Uyghur Latin alphabet

The Uyghur Latin alphabet (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر لاتىن يېزىقى, romanized:Uyghur Latin Yëziqi, ULY) is an auxiliary alphabet for the Uyghur language based on the Latin script. Uyghur is primarily written in Uyghur Arabic alphabet and sometimes in Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet.

In 2023, the alphabet was agreed as the BGN/PCGN romanization system for Uyghur.

Construction

The Uyghur Latin alphabet was first introduced in the 1930s in the former Soviet Union and was briefly used in the Uyghur Autonomous Region during the 1960s to 1970s. The ULY project was finalized at Xinjiang University, Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), People's Republic of China in July 2001, at the fifth conference of a series held there for that purpose that started in November 2000. In January 2008, the ULY project was amended and identified by Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Working Committee of Minorities' Language and Writing.

The letters in the Uyghur Latin alphabet are, in order:

Purpose

The creators of the Uyghur Latin alphabet strongly emphasized that “the proposed alphabet should not replace [the Persian-Arab Uyghur alphabet] nor should its introduction represent a new reform of the writing system. It is to be used solely in computer-related fields as an ancillary writing system.”

Public reception

The Uyghur Latin alphabet had a heavy public relations presence on both the Internet and official Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region media but despite official efforts to play down the sense of a massive reform, the Uyghur Latin alphabet has acquired that connotation and the public seems wary of it. The importance of having one-to-one correspondence between Latin and Arabic is noteworthy.

Comparison of orthographies

The different orthographies are compared in the following table.

Text example

Below follows an example of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 1) in Uyghur:

See also

• Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi
• Uyghur alphabets

Further reading

• Duval, Jean Rahman; Janbaz, Waris Abdukerim (2006). (PDF). 2006 Middle East & Central Asia Politics, Economics, and Society Conference. Sept 7 – 9, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA. Archived from (PDF) on 2006-10-22.