Old Uyghur alphabet

The Uighur alphabet is a about the Sogdian alphabet which comes from the Aramaic alphabet of the Uighur language.

Since Uyghur in the Soviet Union and China was transliterated differently, and especially in China changed the writing system several times, today are a Persian- Arab, a Cyrillic and partly also a Latin alphabet for the Uyghur used.

History

The first written evidence of the Uighur date from the 5th century AD and were written in the Sogdian script. Next to her, partly also the Orkhon runes were used. The Sogdian script eventually developed in the 10th century on the Uighur script. With the Islamization of Uyghur Uighur alphabet was the then gradually replaced by the Arabic alphabet, which has no direct relationship with the Uyghur alphabet. The Uighur alphabet goes like virtually all alphabets ultimately back to the Phoenician script.

The Uighur script is written from top to bottom, so the lines run vertically. The next vertical line then follows the left of it, that is, the arrangement is the same as the traditional Chinese. The Uighur alphabet was taken from the time of Genghis Khan of the Mongol Mongolian alphabet.

Footnotes

• Alphabet