Search

Based on a close reading of three narratives, the article explores subtle shifts in the textual strategies employed by Uyghur intellectuals in Xinjiang in conveying identity discourses in different phases of the reform era. Although it is tempting to view these texts in terms of resistance, they are better approached as sites of accommodation, motivated by the wish to bolster a sense of Uyghur belonging without jeopardizing individual and communal self-preservation. Increasing political pressure on indigenous knowledge production culminated in 2016 in brutal silencing. Shifting textual strategies in the preceding decades demonstrate how native narratives creatively shaped and redefined representations of the 'Uyghur' as an ethnic group in constant dialogical negotiation with the changing socio-political context; the texts can thus be read as sensitive barometers of policy changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban areas of Xinjiang have recently experienced major changes in their demographic, urban, ethnic, and linguistic landscapes. Ürümchi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a typical example of this. In this city, which is undergoing rapid economic and urban expansion, the Han make up around 72% of the population and the Chinese language is ever more present in the language use of the Uyghurs. This study examines the place of the Uyghur language in the context of the sinicisation of the city of Ürümchi, its role in the daily life of the Uyghur community, and opportunities for its use and revitalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 200th year since Jullien published his influential bookEsquisse et vues preliminaries d’un ouvrage sur l’éducation comparée(Preliminary plan and views of a work of comparative education) is an opportunity to reflect on the field of comparative education and potential new research and theoretical directions. This paper will consider the potential role of information and communication technologies in comparative education scholarship within the context of Jullien’s plan for comparative education. Specifically, it uses the example of interactive Uyghur language websites to highlight their value as a vehicle for informal education, and how an understanding of cultural context, illuminated by an analysis of the content of social media messages, may contribute to more appropriate and successful educational policies for minority populations. Data for this paper are drawn from posts from the online community forums (munbar) of four popular Uyghur language websites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Robert Barkley Shaw's Uyghur‐English dictionary called A Sketch of the Turki Language as Spoken in Eastern Turkistan (Kàshghar and Yarkand) is an important source for the researchers studying on Modern Uyghur and Uyghur culture. In his dictionary, Shaw not only gives simply English definitions of the Uyghur words but he also sometimes gives detailed information about Uyghurs' and other Turkic peoples' cultural features. Also, this dictionary includes some entries about mythical beliefs, magical activities, and superstitions of Uyghurs. Especially, in this article, we focused on the general names of soothsayers, magicians or shamans that took roles among Uyghurs. Belonging to this sphere we gave the brief etymological and cultural background of six words (rambal [ رمبال rambal], ḳuşnaç [ قوشناچ qushnâch], yaġrünçi [ ياغرونچي yaghrün‐chi], sinçi [ سينچي sin‐chi], arbaḳçi [ ارباقچي arbáq‐chi], and közluk [ كوزلوک köz‐luk]) that we collected from Shaw's dictionary. Also, concerning to the mourning tradition of Uyghurs we laid stress on the word ḳaraliḳ [ قاراليق qara‐liq]. Through this word, we tried to show how the religions and the cultures integrate into each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much has been written in recent years about Chinese online activism. Although in China Internet use is officially regulated and censored, China nevertheless has the world's largest number of Internet users, with blogs being the largest communication platform. However, most of the research on Chinese use of social media to date has focused specifically on Chinese language Internet sources, with little attention paid to online activity among any of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups, such as the Uyghurs. Uyghurs are an ethnic group native to China's northwest Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. They speak Uyghur language natively, a Turkic language that utilizes an Arabic script, and most are Moslems. As the largest ethnic group within a region of China noted as among China's most politically sensitive, the Uyghurs provide a rich source for study of the use of the Internet by a potentially contentious group. This research thus seeks to fill a gap in the literature by addressing the question: In what ways do Uyghurs utilize social media as a form of online activism? The findings show that in Uyghur blogs, comments are often posted using veiled language such as metaphors, sarcasm, and humor, or references to traditional Uyghur sayings and culture practices as a means of expressing subversive political communication, in an indirect way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a trend towards the shift of the Uyghur language as the language of instruction in schools in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. This article presents several examples of such a shift first and then it reviews the concept of language rights (LR) and applies them to the current situation of the Uyghur language in education domain. After that it presents and discusses some reasons to address a pressing concern of the LRs in Xinjiang in accordance with China's domestic conventions as well as with some international conventions. In the end, it introduces the concept of language ecology on the basis of legally binding LRs as an ideal outlet for the Uyghur language in Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One basic feature of the Arabic script is its semicursive style: some letters are connected to the next, but others are not, as in the Uyghur word ... /ya xJV ("good"). None of the current orthographic coding schemes in models of visual-word recognition, which were created for the Roman script, assign a differential role to the coding of within letter "chunks" and between letter "chunks" in words in the Arabic script. To examine how letter identity/position is coded at the earliest stages of word processing in the Arabic script, we conducted 2 masked priming lexical decision experiments in Uyghur, an agglutinative Turkic language. The target word was preceded by an identical prime, by a transposed-letter nonword prime (that either kept the ligation pattern or did not), or by a 2-letter replacement nonword prime. Transposed-letter primes were as effective as identity primes when the letter transposition in the prime kept the same ligation pattern as the target word (e.g.... /inta_jin/-/itnajin/), but not when the transposed-letter prime didn't keep the ligation pattern (e.g., - ... /so_w_Ka_t/-/ so_Kw_a_t/). Furthermore, replacement-letter primes were more effective when they kept the ligation pattern of the target word than when they did not (e.g., ... /so_d_tfa_t/-/so_w_Ka_t/ faster than ... /so_tfd_a_t/-/so_w_Ba_t/). We examined how input coding schemes could be extended to deal with the intricacies of semicursive scripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a short study of some Old Uigur words of fragrances. Based on the analysis of several passages in the texts the meanings of yıd yıpar and other words are discussed. Special focus is laid on the relationship of fragrances and remedies. Notes on etymological considerations of the treated words and their embedment in the history of Turkic languages are added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined how letter position coding is achieved in a script (Arabic) in which the different letter forms (i.e., allographs) may vary depending on their position within the letter string (e.g., compare the same-ligation pair [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] vs. the different-ligation pair [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.] and [InlineMediaObject not available: see fulltext.]. To that end, we conducted an experiment in Uyghur, an agglutinative language from the Turkic family that employs an Arabic-based script in which both consonants and vowels are explicitly written. Participants had to reproduce the correct word forms in rapid serial visual presentation sentences that either contained jumbled words (with the same ligation or different ligation) or were intact. The results revealed that readers had more difficulty correctly reporting the target words in the jumbled sentences when the letter transposition involved changes in the ligation pattern, thus demonstrating that position-dependent allography affects letter position coding. This finding poses constraints to a universal model of letter position encoding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Esma-ul husna has always been a subject of great interest for the researchers. A great many studies have been carried out on Esma-ul Husna, standing for the most beautiful names of Allah. The aim of the study is to identify the equivalents of the beautiful names of Allah that are mentioned in Holy Quran written in modem Uyghur Turkish Quran translation. In the introduction section, a brief information about Esma-ul Husna and about the nature of the study is given. The second section specifies the verses from the Quran where the term Esma-ul Husna takes place, their numbers and their equivalents in the modern Uyghur Turkish Quran translation. The third section of the study gives the Uyghur equivalents of the names of Allah with the number of the verses, provides the Uyghur definitions of the names, and then gives one verse from Holy Quran translated in modern Uyghur Turkish language as an example of each equivalent. The conclusion section reveals that 149 equivalents are given in modern Uyghur Turkish Quran translation for the 77 beautiful names of Allah mentioned in Holy Quran. The results of the classifications indicate that Turkish, Arabic+Turkish, Turkish+ Arabic, Persian+Turkish, Turkish+Persian+Arabic, Arabic, Persian, Arabic+Persian and Persian+Arabic words and word phrases were used in the translations of these 17 names. Moreover, the study states the language origins of all equivalents given for Esma-ul Husna in the Modern Uyghur Turkish Quran Translation and provides their frequency numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We used Uighur scripts which are known for their rich suffixes. [•] The influences of number of suffixes on initial landing positions and refixation probability independent of frequency. [•] These results are difficult to explain by purely low-level guidance of eye movements. [•] Morphological structure of parafoveal words can influence saccade program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research about Kutadghu Bilig has a century of history among Uyghur people. The publication of Kutadghu Bilig in verse and essay in 1984 based a foundation of research in this field. Since then, learning of it has been into systemic routine. As a result, Special associations has been formed, Symposiums has been held. The learners from the different fields started to do their research about Kutadghu Bilig. And the research has been deepened and, the method of the specialized learners on this field had been reached advanced level which stretched the attetion from the internatinoal peers. Gradually, the universities, the institutions, colledges and high schools established learning about Kutadghu Bilig in their literary class. Artists made it their theme in their works. Besides, some specialized Kutadghu Bilig learners appeared. This thesis mentioned the associations, meetings and important activities been held for Kutadghu Bilig research, the outstanding learners and their distributions. Simultaneously, it also gave a special attention to the works in some other fields about Kutadghu Bilig [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the ending of the 13th century to the beginning of the 20th century the west branch of the Turkic language was called Osmanli or Osmanli Turkčäsi, and the east branch of the Turkic language was called Çağatayčä or Çağatay Turkish. These languages were broadly used in wide arrears. In China, the Çağatay Turkish was used by Uyghur people till the first half of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the research on the Old Uyghur Language, Karakhanid languge, Çağatay language, the language and literature of the Modern Uyghur are composed of the main part of the nowadays Turkology. The researchs on the Çağatay language in China have been mainly done by the Uyghur scholars and these works are mainly in Modern Uyghur Language. Because of not knowing Arabic and Persian, the Chinese scholars who carry on research on Çağatay language could not make through research. This research carries out a general discussion on the researches which were from the first half of the twentieth century to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The present study examined the hypothesis whether non-target languages are inhibited during multilingual language production by examining the n-2 language repetition cost. In two experiments, Uighur–Chinese–English trilinguals named Arabic digits in one of their three languages according to a visually presented cue. Significant n-2 repetition costs were obtained in both experiments, which indicate that inhibition exists during multilingual word production. In addition, in Experiment 1, it was also found that the n-2 repetition cost was reduced when cues were highly compatible with the task, which means non-target languages are less inhibited. In Experiment 2, the n-2 repetition cost was increased at a shorter CSI. Taken together, these results indicate that inhibition of non-target languages occurs during multilingual language production, and that efficiency of establishing the target language task schema has an effect on the inhibitory control process. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

After mongols second invasion to Iran by Holako (1253 AD) some political and cultural vicissitudes occurred and these events could be observed on coins. These changes included the Caliph's name elimination from coins in prior dynasties (e.g. Seljuks'). In the Ilkhanid period (1256-1336 AD) title of kings were written in Uighur language on coins while at end of this period the names and titles were written in Persian. Here, 16 silver coins belonging to Ghazan, an Ilkhanid King, were analyzed by PIXE system. Regarding compositional elements that reflects minting conditions and states in Ghazana's reign period. The silver presence varied between ~68-93%, while the high rates of copper deliberately added, implies political and economical exigencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Chinese - Turkic (Kök)türk letter Uighur language) inscription that prepared on behalf of Ötüken - Uighur Khanate period princes Karı Çor Tigin found in the old capital Chang'an (Xi'an) of People's Republic of China. According to reports from the inscription, Karı Çor Tigin is from Uighurs Yaglakar dynasty, Çabış Tigin's son, Kan Tutuk's nephew, Bögü Bilge Tengri Kan's younger brother. He, come to in order to quell riots which began in the country to Chang'an participates as the imperial army "left forces commander" in Tang Emperor Tai Tsung (Dài Zōng / Daizong) time (in the fifth month of 794 year). Karı Çor Tigin, when he was 20 years old got sick and dies in Xi'an, in 20 May 795. Tang Emperor Daizong made a mausoleum for him in Zhang Du Yuan region where today located in 10 km south-west of Xi'an and take an inscription that consists from Chinese and Turkic text on it. There are 17 lines in (Kök)türk letter Uighur part of inscription that consists from two part. In this part, it is provides information about Karı Çor Tigin ancestry root and who is he and state which Tang / Chinese Emperor had a mausoleum made on behalf of him and held death ceremony in 7 June 795. In the Chinese part of inscription, they are given place to inscription of (Kök)türk letter in parallel of sentences is mentioned that Tang Emperor Daizong regret as death of Uighur Prince Karı Çor Tigin who staff commander at his command. Currently, Karı Çor Tigin inscription which exhibited at Tang West Market Museum, Xi'an, be critically importance in terms of reflecting Chinese and Turks (Uighurs) between historical friendship relationship and being a bilingual inscription. In this article, before status of Turk-China relationship attention served in (Kök)türk Khanate and Ötüken Uighur Khanate periods; after it is examined (Kök)türk letter part of Karı Çor Tigin inscription all its aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are Chinese and Göktürk letter Uigur texts on Karı Çor Tigin mausoleum inscription that preserved at West Market Museum, in Xi'an, People's Republic of China. Göktürk letter Uigur text has feature being first inscription which is found at center of Tang Khanate. In this article, there are Chinese text of Karı Çor Tigin mausoleum inscription, Turkish translation of this text, (According to Karı Çor Tigin inscription and Chinese resources) estimates about the genealogy of Karı Çor Tigin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine translation is a sub-field of Natural Language Processing which belongs to Artificial Intelligence. Generally, it is based on computer technology that uses software to translate one natural language to another. In the 1950s, the Georgetown experiment involved fully-automatic translation of over sixty Russian sentences into English (Hutchins, 2004). The experiment was a great success and ushered in an era of substantial funding for machine-translation research. One of the main projects initiated by the US at that time was a machine translation system which converted Russian to English. This project continued from 1950 to 1960. In 1964, government sponsors of machine translation in the United States formed the Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALPAC) to examine the project's potential. In the famous 1966 report, ALPAC concluded that machine translation was slower, less accurate and twice as expensive as human translation, and that "there is no immediate or predictable prospect of useful machine translation" (Hutchins, 1995). The effects of this report brought about the virtual end to machine translation re-search in the US for over a decade after its publication. As computer technology developed, high capacity and high speed computers were produced. Thus, the main restrictions of studying natural language were removed and machine translation gained the attention of the computer science community once again. Despite technologic advances and the advent of new methods, a general purpose for full automatic machine translation systems still does not exist. To date, few machine translation systems have been developed, furthermore, they may only be applied to restricted texts and some post-editing works (usually necessary after initial translations). The main reasons for these are the morphological, syntactical and lexical differences between different languages. In conclusion, translated texts remain inferior to higher quality translations. Recently, some machine translation systems de-signed for related languages, such as: Czech to Slovak, Spanish to Catalan, and Turkmen language to Turkish have been implemented; studies on them have proven successful translations can be produced efficiently. In this study, our aim was to implement a machine translation system between Uyghur language and Turkish. Uyghur language is an agglutinative language such as other Turkic languages (i.e. Turkmen, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Azeri etc.). All Turkic languages belong to the Ural-Altaic language family and are characteristically agglutinative languages which have productive inflectional and derivational morphology. Most research about natural language processing and machine translation of Turkic languages focus on Turkish language. Mainly due to the fact that there is active ongoing research on the subject in Turkey, and they continue to produce valuable results. To date, machine translation systems implemented between Turkic languages has been scant, such as: Turkish to Azeri, Turkish to Crimean Tatar, Turkmen language to Turkish etc. Unfortunately, little computational research about Uygur languages exists. Turkic languages tend to have similar morphological structure and share some common word roots. The main shared properties include similar word order and syntactic structure. However, distinctions exist which prevent mutual intelligibility between these languages. In order to implement this translation system, we utilized a frame-work which is favored for translation between closely related agglutinative languages. Thus, we implemented a morphological analyzer for Uyghur language with XEROX's Finite State Transducers (FST) tools. In this morphological analyzer we considered general cases for Uyghur languages and tagged Uyghur words with the same tags that were used for tagging other Turkic languages words. Thus, it will be easy to integrate this system to other Turkic languages. In order to improve the system's performance, we implemented a rule based morphological disambiguator, additionally, a disambiguator for word senses. We have evaluated our system's performance using BLEU scores for 240 differently structured sentences. As a result, a system has been determined which may successfully translate intermediate level Uyghur language into Turkish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the language policy in China and its impact on the Uyghurs, the indigenous population of the country's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It discusses the status of language policy in the wider arena of international law by examining the historical context and modern realities of China's language policy in the XUAR. Furthermore, it reveals how China's language policy violated human rights standards.

The Astāngahrdayasamhitā (AHS), one of the most important works on Old Indian medicine (āyurveda), is unattested in Central Asia. Several fragments of the Berlin Turfan collection, however, can be attributed to an Uighur translation. They are edited, translated, commented on and provided with glossaries. Special attention is paid to the translation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to identify the variables that define the political and social boundaries within Xinjiang's multi-ethnic society. Traditionally, ethnicity has been the point from which scholars examine political and social loyalties in Xinjiang. It is proposed here that, while ethnicity is a crucial component in defining the divisions in Xinjiang society, it is also important to consider the role of language. This latter trait cuts across ethnic lines and is responsible for creating important subgroups within established communities. The paper will demonstrate that while the Uighur Min kao Han are ethnically Uighur, they culturally and linguistically have taken on many ethnic Chinese characteristics. They are favoured for admission into Chinese society and receive political and employment advantages over their co-ethnics who remain linguistically/culturally Uighur. However, these advantages do not always materialize and the social costs are high. The Min kao Han are generally excluded from the Uighur community, while simultaneously enduring discrimination from the Han. It is argued here that the history of the Min kao Han , as well as the trends in Chinese politics and society affecting this group's future development, are key to understanding what their current role is and will be in the future. It is clear that the psychological condition of the Min kao Han is largely the result of their isolated position in Xinjiang society, and of their experience as children in Han classrooms. It will be shown that there is potential for this group to lead the Uighur population into conflict with the Han, but also, and more importantly, for them to help facilitate reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dozens of the existing Old Uighur Manichean scripts letters are the important material for studying the culture of Old Uighur manicheism. Old Uighur Manichean letters both retain the basic characteristics of the texts Old Uighur letters, and provide some new contents of manicheism. Through four instruments, this paper will analyze the format of Old Uighur Manichaean scripts letters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to the article "A voice for the voiceless: Online social activism in Uyghur language blogs and state control of the Internet in China" that was published in the previous issue is presented.