Old Uyghur alphabet
Encyclopedia
The Old Uyghur alphabet was used for writing the Old Uyghur language, a variety of Old Turkic spoken in the Tarim basin
, which is an ancestor of the modern Uyghur language
. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet
, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean
and Christian
content for 700–800 years in Uyghurstan. The last known manuscripts are dated to the 18th century. This was the prototype for the Mongolian
and Manchu
alphabets.
Like Sogdian writing but to an even greater extent, Old Uyghur writing tended to express with matres lectionis not only the long vowels but also the short ones. In fact, the practice of leaving short vowels unrepresented was almost completely abandoned in Uyghur. Thus, while ultimately deriving from a Semitic abjad
, the Uyghur script can be said to have been largely "alphabet
ized".
Tarim Basin
The Tarim Basin is a large endorheic basin occupying an area of about . It is located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China's far west. Its northern boundary is the Tian Shan mountain range and its southern is the Kunlun Mountains on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The...
, which is an ancestor of the modern Uyghur language
Uyghur language
Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...
. It was descendant of the Sogdian alphabet
Sogdian alphabet
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdiana. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language,...
, used for texts with Buddhist, Manichaean
Manichaeism
Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...
and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
content for 700–800 years in Uyghurstan. The last known manuscripts are dated to the 18th century. This was the prototype for the Mongolian
Mongolian script
The classical Mongolian script , also known as Uyghurjin, was the first writing system created specifically for the Mongolian language, and was the most successful until the introduction of Cyrillic in 1946...
and Manchu
Manchu alphabet
The Manchu alphabet was used for recording the now near-extinct Manchu language; a similar script is used today by the Xibe people, who speak a language descended from Manchu...
alphabets.
Like Sogdian writing but to an even greater extent, Old Uyghur writing tended to express with matres lectionis not only the long vowels but also the short ones. In fact, the practice of leaving short vowels unrepresented was almost completely abandoned in Uyghur. Thus, while ultimately deriving from a Semitic abjad
Abjad
An abjad is a type of writing system in which each symbol always or usually stands for a consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate vowel....
, the Uyghur script can be said to have been largely "alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
ized".