The Uzbek connection
It really surprised me to learn that, according to modern Linguists, Uyghur is more closely related to Uzbek than it is to Kazakh and Kyrgyz. When I lived in Uzbekistan, I had a choice of three languages to learn (Uzbek, Tajik or Russian) and I chose Russian, the safest and easiest option. I did pick up the odd word of Uzbek and certainly got used to hearing the language spoken, in official meetings, at the University in Samarkand and on TV (although not usually at my friends' homes, where people spoke Tajik). I also read a lot about Stalin's linguists and how they defined the Turkic languages of Central Asia in a way that gave a separate linguistic identity to the ethnic peoples of their newly-created Socialist republics. I was left with the impression that Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Karakalpak and others were really a common language, superficially differentiated by Stalinist linguists. I did feel that Uzbek sounded a bit different that the others, but put that down to the fact that my ear was more attuned to the intricacies of Uzbek phonetics.
Sign in Uzbek by Ole Rousing |
Looking at the classifications of other 'western' linguists, I find Uzbek is included in a branch of Turkic languages called Chagatai or Southeastern Common Turkic. Granted, Uzbek is in another separate branch within this grouping, but it still surprises me that Uzbek, despite the geographical distance from Western China, would be closer to Uyghur than Kazakh or Kyrgyz, which are right beside Uyghuristan in the geographical continuum.
How languages are classified
Perhaps trying to decide whether Uyghur is closer to Uzbek than it is to Kazakh is splitting hairs somewhat and there are lots of other factors that come into play (historical, economic, political etc) when looking at how languages have influenced each other. It would seem as though the Turkic group is very well-defined and the methods of classifying languages, eg. by vocabulary comparison, provide linguists with consistent and satisfying results.
A very obvious principle of historical linguistics is that the basic words for human existence, such as 'head', 'man', 'family', 'sun' should be similar in languages that share a common ancestor - whereas words for new technological developments, ie. things which might not have existed in the original culture but were introduced by other cultures, through trade or invasion, will generally result in a word that is borrowed from another language family.
Bilingual sign by Toasterhead |
An analysis of Turkic vocabulary
As an experiment, I want to compare a range of words across some of the Turkic languages, to see how similar they really are. I have included Chinese, Tajik and Mongolian to see what influence, if any, non-Turkic neighbours have had on Uyghur. I've used Google Translate for Turkish and Chinese and there's a great website called www.uighurdictionary.com which provided me with the translations to Uyghur that I needed.
English | Turkish | Uzbek | Uyghur | Tajik | Mongolian | Chinese | ||
Man | adam/erkek | adam | er/insan | odam/inson | erkin | Nánzǐ | ||
Mother | Anne | acha | ana | modar | ech | Mǔqīn | ||
Sun | güneş | kun | quayash/aptap | oftob | nar | Yángguāng | ||
Water | su | suv | su | ob | oos | Shuǐ | ||
Finger | parmak | barmoq | barmaq | angusht | khooroo | Shǒuzhǐ | ||
Dog | köpek | it | it | sag | nokhoi | Gǒu | ||
Camel | deve | tuja | töge | shootoor | teme | Luòtuo | ||
Rice | pirinç | plov | gürüch | birinch | tutarga | Shuǐdào | ||
Arrow | ok | uq | oq/tir | tir | soom | Jiàntóu | ||
Train | tren | poyezd | poyuz | poyezd | galt tereg | Huǒchē | ||
Television | televizyon | televizor | téléwiziye | televizor | televiziin gazar | Diànshì | ||
Computer | bilgisayar | kompyuter | kompyutér | kompyuter | kompyuter | Jìsuànjī | ||
electricity | elektrik | svet | éléktir/tok | barkh | tsakheelgan | Diànlì | ||
Airport | havaalanı | aeroport | ayriport | furudgokh | niisekh ongotsni buudal | Jīchǎng | ||
election | seçim | saylov | saylam | intikhob | songool' | Xuǎnjǔ |
It's obvious from this comparison that there are fundamental links between Uyghur and the other Turkic languages. There are a few similarities with Tajik but Chinese influence isn't very apparent from this list, except perhaps with the 'w' sound in téléwiziye, which seems more like Chinese than Russian.
Interestingly, modern Turkish tends to look for more Turkic-sounding words for modern inventions, like the Turkish words for airport and computer. The influence of Mongolian seems to have been negligible, although one of the most interesting comparisons was the word for 'water', which seems to be similar in the Turkic languages, Mongolian and even Chinese.
If you want to hear what Uyghur sounds like, I'm pasting in a video from YouTube. The best thing I could find is a video by Christian missionaries, which is a telling insight into the extent of Western interest in modern Uyghur language.
Image credits and references:
I have a few reference books on Linguistics, that I use when I'm researching for this blog. One of them is Kenneth Katzner's The Languages of the World, which is my 'bible' of language classification.
The sign written in Uzbek, warning drivers to beware of oncoming trains, is from flickuser olerousing who is from Oslo in Norway. You can find out more about Ole on his blog http://olerousing.blogspot.com/
The sign showing a bilingual sign in Uyghur and Chinese is by flickruser toasterhead who is originally from Long Island but now lives in Arlington, Virginia. You can see more on his blog: http://toasterheadsblogosphere.blogspot.com/
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