Uighur

Joining forms

Because the Arabic script is 'cursive' (ie. joined-up) writing, letters tend to have different shapes depending on whether they join with adjacent letters or not (see Cursive script). In addition, vowels can be represented using different characters, depending on where in a word they appear.

In scripts such as Arabic, several characters have no left-joining form. In what follows we'll use the characters يU+064A LETTER YEH and دU+062F LETTER DAL to illustrate shapes. The former can join on both sides, but the latter can only join on the right.

Left-joining glyphs are commonly called initial; dual-joining are called medial; and right-joining are called final. Glyphs that don't join on either side are called isolated. However, these glyph shapes can be found in various places within a single word.

Word-initial characters usually have initial glyph shapes (eg. ي‍ ). However, characters that only join to the right will use an isolated glyph shape (eg. د ). Furthermore, words beginning with a vowel are always preceded by a vowel carrier, which is normally اU+0627 LETTER ALEF (eg. ای‍ or اَ ).

Word-medial characters will typically join on both sides (eg. ‍ي‍ ) but those that only join to the right will use a final glyph (eg. ‍د ). However, if either of those is preceded by another character that only joins to the right, the glyph shapes rendered will be initial (eg. ي‍ ) and isolated (eg. د ), respectively.

Word-final characters will typically use a final glyph shape (eg. ‍ي and ‍د ). However, if the previous character joins only to the right, they will use isolated glyph shapes (eg.ي and د ).

In all this contextual glyph shaping the basic shapes used for a character can vary significantly in a script like Arabic. This also includes some characters that only have ijam dots in certain contexts.

Letters

Combining marks

Punctuation

Other

Show

Formatting

list all 13

‌200C

ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINERzero-width non-joiner

‍200D

ZERO WIDTH JOINERzero-width joiner

⁧2067

RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATErtl isolate

‫202B

RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDINGrtl embed

⁦2066

LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATEltr isolate

‪202A

LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDINGltr embed

⁨2068

FIRST STRONG ISOLATEfirst-strong isolate

⁩2069

POP DIRECTIONAL ISOLATEpop direction isolate

‬202C

POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTINGpop direction

‏200F

RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARKrtl mark

‎200E

LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARKltr mark

؜061C

ARABIC LETTER MARKarabic letter mark

͏034F

COMBINING GRAPHEME JOINERcombining grapheme joiner

To be investigated

list all 18

-002D

(tbc)    HYPHENhyphen -

[005B

(tbc)    LEFT SQUARE BRACKETbracket [

]005D

(tbc)    RIGHT SQUARE BRACKETbracket ]

ʼ02BC

(tbc)    MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHEapostrophe ʼ

٪066A

(tbc)    ARABIC PERCENT SIGNpercent sign %

​200B

(tbc)    ZERO WIDTH SPACEzero-width space

‑2011

(tbc)    NON-BREAKING HYPHENnon-breaking hyphen ‑

–2013

(tbc)    EN DASHen dash –

—2014

(tbc)    EM DASHem dash —

‘2018

(tbc)    LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark ‘

’2019

(tbc)    RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark ’

“201C

(tbc)    LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark “

”201D

(tbc)    RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark ”

…2026

(tbc)    HORIZONTAL ELLIPSISellipsis …

‹2039

(tbc)    LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark

›203A

(tbc)    RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARKquotation mark

⁠2060

(tbc)    U+2060 WORD JOINERword joiner

Vowel sounds

Natively and phonemically, Uighur has only short vowel sounds, although historical assimilation and loan words have led to some longer sounds phonetically2.

Uighur has no diphthongs, although hiatus may occur in some loanwords2.

Uighur vowels participate in vowel harmony and vowel reduction. For more information see Uighur Phonology.

Consonant sounds

	labial	dental	alveolar	post- alveolar	palatal	velar	uvular	glottal
stop	p b	t d				k ɡ	q	ʔ
affricate				t͡ʃ d͡ʒ
fricative	f v		s z	ʃ ʒ			χ ʁ	ɦ
nasal	m		n			ŋ
approximant	w		l		j
trill/flap			r

Stops and affricates weaken (lenition) before dissimilar consonants, and r, l and j may be assimilated to the preceding vowel, which becomes lengthened, but none of this is reflected in the orthography1.

Tone

Uighur is not a tonal language.

Structure

The general syllabic structure of Uighur2 is

CV(C)(C)

Uighur syllables are primarily CV or CVC. Consonant clusters in the syllable coda are often phonetically altered by elision or epenthesis2.

Any consonant can begin a syllable except for ŋ. Any consonant can appear in the coda except for ʔ2.

Vowel summary table

The following table summarises the main vowel to character assignments.

The right-hand column shows word-initial forms. The glyphs shown in the table are illustrative; alternative shapes may occur (see Joining forms).

Simple:	3 i ɨىii0649      y ʏۈüü06C8      u ʊۇuu06C7	3 i ɨئىiʿi0626 0649      y ʏئۈüʿü0626 06C8      u ʊئۇuʿu0626 06C7
	3 eېëë06D0      øۆöø06C6      o ɔوoo0648	3 eئېëʿë0626 06D0      øئۆoʿø0626 06C6      o ɔئوöʿo0626 0648
	ɛ æەee06D5	ɛ æئەeʿe0626 06D5
	ɑ aاaa0627	ɑ aئاaʿa0626 0627

For additional details see Vowel sounds to characters.

Post-consonant vowels

Vowel letters

Uighur has 8 vowel letters.

8

ىi ɨi i0649

ۈy ʏü ü06C8

ۇu ʊu u06C7

ېeë ë06D0

وo ɔo o0648

ەɛ æe e06D5

ۆøö ø06C6

اɑ aa a0627

Examples: يېڭىسار yeŋisar Yengisar خوتەن xotæn Khotan

When used for standalone vowels, these letters are preceded by ئU+0626 LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE (see Standalone vowels).

See also Encoding choices.

Combining marks

ٔrare0654

Because Uighur uses atomic characters for its vowels, Uighur text usually contains no vowel-dedicated combining marks. The only exception occurs in decomposed text, where ٔU+0654 HAMZA ABOVE will become a combining mark.

Standalone vowels

Standalone vowels are vowel sounds that are not preceded by a consonant sound, or are preceded by only a glottal stop. They may appear at the beginning of a word or in the middle of a word after a preceding vowel.

When a vowel is alone, initial, or follows another vowel inside a word, it is always preceded by ئ‍ U+0626 LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE, which in theory represents the glottal stop, but which is not pronounced as such at the start of a word – rather, it is just a support for the vowel.

8

ئىi ɨiʿi0626
0649

ئۈy ʏüʿü0626
06C8

ئۇu ʊuʿu0626
06C7

ئېeëʿë0626
06D0

ئوo ɔöʿo0626
0648

ئەɛ æeʿe0626
06D5

ئۆøoʿø0626
06C6

ئاɑ aaʿa0626
0627

Vowel sounds to characters

Consonant summary table

The following table summarises the main consonant to character assigments.

Consonants	7 pپpp067E bبbb0628 tتtt062A dدdd062F kكkk0643 ɡگgg06AF qقqq0642
	both t͡ʃچchč0686 d͡ʒجjʤ062C
	9 fفff0641 v wۋww06CB sسss0633 zزzz0632 ʒژzhʒ0698 ʃشshʃ0634 χخxχ062E ʁغghʁ063A hھhh06BE
	3 mمmm0645 nنnn0646 ŋڭngŋ06AD
	4 wۋww06CB rرrr0631 lلll0644 jيyy064A

For additional details see Consonant sounds to characters.

Consonant letters

The following consonants are used for the Uighur language, which is largely written as it is spoken. Whereas the table just above takes you from sounds to letters, the following simply lists the basic consonant letters (however, since the orthography is highly phonetic there is little difference in ordering).

24

پpp p067E

بbb b0628

تtt t062A

دdd d062F

كkk k0643

گɡg g06AF

    

    

چt͡ʃch č0686

    

    

فff f0641

سss s0633

زzz z0632

ژʒzh ʒ0698

شʃsh ʃ0634

خχx χ062E

غʁgh ʁ063A

    

    

مmm m0645

نnn n0646

    

    

ۋv ww w06CB

رrr r0631

لll l0644

يjy y064A

Transcription note

In transcriptions using the Uyghur Latin alphabet (ULY) system, occasionally there can be ambiguities around the digraphs. In such cases, an apostrophe is used, eg. the transcription bashlan’ghuch for the following disambiguates n-gh from ng-h. باشلئانگۇچ beginning

Consonant clusters & gemination

Consonant clusters have no special annotation or shaping. The Arabic sukkun is not used to indicate missing vowels.

Geminated consonants are written by simply repeating the consonant twice, there is no use of the Arabic shadda, eg. تاللاش tallash selection, sample ئاپتاپپەرەس aptapperes sunflower ئۇسسۇل ussul dance

Consonant sounds to characters

Digits

See type samples.

Uighur uses ASCII digits.

Dates

Observation: Figure 1 shows day-month format using a tatweel-like connector, however the text doesn't connect to the horizontal line.

Managing text direction

Unicode provides a set of 10 formatting characters that can be used to control the direction of text when displayed. These characters have no visual form in the rendered text, however text editing applications may have a way to show their location.

U+202B RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING (RLE), U+202A LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDING (LRE), and U+202C POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING (PDF) are in widespread use to set the base direction of a range of characters. RLE/LRE comes at the start, and PDF at the end of a range of characters for which the base direction is to be set.

In Unicode 6.1, the Unicode Standard added a set of characters which do the same thing but also isolate the content from surrounding characters, in order to avoid spillover effects. They are U+2067 RIGHT-TO-LEFT ISOLATE (RLI), U+2066 LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATE (LRI), and U+2066 LEFT-TO-RIGHT ISOLATE (PDI). The Unicode Standard recommends that these be used instead.

There is also U+2068 FIRST STRONG ISOLATE (FSI), used initially to set the base direction according to the first recognised strongly-directional character.

U+061C LETTER MARK (ALM) is used to produce correct sequencing of numeric data. Click on the character name, and see also expressions for details.

U+200F RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK (RLM) and U+200E LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK (LRM) are invisible characters with strong directional properties that are also sometimes used to produce the correct ordering of text.

For more information about how to use these formatting characters see How to use Unicode controls for bidi text. Note, however, that when writing HTML you should generally use markup rather than these control codes. For information about that, see Creating HTML Pages in Arabic, Hebrew and Other Right-to-left Scripts.

Cursive script

Do letters in this script join with each other by default? Is the basic shape of a letter radically changed? Is it sometimes not cursive? Are there any special features to note? Are Unicode joiner and non-joiner characters needed to override default joining behaviours?

Arabic script joins letters together. This results in four different shapes for most letters (including an isolated shape).

A few Arabic script letters only join on the right-hand side.

Context-based shaping & positioning

Are special glyph forms needed, depending on the context in which a character is used? Do glyphs interact in some circumstances? Are there requirements to position diacritics or other items specially, depending on context? Does the script have multiple diacritics competing for the same location relative to the base?

As in Arabic, lam followed by alef ligate, eg. ئىسلام islam Islam

Letterform slopes, weights, & italics

See type samples.

Observation: The image in Figure 5 show italicisation where the glyphs lean in the direction of text (ie. to the left).

Word boundaries

Are words separated by spaces, or other characters? Are there special requirements when double-clicking on the text? Are words hyphenated?

The concept of 'word' is difficult to define in any language (see What is a word?). Here, a word is a vaguely-defined, but recognisable semantic unit that is typically smaller than a phrase and may comprise one or more syllables.

Words are separated by spaces.

Word-level segmentation is used for line-breaking and basic justification.

Uighur has hyphenated words, eg.

ئىززەت-ھۆرمەت izzet-hörmet dignity

Graphemes

Uighur principally uses word boundaries for line-breaking and basic justification, but uses grapheme boundaries for other operations that work at the sub-word level.

Phrase, sentence, and section delimiters are described in Phrase & section boundaries.

Grapheme clusters

A grapheme is a user-perceived unit of text. Text operations that use graphemes as a unit of text include line-breaking, forwards deletion, cursor movement & selection, character counts, text spacing, text insertion, justification, case conversions, and sorting. The Unicode Standard uses generalised rules to define 'grapheme clusters', which approximate the likely grapheme boundaries in a writing system, however they don't work well with many complex scripts.

Base (Combining_mark)*

In Uighur, segmentation can be realised using Unicode grapheme clusters. A typographic unit is almost always equivalent to a letter, since precomposed code points are available for all letter and diacritic combinations. Only one letter, ئU+0626 LETTER YEH WITH HAMZA ABOVE, decomposes; in that case, the typographic unit includes both the base letter and the combining mark.

Examples:

	ئاچقۇچ achquch key
	ئۆيمۇئۆي öymu'öy from door to door

This kind of typographic unit can be used for forwards deletion, cursor movement & selection, character counts, text spacing, and text insertion.

Phrase & section boundaries

What characters are used to indicate the boundaries of phrases, sentences, and sections?

See type samples.

6

!!!0021

،,,060C

:::003A

؛;;061B

...002E

؟??061F

Uighur uses a mixture of ASCII and Arabic punctuation.

Observation: The comma can be found immediately after the previous word, but as shown in fig_comma_gap, it may also be surrounded by space.

Bracketed text

See type samples.

both

(((0028

)))0029

Uighur commonly uses ASCII parentheses to insert parenthetical information into text.

	start	end
standard	(U+0028 LEFT PARENTHESIS	)U+0029 RIGHT PARENTHESIS

See type samples.

Mirrored characters

The words 'left' and 'right' in the Unicode names for parentheses, brackets, and other paired characters should be ignored. LEFT should be read as if it said START, and RIGHT as END. The direction in which the glyphs point will be automatically determined according to the base direction of the text.

The number of characters that are mirrored in this way is around 550, most of which are mathematical symbols. Some are single characters, rather than pairs. The following are some of the more common ones.

12

( 0028

) 0029

< 003C

> 003E

[ 005B

] 005D

{ 007B

} 007D

« 00AB

» 00BB

‹ 2039

› 203A

Quotations & citations

What characters are used to indicate quotations? Do quotations within quotations use different characters? What characters are used to indicate dialogue? Are the same mechanisms used to cite words, or for scare quotes, etc? What about citing book or article names?

See type samples.

both

«00AB

»00BB

The following quotation marks can be found in Uighur texts. (Depending on ease of input, quotations may alternatively be surrounded by ASCII double and single quote marks.)

Because they are mirrored, when using these quotation marks, LEFT should be read as if it said START, and RIGHT as END.

Observation: Figure 8 appears to show double angle brackets being used as a quotation mark.

Observation: Figure 9 shows double angle brackets being used to cite lists of characters.

Line breaking & hyphenation

Are there special rules about the way text wraps when it hits the end of a line? Does line-breaking wrap whole 'words' at a time, or characters, or something else (such as syllables in Tibetan and Javanese)? What characters should not appear at the end or start of a line, and what should be done to prevent that? Is hyphenation used, or something else? What rules are used? What difficulties exist?

See type samples.

Common practice is to break the sentence at any point when it reaches the end of a line.

In-word line-breaking

Uighur text can be hyphenated at the end of a line (see Figure 10).

The glyphs before the hyphen and at the start of the next line are joined forms.

The hyphen sits on the baseline and looks like a tatweel. A very small gap appears between the hyphen and the last letter of the word at the end of the line.

Observation: The actual 'hyphen' looks like ـ [U+0640 ARABIC TATWEEL]. That would produce the expected joining form at the end of the line, although some additional mechanism would be needed to produce the form at the start of the next line. However, scans of various documents show a very small gap between the horizontal line and the last joining form at the end of the line, as can be seen in Figure 10, which would negate the joining produced by a tatweel.

Text alignment & justification

Does text in a paragraph needs to have flush lines down both sides? Does the script allow punctuation to hang outside the text box at the start or end of a line? Where adjustments are need to make a line flush, how is that done? Does the script shrink/stretch space between words and/or letters? Are word baselines stretched, as in Arabic? What about paragraph indents?

See type samples.

Baseline lengthening is used to justify lines of text.

Figure 12 shows that baseline lengthening and hyphenation can both be used, and sometimes within the same word.

Baselines, line height, etc.

Does the script have special requirements for baseline alignment between mixed scripts and in general? Is line height special for this script? Are there other aspects that affect line spacing, or positioning of items vertically within a line?

Uighur uses the so-called 'alphabetic' baseline, which is the same as for Latin and many other scripts.

Font baselines should match the alphabetic baseline of Latin script text, and Arabic Uighur fonts should have relative sizes that match. However, Uighur also needs to look right alongside Chinese text, which has a slightly lower baseline and generally larger characters than Latin.

Uighur places vowel and tone glyphs above and below base characters. Several glyphs (especially in independent or final forms) also have long descenders or ascenders.

To give an approximate idea, Figure 13 compares Latin and Uighur glyphs from Noto fonts. The basic part of most Uighur letters is generally less than Latin x-height, however extenders and combining marks reach up to and sometimes beyond the Latin ascenders and descenders. That said, Noto fonts are relatively conservative in terms of glyph heights.

Figure 14 shows similar comparisons for the Scheherazade New and Microsoft Uighur fonts.