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106-475: Turpan ( Uyghur : تۇرپان ), generally known in English as Turfan ( Chinese : 吐鲁番 ), is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang , China . It has an area of 69,759 km (26,934 sq mi) and a population of 693,988 (2020). The historical center of the prefectural area has shifted a number of times, from Yar-Khoto (Jiaohe, 10 km or 6.2 mi to

212-474: A Perso-Arabic-based alphabet , although a Cyrillic alphabet and two Latin alphabets also are in use to a much lesser extent. Unusually for an alphabet based on the Arabic script, full transcription of vowels is indicated. (Among the Arabic family of alphabets, only a few, such as Kurdish , distinguish all vowels without the use of optional diacritics .) The four alphabets in use today can be seen below. In

318-569: A conflict with the Ming China started over the issues of tribute trade : Turpanians benefited from sending "tribute missions" to China, which allowed them to receive valuable gifts from the Ming emperors and to do plenty of trading on the side; the Chinese, however, felt that receiving and entertaining these missions was just too expensive. (Muslim envoys to the early Ming China were impressed by

424-456: A gross domestic product of ¥8.178 billion. The value of the city's primary sector totaled ¥0.994 billion, its secondary sector totaled ¥1.872 billion, and its tertiary sector totaled ¥5.312 billion. As of 2020, Dunhuang has a gross domestic product of ¥7.778 billion. The value of the city's primary sector totaled ¥1.082 billion, its secondary sector totaled ¥1.752 billion, and its tertiary sector totaled ¥4.943 billion. Dunhuang

530-600: A 24-hour average temperature of −8.3 °C (17.1 °F) in January, while summers are hot, with a July average of 24.6 °C (76.3 °F); the annual mean is 9.48 °C (49.1 °F). The diurnal temperature variation averages 16.1 °C (29.0 °F) annually. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 69% in March to 82% in October, the city receives 3,258 hours of bright sunshine annually, making it one of

636-693: A collection of some 900 Christian manuscripts dating to the ninth to the twelfth centuries was found by the German Turfan expeditions at a monastery site at Turfan. The Uyghurs established a Kingdom in the Turpan region with its capital in Gaochang or Kara-Khoja. The kingdom was known as the Uyghuria Idikut state or Kara-Khoja Kingdom that lasted from 856 to 1389 AD. The Uyghurs were Manichaean but later converted to Buddhism and funded

742-1000: A few suffixes. However, the conditions in which they are actually pronounced as distinct from their short counterparts have not been fully researched. The high vowels undergo some tensing when they occur adjacent to alveolars ( s, z, r, l ), palatals ( j ), dentals ( t̪, d̪, n̪ ), and post-alveolar affricates ( t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ ), e.g. chiraq [t͡ʃʰˈiraq] 'lamp', jenubiy [d͡ʒɛnʊˈbiː] 'southern', yüz [jyz] 'face; hundred', suda [suːˈda] 'in/at (the) water'. Both [ i ] and [ ɯ ] undergo apicalisation after alveodental continuants in unstressed syllables, e.g. siler [sɪ̯læː(r)] 'you (plural)', ziyan [zɪ̯ˈjɑːn] 'harm'. They are medialised after / χ / or before / l / , e.g. til [tʰɨl] 'tongue', xizmet [χɨzˈmɛt] 'work; job; service'. After velars, uvulars and / f / they are realised as [ e ] , e.g. giram [ɡeˈrʌm] 'gram', xelqi [χɛlˈqʰe] 'his [etc.] nation', Finn [fen] 'Finn'. Between two syllables that contain

848-408: A mile (1.6 km) to the west, a Turk town of "probably" 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants. The town (presumably the "Turk town") had four gateways, one for each of the cardinal directions, of solid brickwork and massive wooden doors plated with iron and covered by a semicircular bastion. The well-kept walls were of mud and about 35 ft (10.7 m) tall and 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 m) thick, with loopholes at

954-603: A military colony/garrison and organized the land into multiple divisions. Han Chinese colonists from the Hexi region and the central plains also settled in the region. Gaochang was successively ruled by the Former Liang , Former Qin and Northern Liang . In 439, remnants of the Northern Liang , led by Juqu Wuhui and Juqu Anzhou , fled to Gaochang where they would hold onto power until 460 when they were conquered by

1060-532: A misnomer as applied to the modern language of Kashghar". Sven Hedin wrote, "In these cases it would be particularly inappropriate to normalize to the East Turkish literary language, because by so doing one would obliterate traces of national elements which have no immediate connection with the Kaschgar Turks, but on the contrary are possibly derived from the ancient Uigurs". Probably around 1077,

1166-769: A people widely believed to be a Central Asian offshoot of the Yuezhi. During the Warring States period, the inhabitants of Dunhuang included the Dayuezhi people, Wusun people, and Saizhong people (Chinese name for Scythians). As Dayuezhi became stronger, it absorbed the Qiang tribes. By the third century BC, the area became dominated by the Xiongnu , but came under Chinese rule during the Han dynasty after Emperor Wu defeated

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1272-650: A role in vowel harmony and are separate phonemes. /e/ only occurs in words of non-Turkic origin and as the result of vowel raising. Uyghur has systematic vowel reduction (or vowel raising) as well as vowel harmony. Words usually agree in vowel backness, but compounds, loans, and some other exceptions often break vowel harmony. Suffixes surface with the rightmost [back] value in the stem, and /e, ɪ/ are transparent (as they do not contrast for backness). Uyghur also has rounding harmony. Uyghur voiceless stops are aspirated word-initially and intervocalically. The pairs /p, b/ , /t, d/ , /k, ɡ/ , and /q, ʁ/ alternate, with

1378-633: A rounded back vowel each, they are realised as back, e.g. qolimu [qʰɔˈlɯmʊ] 'also his [etc.] arm'. Any vowel undergoes laxing and backing when it occurs in uvular ( /q/, /ʁ/, /χ/ ) and laryngeal (glottal) ( /ɦ/, /ʔ/ ) environments, e.g. qiz [qʰɤz] 'girl', qëtiq [qʰɤˈtɯq] 'yogurt', qeghez [qʰæˈʁæz] 'paper', qum [qʰʊm] 'sand', qolay [qʰɔˈlʌɪ] 'convenient', qan [qʰɑn] 'blood', ëghiz [ʔeˈʁez] 'mouth', hisab [ɦɤˈsʌp] 'number', hës [ɦɤs] 'hunch', hemrah [ɦæmˈrʌh] 'partner', höl [ɦœɫ] 'wet', hujum [ɦuˈd͡ʒʊm] 'assault', halqa [ɦɑlˈqʰɑ] 'ring'. Lowering tends to apply to

1484-536: A scholar of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from Kashgar in modern-day Xinjiang , published a Turkic language dictionary and description of the geographic distribution of many Turkic languages, Dīwān ul-Lughat al-Turk (English: Compendium of the Turkic Dialects ; Uyghur: تۈركى تىللار دىۋانى ‎, Türki Tillar Diwani ). The book, described by scholars as an "extraordinary work," documents

1590-1045: A sealed-up cave. Many of these caves were covered with murals and contain many Buddhist statues. Discoveries continue to be found in the caves, including excerpts from a Christian Bible dating to the Yuan dynasty . Numerous smaller Buddhist cave sites are located in the region, including the Western Thousand Buddha Caves , the Eastern Thousands Buddha Caves, and the Five Temple site. The Yulin Caves are located further east in Guazhou County . in Hecang Fortress ( Chinese : 河仓城 ; pinyin : Hécāngchéng ), located about 11 km (6.8 mi) northeast of

1696-450: A suffix alternate as governed by vowel harmony , where /ɡ/ occurs with front vowels and /ʁ/ with back ones. Devoicing of a suffix-initial consonant can occur only in the cases of /d/ → [t] , /ɡ/ → [k] , and /ʁ/ → [q] , when the preceding consonant is voiceless. Lastly, the rule that /g/ must occur with front vowels and /ʁ/ with back vowels can be broken when either [k] or [q] in suffix-initial position becomes assimilated by

1802-485: Is Qinghai Petroleum Authority Life Base  [ zh ] . Prior to 2015, Guojiabu  [ zh ] and Huangqu  [ zh ] were administered as townships. Prior to 2019, the city administered Guoying Dunhuang Farm  [ zh ] as a township-level division. In 2011, Yueyaquan  [ zh ] was formed from Yangjiaqiao Township ( Chinese : 杨家桥乡 ). 2019 city estimates put Dunhuang's population at about 191,800. According to

1908-574: Is CV(C)(C). Uyghur syllable structure is usually CV or CVC, but CVCC can also occur in some words. When syllable-coda clusters occur, CC tends to become CVC in some speakers especially if the first consonant is not a sonorant . In Uyghur, any consonant phoneme can occur as the syllable onset or coda , except for /ʔ/ which only occurs in the onset and /ŋ/ , which never occurs word-initially. In general, Uyghur phonology tends to simplify phonemic consonant clusters by means of elision and epenthesis . The Karluk language started to be written with

2014-605: Is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8–13 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China . Apart from Xinjiang, significant communities of Uyghur speakers are also located in Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Uzbekistan , and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur

2120-417: Is a left-branching language with subject–object–verb word order. More distinctly, Uyghur processes include vowel reduction and umlauting , especially in northern dialects. In addition to other Turkic languages, Uyghur has historically been strongly influenced by Arabic and Persian , and more recently by Russian and Mandarin Chinese . The modified Arabic-derived writing system is the most common and

2226-404: Is also sold, consisting of a large, sweet confection made with nuts and dried fruit , sliced into the portion desired by the customer. Dunhuang has a cool arid climate ( Köppen BWk ), with an annual total precipitation of 67 mm (2.64 in), the majority of which occurs in summer; precipitation occurs only in trace amounts and quickly evaporates. Winters are long and freezing, with

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2332-747: Is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; it is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio. Other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang also use Uyghur as a common language . Uyghur belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family , which includes languages such as Uzbek . Like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination , lacks noun classes or grammatical gender , and

2438-475: Is common in spoken Uyghur, but stigmatized in formal contexts. Xinjiang Television and other mass media, for example, will use the rare Russian loanword aplisin ( апельсин , apel'sin ) for the word "orange", rather than the ubiquitous Mandarin loanword juze ( 橘子 ; júzi ). In a sentence, this mixing might look like: مېنىڭ Më-ning 1sg - GEN تەلەفونىم telfon-im cellphone- POSS . 1sg گۇئەنجى، guenji, Dunhuang Dunhuang

2544-738: Is more closely related to the Siberian Turkic languages in Siberia. Robert Dankoff wrote that the Turkic language spoken in Kashgar and used in Kara Khanid works was Karluk, not (Old) Uyghur. Robert Barkley Shaw wrote, "In the Turkish of Káshghar and Yarkand (which some European linguists have called Uïghur, a name unknown to the inhabitants of those towns, who know their tongue simply as Túrki), ... This would seem in many case to be

2650-672: Is served by China National Highway 215 and Dunhuang Mogao International Airport . A railway branch known as the Dunhuang railway or the Liudun Railway ( 柳敦铁路 ), constructed in 2004–2006, connects Dunhuang with the Liugou Station on the Lanzhou-Xinjiang railway (in Guazhou County ). There is regular passenger service on the line, with overnight trains from Dunhuang to Lanzhou and Xi'an . Dunhuang Station

2756-402: Is situated in an oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan ( 鳴沙山 , meaning "Singing-Sand Mountain"), named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, the singing sand phenomenon. Dunhuang commands a strategic position at the crossroads of the ancient Southern Silk Route and the main road leading from India via Lhasa to Mongolia and southern Siberia , and also controls

2862-643: The Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk . According to Gerard Clauson , Western Yugur is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur and is also called "Neo-Uyghur". According to Frederik Coene, Modern Uyghur and Western Yugur belong to entirely different branches of the Turkic language family, respectively the Southeastern Turkic languages and the Northeastern Turkic languages . The Western Yugur language , although in geographic proximity,

2968-401: The 2010 Chinese census , Dunhuang has a population of 186,027, down slightly from the 187,578 recorded in the 2000 Chinese census . In 1996, the city had an estimated population of 125,000 people. Dunhuang has an urbanization rate of 69.45% as of 2019. In 2019, the city had a birth rate of 9.87‰, and a death rate of 5.69‰, giving it a rate of natural increase of 3.15‰. 97.8% of

3074-591: The Chagatai language , a literary language used all across Central Asia until the early 20th century. After Chaghatai fell into extinction , the standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chagatai-speaking region, showing abundant Chaghatai influence. Uyghur language today shows considerable Persian influence as a result from Chagatai, including numerous Persian loanwords . Modern Uyghur religious literature includes

3180-759: The Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz , have access to schools and government services in their native language. Smaller minorities, however, do not have a choice and must attend Uyghur-medium schools. These include the Xibe , Tajiks , Daurs and Russians . According to reports in 2018, Uyghur script was erased from street signs and wall murals, as the Chinese government has launched a campaign to force Uyghur people to learn Mandarin. Any interest in Uyghur culture or language could lead to detention. Recent news reports have also documented

3286-669: The Kutadgu Bilig . Ahmad bin Mahmud Yukenaki (Ahmed bin Mahmud Yükneki) (Ahmet ibn Mahmut Yükneki) (Yazan Edib Ahmed b. Mahmud Yükneki) ( w:tr:Edip Ahmet Yükneki ) wrote the Hibat al-ḥaqāyiq (هبة الحقايق) ( Hibet-ül hakayik ) (Hibet ül-hakayık) (Hibbetü'l-Hakaik) (Atebetüʼl-hakayik) ( w:tr:Atabetü'l-Hakayık ). Middle Turkic languages , through the influence of Perso - Arabic after the 13th century, developed into

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3392-707: The Ming dynasty . It was occupied again by the Tibetans c. 1516, and also came under the influence of the Chagatai Khanate in the early sixteenth century. Dunhuang was retaken by China two centuries later c. 1715 during the Qing dynasty , and the present-day city of Dunhuang was established east of the ruined old city in 1725. In 1988, Dunhuang was elevated from county to county-level city status. On March 31, 1995, Turpan and Dunhuang became sister cities. Today,

3498-701: The Rouran Khaganate . At the time of its conquest by the Rouran Khaganate, there were more than ten thousand Han Chinese households in Gaochang. The Rouran Khaganate, which was based in Mongolia, appointed a Han Chinese named Kan Bozhou to rule as King of Gaochang in 460, and it became a separate vassal kingdom of the Khaganate. Kan was dependent on Rouran backing. Yicheng and Shougui were

3604-745: The Sui (581–618) and Tang (618–907) dynasties, it was the main stop of communication between ancient China and the rest of the world and a major hub of commerce of the Silk Road. Dunhuang was the intersection city of all three main silk routes (north, central, south) during this time. From the West also came early Buddhist monks, who had arrived in China by the first century AD, and a sizable Buddhist community eventually developed in Dunhuang. The caves carved out by

3710-846: The Tang Code forbade commoners to be sold as slaves. The Tang dynasty became weakened considerably due to the An Lushan Rebellion , and the Tibetans took the opportunity to expand into Gansu and the Western Regions . The Tibetans took control of Turfan in 792. Clothing for corpses was made out of discarded, used paper in Turfan which is why the Astana graveyard is a source of a plethora of texts. Seventh or 8th century dumplings and wontons were found in Turfan. In 803,

3816-616: The Timurid envoy Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh , who passed through Turpan on the way from Herat to Beijing , reported that many of the city's residents were " infidels ". He visited a "very large and beautiful" temple with a statue of Shakyamuni ; in one of the versions of his account it was also claimed that many Turpanians " worshipped the cross ". The Moghul ruler of Turpan Yunus Khan , also known as Ḥājjī 'Ali (ruled 1462–1478), unified Moghulistan (roughly corresponding to today's Eastern Xinjiang) under his authority in 1472. Around that time,

3922-508: The United States ( New York City ). The Uyghurs are one of the 56 recognized ethnic groups in China and Uyghur is an official language of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region , along with Standard Chinese . As a result, Uyghur can be heard in most social domains in Xinjiang and also in schools, government and courts. Of the other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, those populous enough to have their own autonomous prefectures , such as

4028-629: The Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate seized Turfan from the Tibetans. The Uyghur Khaganate however was destroyed by the Kirghiz and its capital Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia sacked in 840. The defeat resulted in the mass movement of the Uyghurs out of Mongolia and their dispersal into Gansu and Central Asia, and many joined other Uyghurs already present in Turfan. In the early twentieth century,

4134-534: The Western Liang here in 400 AD. In 405 the capital of the Western Liang was moved from Dunhuang to Jiuquan . In 421 the Western Liang was conquered by the Northern Liang . As a frontier town, Dunhuang was fought over and occupied at various times by non-Han people. After the fall of the Han dynasty it came under the rule of various nomadic tribes, such as the Xiongnu during Northern Liang and

4240-542: The extinct language Chagatay (the East Karluk languages), and more distantly to Uzbek (which is West Karluk). It is widely accepted that Uyghur has three main dialects, all based on their geographical distribution. Each of these main dialects have a number of sub-dialects which all are mutually intelligible to some extent. The Central dialects are spoken by 90% of the Uyghur-speaking population, while

4346-660: The 7th century AD and for the next three centuries the Tibetan Empire , the Tang dynasty, and the Turks fought over dominion of the Tarim Basin . Sogdians and Chinese engaged in extensive commercial activities with each other under Tang rule. The Sogdians were mostly Mazdaist at this time. The Turpan region was renamed Xi Prefecture ( 西州 ) when the Tang conquered it in 640 AD, had a history of commerce and trade along

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4452-486: The 9th century, increasingly from the Chinese. Many of the Uyghur documents and fragments of Buddhist scriptures edited to date include didactic texts ( sutras ) and philosophical works (the abhidharma ). In contrast to the other Buddhist contents, the monastic discipline texts (the vinaya ) did not seem to be translated, but rather taught and studied in Sanskrit. The conversion of the local Buddhist population to Islam

4558-699: The Arabic-based Uyghur alphabets have 32 characters each; the Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet also uses two iotated vowel letters (Ю and Я). The Middle Turkic languages are the direct ancestor of the Karluk languages , including Uyghur and the Uzbek language . Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur , rather, it is a descendant of the Karluk language spoken by the Kara-Khanid Khanate , as described by Mahmud al-Kashgari in

4664-482: The Imams will leave this world without faith and on Judgement Day their faces will be black ..." in the Tazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams . Shaw translated extracts from the Tazkiratu'l-Bughra on the Muslim Turki war against the "infidel" Khotan. The Turki-language Tadhkirah i Khwajagan was written by M. Sadiq Kashghari. Historical works like the Tārīkh-i amniyya and Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi were written by Musa Sayrami . The Qing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on

4770-439: The Indo-European Tocharian languages in prehistory. The Jushi Kingdom ruled the area in the 1st millennium BC, until it was conquered by the Chinese Han dynasty in 107 BC. It was subdivided into two kingdoms in 60 BC, between the Han and its enemy the Xiongnu Empire . The city changed hands several times between the Xiongnu and the Han, interspersed with short periods of independence. Nearer Jushi has been linked to

4876-410: The Islamic conquest of Khotan, Yarkand and Kashgar by Yusuf Qadir Khan, the Qarakhanid leader. The shrines of Sufi Saints are revered in Altishahr as one of Islam's essential components and the tazkirah literature reinforced the sacredness of the shrines. Anyone who does not believe in the stories of the saints is guaranteed hellfire by the tazkirahs. It is written, "And those who doubt Their Holinesses

4982-412: The Later Han , the Dunhuang region was a part of the ancient Guazhou, which was known for its production of melons. Its name was also mentioned in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi in the Records of the Grand Historian . Some have argued that this may refer to the unrelated toponym Dunhong – the archaeologist Lin Meicun has also suggested that Dunhuan may be a Chinese name for the Tukhara ,

5088-606: The Ming dynasty imposed an economic blockade on Turfan and kicked out all the Uyghurs from Gansu. It became so harsh for Turfan that Ahmed left. Ahmed's son Mansur succeeded him and took over Hami in 1517. These conflicts were called the Ming–Turpan conflict . Several times, after occupying Hami, Mansur tried to attack China in 1524 with 20,000 men, but was beaten by Chinese forces. The Turpan kingdom under Mansur, in alliance with Oirat Mongols , tried to raid Suzhou in Gansu in 1528, but were severely defeated by Ming Chinese forces and suffered heavy casualties. The Chinese refused to lift

5194-416: The Mongol Empire in the wake of Kublai Khan 's conquest of China under the Yuan dynasty . During the Ming dynasty, China became a major sea power, conducting several voyages of exploration with sea routes for trade and cultural exchanges. Dunhuang went into a steep decline after the Chinese trade with the outside world became dominated by southern sea-routes, and the Silk Road was officially abandoned during

5300-421: The Oirat Mongol Henshen and holding it for a while, until Ali was repulsed by the Ming dynasty into Turfan. He reoccupied Hami after Ming left. Henshen's Mongols recaptured Hami twice in 1482 and 1483, but the son of Ali, Ahmad Alaq , who ruled Eastern Moghulistan or Turpan Khanate , reconquered it in 1493 and captured the Hami leader and the resident of China in Hami (Hami was a vassal state to Ming). In response,

5406-413: The Perso-Arabic script (Kona Yëziq) in the 10th century upon the conversion of the Kara-Khanids to Islam. This Perso-Arabic script (Kona Yëziq) was reformed in the 20th century with modifications to represent all Modern Uyghur sounds including short vowels and eliminate Arabic letters representing sounds not found in Modern Uyghur. Unlike many other modern Turkic languages , Uyghur is primarily written using

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5512-417: The Silk Road already centuries old; it had many inns catering to merchants and other travelers, while numerous brothels are recorded in Kucha and Khotan . According to Valerie Hansen, even before the Tang conquest, Han ethnic presence was already so extensive that the cultural alignment of the city led to Turpan's name in the Sogdian language becoming known as "Chinatown" or "Town of the Chinese". As late as

5618-427: The Song dynasty. In June 1995, a book of standard names for local geography was published. Uyghur language Uyghur or Uighur ( / ˈ w iː ɡ ʊər , - ɡ ər / ; ئۇيغۇر تىلى , Уйғур тили , Uyghur tili, Uyƣur tili , IPA: [ʊjˈʁʊɾ.tɪ.lɪ] or ئۇيغۇرچە , Уйғурчә , Uyghurche, Uyƣurqə , IPA: [ʊj.ʁʊɾˈtʃɛ] , CTA : Uyğurçä; formerly known as Turki or Eastern Turki )

5724-626: The Syrian . Manichaean texts survive in Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian and Uyghur; the Sogdian and Uyghur documents show a notable adaptation to Buddhism, but there is also evidence of a reverse influence. Important parts of the Gospel of Mani were found here, for example. Also, parts of the Arzhang (Book of Pictures), one of the holy books of Manichaeism were discovered. Most of the Buddhist texts survive in only fragmentary form. There are several Indian Sanskrit texts from various schools of Mahayana and Hinayana , Uyghur texts that are mostly translations from Sanskrit, Tocharian and, starting in

5830-482: The Taẕkirah, biographies of Islamic religious figures and saints. The Taẕkirah is a genre of literature written about Sufi Muslim saints in Altishahr . Written sometime in the period between 1700 and 1849, the Chagatai language (modern Uyghur) Taẕkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams provides an account of the Muslim Karakhanid war against the Khotanese Buddhists, containing a story about Imams, from Mada'in city (possibly in modern-day Iraq) came 4 Imams who travelled to help

5936-422: The Turfan fragments. They comprise a collection of over 40,000 manuscripts and manuscript fragments in 16 different languages and 26 different typefaces in different book forms. They are in the custody of the Berlin State Library where their study continues. These writings deal with Buddhist as well as Christian-Nestorian, Manichaean and secular contents. The approximately 8,000 Old Turkic Buddhist texts make up

6042-428: The Turkic Tuoba during Northern Wei . The Tibetans occupied Dunhuang when the Tang Empire became weakened considerably after the An Lushan Rebellion ; and even though it was later returned to Tang rule, it was under quasi-autonomous rule by the local general Zhang Yichao , who expelled the Tibetans in 848. After the fall of Tang, Zhang's family formed the Kingdom of Golden Mountain in 910, but in 911 it came under

6148-402: The Turpan Oasis, while Further Jushi to the north of the mountains near modern Jimsar . After the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the region was virtually independent but tributary to various dynasties. Until the 5th century AD, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe (modern Yarghul 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) west of Turpan). Many Han Chinese along with Sogdians settled in Turfan during

6254-458: The Uyghur language is of Turkic stock, but due to different kinds of language contact throughout its history, it has adopted many loanwords . Kazakh , Uzbek and Chagatai are all Turkic languages which have had a strong influence on Uyghur. Many words of Arabic origin have come into the language through Persian and Tajik , which again have come through Uzbek and to a greater extent, Chagatai. Many words of Arabic origin have also entered

6360-630: The Western-Han-era Yumen Pass , were built during the Western Han (202 BC – 9 AD) and significantly rebuilt during the Western Jin (280–316 AD). Dunhuang Night Market is a night market held on the main thoroughfare, Dong Dajie, in the city centre of Dunhuang, popular with tourists during the summer months. Many souvenir items are sold, including such typical items as jade , jewelry, scrolls, hangings, small sculptures, leather shows puppets, coins, Tibetan horns and Buddha statues. A sizable number of members of China's ethnic minorities engage in business at these markets. A Central Asian dessert or sweet

6466-405: The Xiongnu in 121 BC . Dunhuang was one of the four frontier garrison towns (along with Jiuquan , Zhangye and Wuwei ) established by the Emperor Wu after the defeat of the Xiongnu, and the Chinese built fortifications at Dunhuang and sent settlers there. The name Dunhuang, meaning "Blazing Beacon", refers to the beacons lit to warn of attacks by marauding nomadic tribes. Dunhuang Commandery

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6572-504: The bases of height, backness and roundness. It has been argued, within a lexical phonology framework, that / e / has a back counterpart / ɤ / , and modern Uyghur lacks a clear differentiation between / i / and / ɯ / . Uyghur vowels are by default short , but long vowels also exist because of historical vowel assimilation (above) and through loanwords. Underlyingly long vowels would resist vowel reduction and devoicing , introduce non-final stress, and be analyzed as |Vj| or |Vr| before

6678-431: The city's population is ethnically Han Chinese , with the remaining 2.2% being 27 ethnic minorities , including ethnic Hui , Mongol , Tibetan , Uyghur , Miao , Manchu , Monguor , Kazakh , Dongxiang , and Yugur populations. As of 2019, the annual per capita disposable income of urban residents was ¥36,215, and the annual per capita disposable income of rural residents was ¥18,852. As of 2019, Dunhuang has

6784-462: The construction of cave temples in the Bezeklik Caves . The Uyghurs formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang . The Uyghur state later became a vassal state of the Kara-Khitans and then as a vassal of the Mongol Empire . This Kingdom was led by the Idikuts or Saint Spiritual Rulers. The last Idikut left Turpan area in 1284 for Kumul and then Gansu to seek protection of the Yuan dynasty , but local Uyghur Buddhist rulers still held power until

6890-436: The desert near Dunhuang surfaced online and caused a brief media stir. A number of Buddhist cave sites are located in the Dunhuang area, the most important of these is the Mogao Caves which is located 25 km (16 mi) southeast of Dunhuang. There are 735 caves in Mogao, and the caves in Mogao are particularly noted for their Buddhist art, as well as the hoard of manuscripts, the Dunhuang manuscripts , found hidden in

6996-410: The economic blockade and restrictions that had led to the battles and continued restricting Turpan's tribute and trade with China. Turfan also annexed Hami . The Imin mosque of Turfan was built in 1779. Francis Younghusband visited Turpan in 1887 on his overland journey from Beijing to India. He said it consisted of two walled towns, a Chinese one with a population of no more than 5,000 and, about

7102-449: The entrance to the narrow Hexi Corridor , which leads straight to the heart of the north Chinese plains and the ancient capitals of Chang'an (today known as Xi'an) and Luoyang . Administratively, the county-level city of Dunhuang is part of the prefecture-level city of Jiuquan . Historically, the city and/or its surrounding region has also been known by the names Shazhou (prefecture of sand) or Guazhou (prefecture of melons). In

7208-487: The existence of mandatory boarding schools where children are separated from their parents; children are punished for speaking Uyghur, making the language at a very high risk of extinction. The Chinese government have implemented bi-lingual education in most regions of Xinjiang. The bi-lingual education system teaches Xinjiang's students all STEM classes using only Mandarin Chinese, or a combination of Uighur and Chinese. However, research have shown that due to differences in

7314-484: The former set near front vowels and the latter near a back vowels. Some speakers of Uyghur distinguish /v/ from /w/ in Russian loans, but this is not represented in most orthographies. Other phonemes occur natively only in limited contexts, i.e. /h/ only in few interjections, /d/ , /ɡ/ , and /ʁ/ rarely initially, and /z/ only morpheme-final. Therefore, the pairs */t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ/ , */ʃ, ʒ/ , and */s, z/ do not alternate. The primary syllable structure of Uyghur

7420-445: The history of the people. In one of his books the term Uyghur was deliberately not used by James A. Millward . The name Khāqāniyya was given to the Qarluks who inhabited Kāshghar and Bālāsāghūn, the inhabitants were not Uighur, but their language has been retroactively labelled as Uighur by scholars. The Qarakhanids called their own language the "Turk" or "Kashgar" language and did not use Uighur to describe their own language, Uighur

7526-433: The influence of the Uighurs . The Zhangs were succeeded by the Cao family, who formed alliances with the Uighurs and the Kingdom of Khotan . During the Song dynasty , Dunhuang fell outside the Chinese borders. In 1036 the Tanguts who founded the Western Xia dynasty captured Dunhuang. From the reconquest of 848 to about 1036 (i.e. era of the Guiyi Circuit ), Dunhuang was a multicultural entrepot that contained one of

7632-861: The invasion by the Moghul Khizr Khoja in 1389. German scientists conducted archaeological expeditions, known as the German Turfan expeditions , at the beginning of the 20th century (between 1902 and 1914). They discovered paintings and other art treasures that were transported to the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin . Artifacts of Manichaean and Buddhist provenance were also found in Turfan. During World War II, many of these artifacts were destroyed or looted. Uyghur , Persian , Sogdian and Syriac documents have been found in Turfan. Turfan also has documents in Middle Persian . All these are known as

7738-573: The language directly through Islamic literature after the introduction of Islam around the 10th century. Chinese in Xinjiang and Russian elsewhere had the greatest influence on Uyghur. Loanwords from these languages are all quite recent, although older borrowings exist as well, such as borrowings from Dungan , a Mandarin language spoken by the Dungan people of Central Asia . A number of loanwords of German origin have also reached Uyghur through Russian. Code-switching with Standard Chinese

7844-611: The language to diaspora children online as well as publishing a magazine written by children for children in Uyghur. Uyghur has a seven-vowel inventory, with [i] and [e] not distinguished. The vowel letters of the Uyghur language are, in their alphabetical order (in the Latin script), ⟨a⟩ , ⟨e⟩ , ⟨ë⟩ , ⟨i⟩ , ⟨o⟩ , ⟨ö⟩ , ⟨u⟩ , ⟨ü⟩ . There are no diphthongs. Hiatus occurs in some loanwords. Uyghur vowels are distinguished on

7950-601: The largest ethnic Sogdian communities in China following the An Lushan Rebellion. The Sogdians were Sinified to some extent and were bilingual in Chinese and Sogdian , and wrote their documents in Chinese characters , but horizontally from left to right instead of right to left in vertical lines, as Chinese was normally written at the time. Dunhuang was conquered in 1227 by the Mongols , and became part of

8056-582: The largest part of this. A whole series of Sogdian Buddhist scriptures were found in Turpan (and also in Dunhuang ), but these date from the Tang dynasty (618–907) and are translations from Chinese. Earlier Sogdian Buddhist texts could not be found. Christian texts exist mainly in Syriac and Sogdian, but also as Syriac-Sogdian bilinguals (bilingual texts), as well as some Turkish-Nestorian fragments. They include fragments of Sogdian translations of works by Isaac

8162-573: The last two kings of the Chinese Kan family to rule Gaochang. At this time the Gaoche was rising to challenge power of the Rouran in the Tarim Basin . The Gaoche king Afuzhiluo killed King Kan Shougui, who was the nephew of Kan Bozhou. and appointed a Han from Dunhuang , named Zhang Mengming (張孟明), as his own vassal King of Gaochang. Gaochang thus passed under Gaoche rule. Later, Zhang Mengming

8268-543: The lavish reception offered to them along their route through China, from Suzhou to Beijing , such as described by Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh in 1420–1421.) Yunus Khan was irritated by the restrictions on the frequency and size of Turpanian missions (no more than one mission in 5 years, with no more than 10 members) imposed by the Ming government in 1465 and by the Ming's refusal to bestow sufficiently luxurious gifts on his envoys (1469). Accordingly, in 1473 he went to war against China, and succeeded in capturing Hami in 1473 from

8374-550: The major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki language, such as the Pentaglot Dictionary . The historical term "Uyghur" was appropriated for the language that had been known as Eastern Turki by government officials in the Soviet Union in 1922 and in Xinjiang in 1934. Sergey Malov was behind the idea of renaming Turki to Uyghurs. The use of the term Uyghur has led to anachronisms when describing

8480-498: The modern era, the two alternative names have been assigned respectively to Shazhou zhen (Shazhou town) which serves as Dunhuang's seat of government, and to the neighboring Guazhou County . A number of derivations of the name Dunhuang have been suggested by scholars: There is evidence of habitation in the area as early as 2,000 BC, possibly by people recorded as the Qiang in Chinese history. According to Zuo Zhuan and Book of

8586-556: The monks, originally used for meditation, developed into a place of worship and pilgrimage called the Mogao Caves or " Caves of a Thousand Buddhas. " A number of Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean artifacts have also been found in the caves (see for example Jingjiao Documents ), testimony to the wide variety of people who made their way along the Silk Road. During the time of the Sixteen Kingdoms , Li Gao established

8692-506: The non-high vowels when a syllable-final liquid assimilates to them, e.g. kör [cʰøː] 'look!', boldi [bɔlˈdɪ] 'he [etc.] became', ders [dæːs] 'lesson', tar [tʰɑː(r)] 'narrow'. Official Uyghur orthographies do not mark vowel length, and also do not distinguish between /ɪ/ (e.g., بىلىم ‎ /bɪlɪm/ 'knowledge') and back / ɯ / (e.g., تىلىم ‎ /tɯlɯm/ 'my language'); these two sounds are in complementary distribution , but phonological analyses claim that they play

8798-469: The only standard in China, although other writing systems are used for auxiliary and historical purposes. Unlike most Arabic-derived scripts, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet has mandatory marking of all vowels due to modifications to the original Perso-Arabic script made in the 20th century. Two Latin alphabets and one Cyrillic alphabet are also used, though to a much lesser extent. The two Latin-based and

8904-565: The order of words and grammar between the Uighur and the Chinese language, many students face obstacles in learning courses such as Mathematics under the bi-lingual education system. Uyghur language has been supported by Google Translate since February 2020. About 80 newspapers and magazines are available in Uyghur; five TV channels and ten publishers serve as the Uyghur media . Outside of China, Radio Free Asia provides news in Uyghur. Poet and activist Muyesser Abdul'ehed teaches

9010-486: The other due to the preceding consonant being such. Loan phonemes have influenced Uyghur to various degrees. /d͡ʒ/ and /χ/ were borrowed from Arabic and have been nativized, while /ʒ/ from Persian less so. /f/ only exists in very recent Russian and Chinese loans, since Perso-Arabic (and older Russian and Chinese) /f/ became Uyghur /p/ . Perso-Arabic loans have also made the contrast between /k, ɡ/ and /q, ʁ/ phonemic, as they occur as allophones in native words,

9116-555: The post Han dynasty era. The Chinese character dominated Turfan in the eyes of the Sogdians. Kuchean speakers made up the original inhabitants before the Chinese and Sogdian influx. The oldest evidence of the use of Chinese characters was found in Turfan in a document dated to 273 AD. In 327, the Gaochang Commandery ( jùn ) was created in the Turfan area by the Former Liang under Zhang Jun . The Chinese set up

9222-484: The prefecture. Turpan directly controls one district and two counties . Turpan is located about 150 km (93 mi) southeast of Ürümqi , Xinjiang's capital, in a mountain basin, on the northern side of the Turpan Depression , at an elevation of 30 m (98 ft) above sea level. Outside of Turpan is a small volcanic cone, the Turfan volcano, that is said to have erupted in 1120 as described in

9328-592: The region, after a Chinese commander tried to forcibly marry a local girl. The Chinese responded by indiscriminately attacking Muslims; this turned the entire countryside against the Chinese administration and the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Tungans joined the rebels. On 19 August 1981, Deng Xiaoping conducted an inspection in Turpan Prefecture. On 31 March 1995, Turpan and Dunhuang became sister cities. According to reports from Radio Free Asia , as of 2020, there were eight Xinjiang internment camps in

9434-481: The rich literary tradition of Turkic languages; it contains folk tales (including descriptions of the functions of shamans ) and didactic poetry (propounding "moral standards and good behaviour"), besides poems and poetry cycles on topics such as hunting and love and numerous other language materials. Other Kara-Khanid writers wrote works in the Turki Karluk Khaqani language. Yusuf Khass Hajib wrote

9540-530: The site is an important tourist attraction and the subject of an ongoing archaeological project. A large number of manuscripts and artifacts retrieved at Dunhuang have been digitized and made publicly available via the International Dunhuang Project . The spreading Kumtag Desert , the result of long-standing overgrazing of the surrounding land, has reached the edges of the city. In 2011 satellite images showing huge structures in

9646-747: The sunniest nationwide. The Gansu Dunhuang Solar Park was built in the southwest suburbs of the city to harvest the abundant solar energy. As of 2020, Dunhuang administers nine towns and one other township-level division . These township-level divisions then administer 56 village-level divisions . The city's nine towns are Qili  [ zh ] (七里镇), Shazhou  [ zh ] (沙州镇), Suzhou  [ zh ] (肃州镇), Mogao  [ zh ] (莫高镇), Zhuanqukou  [ zh ] (转渠口镇), Yangguan  [ zh ] (阳关镇), Yueyaquan  [ zh ] (月牙泉镇), Guojiabu  [ zh ] (郭家堡镇), and Huangqu  [ zh ] (黄渠镇). The city's sole other township-level division

9752-580: The supreme power in the region, the Qu dynasty of Gaochang became vassals of the Göktürks. While the material civilization of Kucha to its west in this period remained chiefly Indo-Iranian in character, in Gaochang it gradually merged into the Tang aesthetics. Qu Wentai, King of Gaochang, was a main patron of the Tang pilgrim and traveller Xuanzang . The Tang dynasty had reconquered the Tarim Basin by

9858-416: The surrounding fields. Turpan grapes impressed other travelers to the region as well. The 19th-century Russian explorer Grigory Grum-Grshimailo , thought the local raisins may be "the best in the world" and noted the buildings of a "perfectly peculiar design" used for drying them called chunche . Mongols, Chinese and Chantos all lived in Turfan during this period. In 1931, a Uyghur rebellion broke out in

9964-817: The table below the alphabets are shown side-by-side for comparison, together with a phonetic transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet . Like other Turkic languages, Uyghur is a head-final agglutinative language with a subject–object–verb word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case , but not gender and definiteness like in many other languages. There are two numbers: singular and plural and six different cases: nominative , accusative , dative , locative , ablative and genitive . Verbs are conjugated for tense : present and past ; voice : causative and passive ; aspect : continuous and mood : e.g. ability. Verbs may be negated as well. The core lexicon of

10070-590: The tenth century, the Persian source Hudud Al-Alam continued to refer to the town as Chīnanjkanth (Chinese town). In Astana Cemetery , a contract written in Sogdian detailing the sale of a Sogdian girl to a Chinese man was discovered dated to 639 AD. Individual slaves were common among silk route houses; early documents recorded an increase in the selling of slaves in Turpan. Twenty-one 7th-century marriage contracts were found that showed, where one Sogdian spouse

10176-442: The top. There was a level space about 15 yards (14 m) wide outside the main walls surrounded by a musketry wall about 8 ft (2.4 m) high, with a ditch around it some 12 ft (3.7 m) deep and 20 ft (6 m) wide. There were drumtowers over the gateways, small square towers at the corners and two small square bastions between the corners and the gateways, "two to each front". Wheat, cotton, poppies, melons and grapes were grown in

10282-983: The two other branches of dialects only are spoken by a relatively small minority. Vowel reduction is common in the northern parts of where Uyghur is spoken, but not in the south. Uyghur is spoken by an estimated 8–11 million people in total. In addition to being spoken primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China , mainly by the Uyghur people , Uyghur was also spoken by some 300,000 people in Kazakhstan in 1993, some 90,000 in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in 1998, 3,000 in Afghanistan and 1,000 in Mongolia , both in 1982. Smaller communities also exist in Albania , Australia , Belgium , Canada , Germany , Indonesia , Pakistan , Saudi Arabia , Sweden , Tajikistan , Turkey , United Kingdom and

10388-469: The voiced member devoicing in syllable-final position, except in word-initial syllables. This devoicing process is usually reflected in the official orthography, but an exception has been recently made for certain Perso-Arabic loans. Voiceless phonemes do not become voiced in standard Uyghur. Suffixes display a slightly different type of consonant alternation. The phonemes /ɡ/ and /ʁ/ anywhere in

10494-420: The west of modern Turpan) to Qocho (Gaochang, 30 km or 19 mi to the southeast of Turpan) and to Turpan itself. Historically, many settlements in the Tarim Basin , being situated between Chinese, Turkic, Mongolian, and Persian language users, have a number of cognate names. Turpan or Turfan/Tulufan is one such example. The original name of the city is unknown. The form Turfan, while older than Turpan,

10600-420: Was a key supply base for caravans that passed through the city: those setting out for the arduous trek across the desert loaded up with water and food supplies, and others arriving from the west gratefully looked upon the mirage-like sight of Dunhuang's walls, which signified safety and comfort. Dunhuang prospered on the heavy flow of traffic. The first Buddhist caves in the Dunhuang area were hewn in 353." During

10706-427: Was completed in the second half of the 15th century. After being converted, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" ( Dzungars ) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area. Buddhist images and temples in Turfan were described in 1414 by the Ming diplomat Chen Cheng . As late as 1420,

10812-519: Was killed in an uprising by the people of Gaochang and replaced by Ma Ru ( 馬 儒 ). In 501, Ma Ru himself was overthrown and killed, and the people of Gaochang appointed Qu Jia ( 麴 嘉 ) from Jincheng Commandery as their king. Qu Jia at first pledged allegiance to the Rouran, but the Rouran khaghan was soon killed by the Gaoche and he had to submit to Gaoche overlordship. Later, when the Göktürks emerged as

10918-554: Was not used until the middle of the 2nd millennium CE and its use became widespread only in the post-Mongol period. Turpan has long been the centre of a fertile oasis (with water provided by the karez canal system) and an important trade centre. It was historically located along the Silk Road . At that time, other kingdoms of the region included Korla and Yanqi . Along with city-states such as Krorän (Loulan) and Kucha, Turfan appears to have been inhabited by people speaking

11024-407: Was present, for 18 of them their partner was a Sogdian. The only Sogdian men who married Chinese women were highly eminent officials. Several commercial interactions were recorded, for example a camel was sold priced at 14 silk bolts in 673, and a Chang'an native bought a girl age 11 for 40 silk bolts in 731 from a Sogdian merchant. Five men swore that the girl was never free before enslavement, since

11130-525: Was probably established shortly after 104 BC. Located in the western end of the Hexi Corridor near the historic junction of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads , Dunhuang was a town of military importance. "The Great Wall was extended to Dunhuang, and a line of fortified beacon towers stretched westwards into the desert. By the second century AD Dunhuang had a population of more than 76,000 and

11236-525: Was used to describe the language of non-Muslims but Chinese scholars have anachronistically called a Qarakhanid work written by Kashgari as "Uighur". The name " Altishahri-Jungharian Uyghur " was used by the Soviet educated Uyghur Qadir Haji in 1927. The Uyghur language belongs to the Karluk Turkic ( Qarluq ) branch of the Turkic language family . It is closely related to Äynu , Lop , Ili Turki ,

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