The Uyghur Latin alphabet (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر لاتىن يېزىقى, Uyghur Latin Yëziqi, ULY, Уйғур Латин Йезиқи) is an auxiliary alphabet for the Uyghur language based on the Latin script. Uyghur is primarily written in Uyghur Arabic alphabet and sometimes in Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet.
The ULY project was finalized at Xinjiang University, Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), People's Republic of China in July 2001, at the fifth conference of a series held there for that purpose that started in November 2000. In January 2008, the ULY project was amended and identified by Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Working Committee of Minorities' Language and Writing.[1]
The letters in the ULY are, in order:
The creators of ULY strongly emphasized that “the proposed alphabet should not replace [the Persian-Arab Uyghur alphabet] nor should its introduction represent a new reform of the writing system. It is to be used solely in computer-related fields as an ancillary writing system”.[2]
ULY had a heavy public relations presence on both the Internet and official Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region media but despite official efforts to play down the sense of a massive reform, ULY has acquired that connotation and the public seems wary of it. The importance of having one-to-one correspondence between Latin and Arabic is noteworthy.
The different orthographies are compared in the following table.
Below follows an example of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 1) in Uyghur: