Urumqi Night Market - with Brief History of Uyghurs in Xinjiang

Brief history of Uyghurs in Xinjiang (by Sogdia)

** Before Chinese Han Dynasty 200 BC:

Central Asia was a region predominately occupied by ancient Persian tribes such as the sedentary Sogdians ( 粟特), Chorasmians (花剌子模) and, the semi-nomadic such as Scythians (斯基泰, 西徐亞, 塞種), and Alans (奄蔡). The ancient sedentary population played an important role in the history of Central Asia. Tajiks, Pashtuns (普什图), Pamiris (塔吉克) and other Persian groups are still present in the region. The ancient Persian language (Dari) is still the official language in Afganistan and in some areas in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Turkic group of people, such as Uyghurs, came to Central Asia very late in history (after 800 AD), much later than Han Chinese did in 200 BC.

** Chinese Han Dynasty in Xinjiang (206 BC to 220 AD):

Han Chinese extended its power influence in the forms of territory and protectorates in today's Xinjiang, part of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Today's Xinjinag was again under the power influence (protectorates and territory) of Tang Dynasty (618-907AD) and became territory of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911AD). Peoples Republic of China has taken over the territory sovereignty over Xinjiang from Qing Dynasty and Republic of China.

** Uyghur emigrated in Xinjiang (840-850 AD):

Uyghur Empires (742-848 AD, 回纥 or 回鶻) was in today's Mongolia with the capital at Ordu Baliq that located 300 km west of Ulaanbaatar (close to Town of Hotont) and it was annihilated by Kyrgyz tribe in 848 AD. The Kyrgyz destroyed and burned down every Uyghur cities and villages throughout the empire. Three groups of Uyghurs escaped from the annihilation. One group escaped to today's Gansu area and assimilated with Han Chinese. Another group escaped to today's Turpan in central Xinjiang. The last group escaped further west and scattered over today's Kashgar in south Xinjiang, Kyrgyzstan, Tajkistan and Uzbekistan.

Uyghurs has never had appreciable presence in north Xinjiang. They are mostly concentrated in Kashgar, Khotan, Aksu, and Kizilsu areas in south Xinjiang and Turpan in central Xinjiang. Uyghur is about 46% of the total population in Xinjiang, Han 40% and Kazak 7%. To call Xinjiang as "UYGHUR" Autonomous Region" is highly debatable.

** Xiongnu, Turkics and Turks

Turkics/Turks are Turko-Mongolian Tribes originated from today's Mongolia area. The ancesters of Uyghurs (维吾尔) is Xiongnu (匈奴). The earliest written record of Xiongnu or Turk (Tujue, 突厥) in history was in Han Dynasty around 200BC. The earliest use of the term "Uyghur" in history was in Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534 AD). Earlier historical written records of Xiongnu, Turk or Uyghur are all done by Han Chinese because they lacked the ability of reading and writing.

The Reading and writing is an essential for any moderate sophisticated society during the evolution. Some civilization had never reached to such level of sophistication before it vanished. The transition from nomadic to sedentary is an important evolution in the early human civilization history. The four oldest human civilizations all arose on the basins of major rivers; Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, Indus and Yellow Rivers, where the fertile alluvial farm lands were easily found.

Farming, villages, cities, state-nation, different social classes, political and economic systems are the backbone of the civilization. In the process of evolution, the need for written records for economic and political affairs occurred naturally. That was why all these old civilization had evolved the writings as earlier as in 5000BC or 6000BC

The relatively primitive nature of Turkish/Turkic culture has always influenced by the outside cultures. First the Persian influence, then Arab, and European is the most recently.

All Turkic people have learnt how to read and write very late in human hostory. Uyghur was the first Turkic group learnt the reading and writing after they emigrated from Kyrgyz annihilation in Mongolia to today's Turpan and Tarim Basin. The writing script they used was from the ancient Persian Sogdiana script.

Arab had huge influence on Turks/Turkics after 800 or 900 AD as Turks/Turkics have adapted Islam religion and change into the Arabic scripts in writing.

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, wanted to Europeanize Turks in 1920s with the intention to get rid of Arabic influence. He wanted Turks to dress like Europeans, and write like Europeans. However, after almost 60 years of continuous efforts, Turkey is still not accepted as the full membership at EU.

Thanks to the Chinese government for preserving the minority culture, All the Turkic minorities, including Uyghur, still uses the Arab writing script as today. All other Turkic or Turkish groups in other countries have changed to either Russian Cyrillic or Latin alphabet.