Uyghur and Uzbek, the Southeastern Turkic languages

Abstract

This chapter provides a general overview of the two Turkic languages spoken in Central Asia, Modern Uyghur and Uzbek in the southeastern group of Turkic, paying special attention to their relation and peculiarities. The languages share particular linguistic features such as palatalization of an original intervocalic -d- to -y-, the preservation of the suffix-initial uvular consonant in -GAn, long consonants in in some numerals, and the use of verbal nouns in -(X)š. Among the differences we find Uyghur umlauting, Uzbek labialized back vowel å, the Uzbek derivative suffix -li, the Uzbek use of auxiliary verbs to code actionality, etc. This chapter also briefly addresses the writing systems of the two languages, and contact with neighboring languages as well as their regional varieties.