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Language Lineage

Karluk

The southeastern branch, heir to the literary Turkic of the Karakhanid and Timurid courts. Its modern languages were reshaped by Persian contact: standard Uzbek rounded *a to o (ota 'father', bor 'there is').

c. 10th century CE – presentThe oases of Central Asia and the Tarim Basin: Uzbekistan and Xinjiang
On this page
  1. The Karakhanid Beginnings
  2. Chagatai
  3. Uzbek and Uyghur
  4. Where it's spoken
  5. Turning points

01

The Karakhanid Beginnings

The Karakhanids, the first Turkic dynasty to adopt Islam in the 10th century, ruled Kashgar and the cities of Transoxiana. Their court produced the first Islamic Turkic literature, the long didactic poem Qutadγu Bilig ('Wisdom that Brings Good Fortune', 1069). In the 1070s, in Baghdad, Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. This Arabic-language dictionary of Turkic dialects notes their sound differences and includes a map of the Turkic world, and it is the first comparative work on Turkic.

02

Chagatai

Under the Timurids (15th century), Chagatai Turkic became a great literary language of the Persianate world. Its greatest poet, Ali-Shir Navoiy (1441–1501), wrote in both Persian and Turkic, and in Muḥākamat al-Lughatayn ('Judgement between the Two Languages', 1499) argued that Turkic was fully the equal of Persian for poetry. Chagatai remained the written language of Central Asian Turks until the 20th century.

03

Uzbek and Uyghur

In the Soviet period the Chagatai tradition was divided into national standards. Uzbek was based on the dialects of Tashkent and Fergana, which after centuries of bilingualism with Tajik Persian had lost vowel harmony and rounded *a to o: ota 'father', bor 'there is'. Uzbekistan adopted a Latin alphabet in 1993, though Cyrillic is still widely used. Uyghur, in Xinjiang, is written in a reformed Arabic script.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Uzbekistanc. 30 million
  2. Chinac. 11 million
  3. Afghanistanc. 3 million
  4. Kyrgyzstanc. 1 million
  5. Tajikistanc. 1 million
  6. Kazakhstanc. 700,000

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Writing1069 – 1077

    Karakhanid Turkic in Arabic script

    The Qutadγu Bilig and al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk establish Turkic as a written language of Islamic scholarship and poetry, in Arabic script. The Dīwān also records and compares other Turkic dialects of the time.

    Figures · Mahmud al-Kashgari (11th century)

    Sources (1)
    • Dankoff, Robert & James Kelly, trans. 1982–1985. Maḥmūd al-Kāšγarī: Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (Dīwān Luγāt at-Turk). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
  2. Contact15th century CE

    Chagatai and Persian

    Timurid court literature sets Chagatai Turkic alongside Persian and borrows Persian genres, metres and vocabulary. Navoiy's defence of Turkic (1499) marks its arrival as a literary language of equal standing.

    Figures · Ali-Shir Navoiy (1441–1501)

    Sources (1)
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  3. Sound lawEarly modern periodContested

    Uzbek *a → o

    *a → o (*ata → ota 'father', *bar → bor)

    In the urban dialects behind standard Uzbek, *a is rounded to o and vowel harmony breaks down: ota 'father' (Turkish ata), bor 'there is' (Turkish var). Tajik bilingualism is usually given as the cause. The timing is uncertain.

    Compare with other vowel shifts across families →

    Sources (1)
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
  4. Writing1993 onward

    Uzbek in Latin letters

    Independent Uzbekistan adopts a Latin alphabet to replace Cyrillic. The transition has been slow, and both scripts remain in everyday use.

    Sources (1)
    • Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató, eds. 2022. The Turkic Languages, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.