Definition of "Uighur"

The tiny Uighur settlement of Tongguzbasti, 170km (102 miles) north of Keriya beside the rapidly diminishing Keriya Dariya, must rank as one of the most remote places in Xinjiang. It is said to stand on the ruins of the lost city of Keladun, and artefacts dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 222) have been found here. Today about 100 families of Keriya Uighur live here in almost complete isolation.

2008, The Silk Road (Insight Guides)‎, 1st edition, Apa Publications, page 181

These days Yarkant is a market town for low-income Uighurs, Islamic farmers and herders who have lived here for more than a millennium, and a strategic base for China's domestic security forces. With some of the lowest annual incomes in China, these ethnic-minority farmers and herders scratch out a living based on the trickle of moisture that flows from the Kunlun mountain range to the near south.

2009, Gordon Laird, The Price of a Bargain‎, McClelland & Stewart, page 195

Chinese authorities continue to deny the abuse of Uighurs and other minorities, asserting that the camps are actually voluntary reeducation programs against extremism. Independent reporting suggests, however, that over the past three years, authorities have sent as many as 1.8 million people to prisons and internment camps in Xinjiang.

2020 August 7, Sophie Stuber, “Video of Uighur handcuffed to bed in quarantine centre refocuses attention on Chinese persecution”, in France 24‎, archived from the original on 24 August 2020

[...]based on the Uighur alphabet, is still in use among the Mongols today.

1948, Henry A. Wallace, Andrew Jacob Steiger, Soviet Asia Mission‎, pages 163–164

In 507 a Chinese family, the Ch'iu, replaced the Juan-juan dynasty as rulers in Turfan; and under them the aristocracy adopted Chinese customs; and the form of Buddhism was entirely Chinese. In 640 direct Chinese rule was extended here, and even the Uighur Turkish conquest did not end this Chinese character in the eighth century.

1959, Basil Gray, Buddhist Cave Paintings at Tun-huang‎, University of Chicago Press, page 19

An Uighur boy steps forward, carrying an instrument, a rahab. He sings a ballad: “We follow Chairman Mao.”

1979, Jan Myrdal, translated by Ann Hening, The Silk Road: A Journey from the High Pamirs and Ili through Sinkiang and Kansu‎, New York: Pantheon Books, page 160

By the sword or by diplomacy, through terror or persuasion, Temüjin had subdued or enslaved a hundred peoples. Merkid, Xixia, Naiman, Kirghiz, Tatar, Georgian, Chinese, Khitan, Uighur, Bulgar, Persian - all, shamanist, Moslem, Buddhist or Nestorian Christian, all trembled at the mere mention of his name.

1990, Michel Hoang, translated by Ingrid Cranfield, Genghis Khan‎, Saqi Books, page 20

The beer festival happened in a village in Niya County in the deep south of Xinjiang, which is overwhelmingly populated by the Muslim Uighur people who call Xinjiang home. Muslims are not meant to consume alcohol, according to the Koran.

2015 June 22, Ben Blanchard, “Exiles angered as China holds beer festival in Muslim county”, in Paul Tait, editor, Reuters‎, archived from the original on 17 August 2019, Emerging Markets

The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

2019, Lindsay Maizland, “China’s Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang”, in Council on Foreign Relations‎