudi-born Uyghur Hamza Kashgari's family originated from Kashgar.

Population

The Uyghur population within China generally remains centered in Xinjiang region with some smaller subpopulations elsewhere in the country, such as in Taoyuan County where an estimated 5,000–10,000 live.

The size of the Uyghur population, particularly in China, has been the subject of dispute. Chinese authorities place the Uyghur population within the Xinjiang region to be just over 12 million, comprising approximately half of the total regional population. As early as 2003, however, some Uyghur groups wrote that their population was being vastly undercounted by Chinese authorities, claiming that their population actually exceeded 20 million. Population disputes have continued into the present, with some activists and groups such as the World Uyghur Congress and Uyghur American Association claiming that the Uyghur population ranges between 20 and 30 million. Some have even claimed that the real number of Uyghurs is actually 35 million. Scholars, however, have generally rejected these claims, with Professor Dru C. Gladney writing in the 2004 book '' Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland'' that there is "scant evidence" to support Uyghur claims that their population within China exceeds 20 million.

Population in Xinjiang

Genetics

A study of mitochondrial DNA (2004) (therefore the matrilineal genetic contribution) found the frequency of Western Eurasian-specific haplogroup in Uyghurs to be 42.6% and East Asian haplogroup to be 57.4%. Uyghurs in Kazakhstan on the other hand were shown to have 55% European/Western Eurasian maternal mtDNA.

A study based on paternal DNA (2005) shows West Eurasian haplogroups (J and R) in Uyghurs make up 65% to 70% and East Asian haplogroups (C, N, D and O) 30% to 35%.

One study by Xu et al. (2008), using samples from Hetian (Hotan) only, found Uyghurs have about an average of 60% European or West Asian (Western Eurasian) ancestry and about 40% East Asian or Siberian ancestry (Eastern Eurasian). From the same area, it is found that the proportion of Uyghur individuals with European/West Asian ancestry ranges individually from 40.3% to 84.3% while their East Asian/Siberian ancestry ranges individually from 15.7% to 59.7%. Further study by the same team showed an average of slightly greater European/West Asian component at 52% (ranging individually from 44.9% to 63.1%) in the Uyghur population in southern Xinjiang but only 47% (ranging individually from 30% to 55%) in the northern Uyghur population.

A different study by Li et al. (2009) used a larger sample of individuals from a wider area and found a higher East Asian component of about 70% on average, while the European/West Asian component was about 30%. Overall, Uyghur show relative more similarity to "Western East Asians" than to "Eastern East Asians". The authors also cite anthropologic studies which also estimate about 30% "Western proportions", which are in agreement with their genetic results.

A study (2013) based on autosomal DNA shows that average Uyghurs are closest to other Turkic people in Central Asia and China as well as various Chinese populations. The analysis of the diversity of cytochrome B further suggests Uyghurs are closer to Chinese and Siberian populations than to various Caucasoid groups in West Asia or Europe. However, there is significant genetic distance between the Xinjiang's southern Uyghurs and Chinese population, but not between the northern Uyghurs and Chinese.

A Study (2016) of Uyghur males living in southern Xinjiang used high-resolution 26 Y-STR loci system high-resolution to infer the genetic relationships between the Uyghur population and European and Asian populations. The results showed the Uyghur population of southern Xinjiang exhibited a genetic admixture of Eastern Asian and European populations but with slightly closer relationship with European populations than to Eastern Asian populations.

An extensive genome study in 2017 analyzed 951 samples of Uyghurs from 14 geographical subpopulations in Xinjiang and observed a southwest and northeast differentiation in the population, partially caused by the Tianshan Mountains which form a natural barrier, with gene flows from the east and west. The study identifies four major ancestral components that may have arisen from two earlier admixed groups: one that migrated from the west harboring a West-Eurasian component associated with European ancestry (25–37%) and a South Asian ancestry component (12–20%) and one from the east, harboring a Siberian ancestry component (15–17%) and an East Asian ancestry component (29–47%). In total, Uyghurs on average are 33.3% West Eurasian, 32.9% East Asian, 17.9% South Asian, and 16% Siberian. Western parts of Xinjiang are more West Eurasian components than East Eurasian. It suggests at least two major waves of admixture, one ~3,750 years ago coinciding with the age range of the mummies with European feature found in Xinjiang, and another occurring around 750 years ago.

A 2018 study of 206 Uyghur samples from Xinjiang, using the ancestry-informative SNP (AISNP) analysis, found that the average genetic ancestry of Uyghurs is 63.7% East Asian-related and 36.3% European-related.

History

The history of the Uyghur people, as with the ethnic origin of the people, is a matter of contention. Uyghur historians viewed the Uyghurs as the original inhabitants of Xinjiang with a long history. Uyghur politician and historian Muhammad Amin Bughra wrote in his book ''A History of East Turkestan'', stressing the Turkic aspects of his people, that the Turks have a continuous 9000-year-old history, while historian Turghun Almas incorporated discoveries of Tarim mummies to conclude that Uyghurs have over 6400 years of continuous history, and the World Uyghur Congress claimed a 4,000-year history in East Turkestan. However, the official Chinese view, as documented in the white paper ''History and Development of Xinjiang'', asserts that the Uyghur ethnic group formed after the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate in 840, when the local residents of the Tarim Basin and its surrounding areas were merged with migrants from the khaganate. The name "Uyghur" reappeared after the Soviet Union took the 9th-century ethnonym from the Uyghur Khaganate, then reapplied it to all non-nomadic Turkic Muslims of Xinjiang. Many contemporary western scholars, however, do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia. Rather, they consider them to be descendants of a number of peoples, one of them the ancient Uyghurs.

Early history

Discovery of well-preserved Tarim mummies of a people European in appearance indicates the migration of a European-looking people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the Bronze Age around 1800 BC. These people may have been of Tocharian origin, and some have suggested them to be the Yuezhi mentioned in ancient Chinese texts. The Tocharians are thought to have developed from the Indo-European speaking Afanasevo culture of Southern Siberia (c. 3500–2500 BC). A study published in 2021 showed that the earliest Tarim Basin cultures had high levels of Ancient North Eurasian ancestry, with smaller admixture from Northeast Asians. Uyghur activist Turgun Almas claimed that Tarim mummies were Uyghurs because the earliest Uyghurs practiced shamanism and the buried mummies' orientation suggests that they had been shamanists; meanwhile, Qurban Wäli claimed words written in Kharosthi and Sogdian scripts as "Uyghur" rather than Sogdian words absorbed into Uyghur according to other linguists.

Later migrations brought peoples from the west and northwest to the Xinjiang region, probably speakers of various Iranian languages such as the Saka tribes, who were closely related to the European Scythians and descended from the earlier Andronovo culture, and who may have been present in the Khotan and Kashgar area in the first millennium BC, as well as the Sogdians who formed networks of trading communities across the Tarim Basin from the 4th century AD. There may also be an Indian component as the founding legend of Khotan suggests that the city was founded by Indians from ancient Taxila during the reign of Ashoka. Other people in the region mentioned in ancient Chinese texts include the Dingling as well as the Xiongnu who fought for supremacy in the region against the Chinese for several hundred years. Some Uyghur nationalists also claimed descent from the Xiongnu (according to the Chinese historical text the ''Book of Wei'', the founder of the Uyghurs was descended from a Xiongnu ruler), but the view is contested by modern Chinese scholars.

The Yuezhi were driven away by the Xiongnu but founded the Kushan Empire, which exerted some influence in the Tarim Basin, where Kharosthi texts have been found in Loulan