Uyghurs

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.^[30] The rest of Xinjiang's Uyghurs mostly live in 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.^[31] Significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in other Turkic countries such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey.^[32] Smaller communities live in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Australia, Russia and Sweden.^[33]


Since 2014,^[34][35] the Chinese government has been accused by various organizations, such as Human Rights Watch^[36] of subjecting Uyghurs living in Xinjiang to widespread persecution, including forced sterilization^[37][38] and forced labor.^[39][40][41] Scholars estimate that at least one million Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained in the Xinjiang internment camps since 2017;^[42][43][44] 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.^[45] 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 ئۇيغۇر in Arabic script, Уйғур in Uyghur Cyrillic and Uyghur or Uygur (as the standard Chinese romanization, GB 3304–1991) in Latin;^[46] they are all pronounced as [ʔʊjˈʁʊːr].^[47][48] In Chinese, this is transcribed into characters as 维吾尔 / 維吾爾, which is romanized in pinyin as Wéiwú'ěr.


In English, the name is officially spelled Uyghur by the Xinjiang government^[49] but also appears as Uighur,^[50] Uigur^[50] and Uygur (these reflect the various Cyrillic spellings Уиғур, Уигур and Уйгур). The name is usually pronounced in English as /ˈwiːɡʊər, -ɡər/ WEE-goor, -⁠gər (and is thus preceded by the indefinite article "a"),^{[50][51][52][26]} although some Uyghurs advocate the use of a more native pronunciation /ˌuːiˈɡʊər/ OO-ee-GOOR instead (which, in contrast, calls for the article "an").^[24][25][53]


The term's original meaning is unclear. Old Turkic inscriptions record the word uyɣur^[54] (Old Turkic: 𐰆𐰖𐰍𐰆𐰺); an example is found on the Sudzi inscription, "I am khan ata of Yaglaqar, came from the Uigur land." (Old Turkic: Uyγur jerinte Yaγlaqar qan ata keltim).^[55] It is transcribed into Tang annals as 回纥 / 回紇 (Mandarin: Huíhé, but probably *[ɣuɒiɣət] in Middle Chinese).^[56] It was used as the name of one of the Turkic polities formed in the interim between the First and Second Göktürk Khaganates (AD 630–684).^[57] 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 回鹘 / 回鶻 (Mandarin: Huíhú, but [ɣuɒiɣuət] in Middle Chinese).^[58][59]


Modern etymological explanations for the name Uyghur range from derivation from the verb "follow, accommodate oneself"^[50] 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.^[58] 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^[60] or it may be one group among several others collectively known as the Toquz Oghuz.^[61] The name fell out of use in the 15th century, but was reintroduced in the early 20th century^[47][48] by the Soviet Bolsheviks to replace the previous terms Turk and Turki.^{[62][note 3]} 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 袁紇 Yuanhe (< MC ZS *ɦʉɐn-ɦət) and derived from a confederation named 高车 / 高車 (lit. "High Carts"), read as Gāochē in Mandarin Chinese but originally with the reconstructed Middle Chinese pronunciation *[kɑutɕʰĭa], later known as the Tiele (铁勒 / 鐵勒, Tiělè).^[64][65][66] Gāochē in turn has been connected to the Uyghur Qangqil (قاڭقىل or Қаңқил).^[67]