Uyghur Arabic ⇄ Latin transliteration

Uyghur is written in two scripts today: the Arabic-based UEY used in print and everyday writing, and the Latin-based ULY used online and for romanized citation. This converts between them letter by letter.

32 lettersBoth directions

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Alphabet chart

Every Uyghur letter and its Latin value. Five letters are written as digraphs in ULY: ch, sh, zh, gh, ng.

اaа
ەeә
بbб
پpп
تtт
جjҗ
چchч
خxх
دdд
رrр
زzз
ژzhж
سsс
شshш
غghғ
فfф
قqқ
كkк
گgг
ڭngң
لlл
مmм
نnн
ھhһ
وoо
ۇuу
ۆöө
ۈüү
ۋwв
ېëе
ىiи
يyй

The two rules that matter

ULY has no hamza

The Arabic script seats a syllable-initial vowel on the carrier ئ; Latin simply writes the vowel. ئۇيغۇرچە is uyghurche and ئىملا is imla. Converting back, the carrier is restored by rule: before a word-initial vowel, and before a vowel that follows another vowel.

The apostrophe does two jobs

ng is one letter (ڭ), so an actual ن followed by گ is written n'g. The same apostrophe marks a compound seam where the Arabic script writes a hamza after a consonant: خەلقئارا becomes xelq'ara. Because every digraph starts with a consonant and every seam is followed by a vowel, the two uses never collide.

Round-tripping Arabic → Latin → Arabic reproduces 440,916 of the 441,161 dictionary words exactly. The 245 exceptions all spell two adjacent vowels without a carrier, which the Latin form cannot represent.

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