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Anyone interested in Uyghur? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| linguanima Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6718 days ago 114 posts - 123 votes  3 sounds Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Spanish, French Studies: Italian, Latin, German | Message 1 of 42 20 January 2007 at 8:30am | IP Logged | ||
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There is a post on Manchu and I felt the need for one on Uyghur, a Turkic language spoken in Xinjiang (Eastern Turkistan). Because of the politics in China this language is quite endangered. Is anyone interested in learning it and does anyone have textbooks, grammars, online resources on the language and the culture? How different is it from Turkish and other Turkic languages?
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| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7144 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 2 of 42 20 January 2007 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Uyghur, as other members of the Turkic language group, has a lot in common with Turkish, and someone knowing Turkish will have a much easier time learning Uyghur than someone without that background. That said, the differences are substantial, both in phonology and morphology, as well as much of the vocabulary. (Interestingly, I've found that it's often the words of Turkic origin that are most different, while words of Arabic and (to a lesser extent) Persian were borrowed into both languages with the same meanings, and thus these words allow more mutual comprehensibility than the Turkic words.)
Uyghur grammar is more complicated in various ways, particularly in the multiplicity of verb forms, a higher number of personal pronouns varying by politeness, etc., so you do have to approach it as a separate language. For information on materials, go to the Yahoo Uyghur language group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UyghurLanguage/ where you'll find various suggestions re textbooks et al (not all of which are always easily obtained) made by myself and others. The group has been fairly moribund for several months now, but if you read through the older posts (there aren't that many), you'll find plenty of materials for consideration. Good luck! Edited by daristani on 20 January 2007 at 9:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 3 of 42 20 January 2007 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I had an Uyghur friend in Beijing, and when we tried comparing Uyghur and Turkish sentences with the same meaning, the differences were often substantial...
The audio for Spoken Uyghur by Reinhart F. Hahn is online at Indiana - no password required. I recall reading somewhere that this is the only Uyghur self-study book in English - and that it's not that good. But maybe there's more in the yahoo group Daristani mentions. I don't think the Uyghur language is terribly endangered - certainly nowhere near as much as Manchu. I've met quite a few Uyghur speakers in China. Xinjiang/Uyghur restaurants are very popular in Beijing, and Uyghur street traders sell dried fruits and nut cakes in Beijing. I spoke to the Uyghur people I met in Mandarin (/occasionally English), but most had unmistakeable Turkic accents, and the few I got to know told me they spoke Uyghur at home but learned Mandarin at school. As for Uyghur culture being endangered, that's another question... Edited by onebir on 20 January 2007 at 11:13am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| linguanima Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6718 days ago 114 posts - 123 votes 3 sounds Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Spanish, French Studies: Italian, Latin, German | Message 4 of 42 20 January 2007 at 12:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you very much, you two! Daristani, do you know any textbooks or grammars written in German? onebir, when you talk to them do they sound content with their situation of their language and culture or dissatisfied with it?
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| daristani Senior Member United States Joined 7144 days ago 752 posts - 1661 votes Studies: Uzbek | Message 5 of 42 20 January 2007 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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"Uyghurisch Lehrbuch", by Michael Friederich, published in 2002 by Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag in Wiesbaden, 237 pages. ISBN number is 3-89500-299-2.
This is a cross between a reference grammar and a textbook; it's intended to teach the language, and thus starts out assuming the reader knows nothing, but it doesn't really have lessons. It merely explains the grammar, very thoroughly, but in an abstract way, with sample sentences. You have to know fairly good German to make use of it, but it is a very thorough and systematic treatment of the language. It's a beautifully printed hardcover, and should be available via Amazon in Germany or other major on-line German book dealers. Here's a description of the book from the publisher's website: ------------------------------------------------------- Uyghurisch ist eine Turksprache, die weltweit von mehr als zehn Millionen Menschen, hauptsächlich in Xinjiang (VR China) von etwa acht Mio. Menschen geprochen wird. Dieses Lehrbuch ist der erste Überblick über die Grammatik des gesprochenen Uyghurischen in einer westeuropäischen Sprache. Das Lehrbuch führt anhand von Sprachbeispielen in die grundlegende Grammatik des Uyghurischen ein und gibt einen Einblick in die Phonetik der Alltagssprache. Grammatikalische Erläuterungen werden durch Sprachbeispiele in der heute in Xinjiang für das Uyghurische verwendeten arabischbasierten Schrift verdeutlicht. Die Aussprache wird in Transkription angegeben. Ein knapp 1000 Einträge umfassendes Uyghurisch-Deutsches Wörterverzeichnis erlaubt es, das Lehrbuch auch ohne Wörterbücher zu verwenden. Das Buch ist so konzipiert, dass es sowohl für den Unterricht als auch zum Selbststudium benutzt werden kann. Vorkenntnisse in anderen türkischen Sprachen werden nicht vorausgesetzt. http://www.reichert-verlag.de/ Edited by daristani on 24 September 2009 at 2:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| onebir Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7163 days ago 487 posts - 503 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 6 of 42 20 January 2007 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Once or twice, when I asked waiters/waitresses "were you just speaking Uyghur?" - which they obviously were - they denied it. One of my Uyghur friends said she thought Han-Uyghur relations were generally very good. The other would claim she was a foreigner if asked by Han Chinese, because she felt Han people thought Uyghurs were thieves and terrorists. Occasional comments from my Han friends suggested that some do think like this. But I'm not sure whether it's genuine prejudice, or just an observation based on the Uyghur people they've come across - outside Xinjiang many Uyghur people seem quite marginalised, and unlike Han people, there aren't so many counterexamples. The subject of minorities in China is real can of worms, and I try to steer clear of it - to avoid upsetting people (on either side of the divide), and so I can people the benefit of the doubt... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zhiguli Senior Member Canada Joined 6441 days ago 176 posts - 221 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Mandarin | Message 7 of 42 08 April 2007 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Celcar lists a textbook for Uyghur on its site, but no information on how to obtain a copy:
http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ecelcar/media/project/project.html For those who can read Russian and don't mind learning the language through Cyrillic, I can recommend the following textbook: Уйгурский язык - Д. Ж. Касымова and this site, which contains phrasebooks, a grammar, and some other useful stuff: http://tilachar.uyghurlar.biz Edited by zhiguli on 08 April 2007 at 3:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zoshchenko Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6440 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Georgian, Turkish | Message 8 of 42 08 April 2007 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am told that Uyghur is most closely related to Uzbek, with the notable exception that Uyghur still uses Arabic script.
I was in a market in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. There were signs in the market written in Arabic script. I learned that there were many Uyghurs among the traders there. I noticed that certain words (meat, fish, water, milk, the numbers 1-10) are practically identical among all the Turkic languages. Back to Kyrgyzstan, there were also some Dungan there. These people (I am told) are ethnic Chinese Muslims (as opposed to the Uyghurs who are not Chinese). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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