Turkic · ISO 639-3 uig · ug
Uighur Language ئۇيغۇر تىلى
Uighur is a Turkic language spoken by about 10 million people in 4 countries. It is written in the Perso-Arabic, Cyrillic and Latin scripts.
Where Uighur is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Uighur
Language family
- Turkic
- Common Turkic
- Kipchak-Turkestan
- Turkestan
- Modern Turkestan
- Uyghuric
- Uighur
Writing system
Perso-Arabic, Cyrillic and Latin scripts
Related languages
About the Uighur language
Uighur (ئۇيغۇر تىلى) is spoken by about 10 million people, which makes it the 114th most spoken language in the world — just behind Norwegian Bokmål (11 million) and ahead of Afrikaans (10 million). It belongs to the Turkic language family and, more precisely, to the Uyghuric group within the Kipchak-Turkestan branch.
Where is Uighur spoken?
Uighur is used in 4 countries. The largest communities live in China (7.8 million), Kazakhstan (405,200), Afghanistan (3,009) and Mongolia (984).
Share of the population that speaks Uighur: China 0.6% (7.8 million), Kazakhstan 2% (405,200), Afghanistan <0.1% (3,009) and Mongolia <0.1% (984).
Uighur is not a national official language anywhere. It also has regional official status in China.
Writing system and status
Uighur is written in the Perso-Arabic, Cyrillic and Latin scripts. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Northern Uzbek, Southern Uzbek, Uzbek, Kazakh, Tatar, Kirghiz and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ug, ISO 639-3 uig.
Frequently asked questions about Uighur
How many people speak Uighur?
Where is Uighur spoken?
What language family does Uighur belong to?
What is Uighur called in Uighur?
Is Uighur an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.