Talk:Xinjiang

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[edit] Name

why use this "Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu"? is this English or pinyin? how about "Xinjiang Weiwuer Ziziqu"? --Yacht (talk) 08:39, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

Some nationalities of China are officially written in variant form of Pinyin (similar to how Shaanxi is officially in a modified Pinyin). Another example: Chaoxian (Koreans) is officially written as Choson. --Menchi 10:52, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This is actually stated in the official rules for Pinyin orthography, the "Hanyu pinyin fang'an". Unfortunately the rules are not very clear and there are several options, e.g. I think "Uygur" could also be spelled "Uyghur"; the "Fang'an" also has some options for Pinyin spelling that I've never ever actually seen used, such as the use of a ligature for ng or z/c/s with circumflex instead of zh/ch/sh. Babelfisch; August 17th, 2004

[edit] Caucasoid

Is it really necessary to mention that some Uyghurs are fair-skinned and have Caucasoid traits? It sounds a bit like Nazi "science" to me... Luis Rib

Well, they do have such traits. You can phrase it a bit differently if you like. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 02:24, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

It wouldn't be necessary if we lived in a world in which race (whether considered a real or constructed category) was irrelevant. Unfortunately, that's not the case. The ethnic characteristics of Uyghurs play an important role in discussions of the relationship between Uyghurs and Han Chinese and thus how "Chinese" Xinjiang is or should be. In order to understand the politics of Uyghur/Chinese relations, it's important to know that these characteristics are commonly discussed. Sigrid 20:20, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Xinjiang in Uyghur

Where are Uyghurian names of Xijiang, why name of xinjiang's head are not in Uyghur, Where İ can find any information about Uyghur alphabet, İs any sites in Uyghur?

Uyghur name of Xinjiang -- no idea. If you know it please add it.

Name of the chairman of Xinjiang -- this is the English Wikipedia, so we don't usually put non-English names. Same goes for, say, the names of Arab or Persian people.

Uyghur alphabet

-- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 20:46, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Interestigly, that by Omniglot Uyghur has no letter ə, but in this page uyghur names are used with this symbol... but now Uyghur latin is like pinyin - script for transliterating only, Arabic now is officially in use... strange, that there are no any Uyghur in Wikipedia... -- untifler

Yes, Uyghur is officially written in the Arabic script in Xinjiang. And there is a Uyghur Wikipedia, it's just that nobody's working on it. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 15:13, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Uyghur is not a very commonly used language on the Internet. There don't seem to be many pages in the native writing system, and there are several transkription schemes in use, most of which are based on the modern Turkish alphabet. Also Uyghur Wikipedia is written in one of those systems. I wonder if Uyghurs in Xinjiang can read that at all. "Xinjiang" is a Chinese word, it used to be spelled "Xinjiang" in the official Latin alphabet that was used for Uyghur until the re-introduction of the present Persian-Arabic script. In Uyghur it's شىنجاڭ. The letter ə was part of the Latin alphabet, it's now written ه, like Arabic h, but only the Arabic final and isolated forms are used in that sense, while the Arabic initial form stands for earlier Latin ḥ. The "Latin Alphabet for Uyghur" on the Omniglot site is not the official Latin alphabet, but one system which is now used by exiled Uyghurs on the internet. It's strange that they don't present the official Latin alphabet, but maybe that tells us something about their political agenda. Babelfisch November 15th, 2004

[edit] Category:Pejorative political terms

I added this article to Category:Pejorative political terms because the name Xinjiang, which means "new frontier", is considered extremely offensive and insulting to the Uyghurs and other non-Han local cultures native to the region. (Even official names can be considered grossly pejorative.) - Gilgamesh 08:52, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is an article about the place, not the term. East Turkestan should eventually redirect here. Similarly Northeast China redirects to Manchuria because "Manchuria" is often considered extremely pejorative to Han Chinese living in that region. And it is clear that the article Manchuria should not be in a "pejorative terms" category, because it already covers all possible names for that region. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 14:43, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

In the meantime, thanks for alerting me to this category. Since Xinjiang and East Turkistan remain separate, I'm going to add East Turkistan, because it is a deeply offensive term to most Han Chinese living in or out of Xinjiang. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 16:40, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, if Xinjiang should belong to this category, what keeps Manchukuo, Republic of Macedonia, Senkaku Islands, Recovered Territories, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and so forth out? All these carry names that are deeply offensive to at least one group of people involved, in the same way that Xinjiang does. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 16:49, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

I don't object to that. Though if the list grows big, perhaps a new category is needed, such as "disputed political names", perhaps a subcategory of pejorative political terms. - Gilgamesh 06:50, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Probably "disputed" is better than "pejorative". There's a difference between pejorative terms that everyone, including its users, agree are pejorative (such as racist terms); and terms that its users think are perfectly fine and not pejorative at all, but are disputed by others. Certainly blanketing all of these terms as "pejorative" isn't very NPOV. -- [[User:Ran|ran (talk)]] 17:18, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural extent

Is the cultural extent of Xinjiang and the political boundary of autonomous region of Xinjiang the same? Like the case of Tibet and Tibet Autonomous Region, and Manchuria. — Insta ntnood 08:32, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Depends on how you look at it. There are no significant Uyghur areas outside Xinjiang. But many areas of Xinjiang are predominantly Kazakh, Kyrgyz, or Mongol. -- ran (talk) 13:41, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Who are the members of the two East Turkistan republics in history? And how far did they control? — Insta ntnood 13:44, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

[1] It seems to be reasonably NPOV. -- ran (talk) 17:01, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. To clarify, I mentioned "the members of.." but I was in fact referring to which peoples, or ethnic groups. Did they (respectively) claim to represent only Uyghurs or represent all non-Han groups in the territories they claimed? What do you mean by IIRC by the way? &mdash Insta ntnood 17:31, Jan 28 2005, UTC

[edit] Census Data

According to Christian Tyler [2] (on page 214), the 2000 census undercounts Han Chinese in Xinjiang by almost three and a half million, omitting policemen, soldiers, and the entire workforce of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. This would make Han Chinese the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang and close to an absolute majority in the province. --MC MasterChef 14:26, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The XPCC article on the Chinese wikipedia states that the XPCC population is indeed counted into the population of Xinjiang. I'll ask the author where his info came from. (And policemen are omitted? I don't understand this statement... do you mean civilian policemen? If a Han Chinese or Uyghur or Kazakh or Hui takes a job as a policeman, he goes off the census?) -- ran (talk) 16:00, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

I've been looking around on the government websites of Xinjiang and XPCC, especially the statistics bureaus. Nothing concrete so far, the closest that comes to suggesting that the population of XPCC is included into Xinjiang's population is this: [3]: in a report issued regarding the 2000 census, the total population of 19.25 million is shown as the sum of prefectures, cities, etc., one of which is Shihezi, a city that is completely under the jurisdiction of the XPCC. If stats were counted separately, then Shihezi should not be part of the sum. (The other five cities controlled by the XPCC were all nominally administered by prefectures in 2000 (2 still are today), so there's no way to tell from the chart.)

As I said, this is not "concrete" proof, so I'm still looking. -- ran (talk) 20:15, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

You may be right on this - unfortunately I don't speak Chinese myself, and Tyler does not cite a specific source for this claim, so I'm led to assume that he got this from looking at the original Chinese-language census. The quote from his book I was going on before claims that

A census in 2000 showed 7.5 million Han in a population of 19.25 million, or more than 1 in 3. According to the official figures, the Uighurs were the largest group, with 8 million, the Han next, and other minorities — Mongols, Hui, Kazahks, Kyrgyz — made up the rest. But the census did not count as residents the million or so members of the armed forces (soldiers and police), nor the professional advisers, nor — more importantly — the 2.5 million Han Chinese living under the umbrella of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corporation. If these are added, the number of resident Han is nearer to 12 million, making them not only the largest ethnic group but close to becoming an asolute majority in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

I'm still looking for statements to corroborate this; this speech [4] by Uyghur nationalist Enver Can also makes the claim that the 2000 census explicitly "excludes those from the departments not under the jurisdiction of the regional administration, which mainly involves the People's Liberation Army, the Armed Police Force, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps", but I'm unable to judge the accuracy of that since I'm unable to read the original Chinese-language census myself. --MC MasterChef 23:48, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

At the end of this source[5], it said the statistics is count on regular local residents, and Chinese sometimes don't change their local residency, or Hukou when they work in another city. In most cities, the police is response for the application of local Hukou. Xingjiang Hukou is one of the least attractive Hukous. --Skyfiler 20:03, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Yep, this is one big problem with population censuses in China. -- ran (talk) 21:13, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Invitation to join Wikipedia:WikiProject Uyghurs of Western China

Hello, I am looking to organize a WikiProject focusing on creating and expanding articles relating to the Uyghurs, including their history, cultural life (including Islamic practices), politics (separatist movements past and present, overseas disapora, etc), as well as information about the Xinjiang area more broadly. I'm fairly new to Wikipedia so any help interested parties can offer on this undertaking would be much appreciated, thanks! --MC MasterChef 23:28, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] War

I just read an article comparing Sinkiang to Chechnya, suggesting that China had some sort of civil war or attempted separatist movement in the region. This article doesn't seem to touch on that much, should it say more? (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 12:10, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

...well, there certainly isn't a war going on right now. Does the article give a time frame for the war? -- ran (talk) 21:56, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

I believe this is referring to the bombings in Xinjiang over the past few years that have been attributed to Uyghur militant separatists. Information on this topic should be added to a section of the East Turkistan independence movement article, which Xinjiang should link to in a section on provincial politics. --MC MasterChef 23:34, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Uyghur subdivision names

Most of the Uyghur names for the subdivisions are wrong. Someone just transcribed them back from Pinyin or from another language than Uyghur. Just two examples: wrong: كاراماي (Karamay), correct: قاراماي (K̢aramay); wrong: ھوتان (H̢otan), correct: خوتەن (Hotǝn) – Latin Uyghur spelling (yengi yezik̢) in brackets. It's just not possible to guess the correct Uyghur spelling from the official Pinyin spelling, even if the latter is closer to Uyghur than to Chinese. Babelfisch 01:19, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Are the autonomous prefectures called "wilayat" or "oblast" in Uyghur? The article on the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture has "oblast", and this article has "wilayat". And I've been unable to verify the Uyghur names of "Tumshuke", "Alar", and "Wujiaqu"; I believe that at least "Tumshuke" is not correct, it could be "Tumxuk̢", but definitely not "تۇمشۇكە / Tumxukǝ". Babelfisch 02:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea... what sources are you using for Uyghur spellings, by the way? I would love to be able to help out and verify some of the names.

Another thing... do you know the exact status of the letter ya ي in Uyghur? It seems that two separate letters are distinguished, one with the two dots and one without; however in some of the names, e.g. Shihanza شیھانزا the ya with dots is used throughout. -- ran (talk) 02:47, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Spelling! Abstrakt wrongly changed the correct spellings of ق/K̡ and ئۆ/Ɵ to Ķ and Ö. What for? Go brush up your Uyghur before making such changes. And there is a clear difference between ى and ي in modern Uyghur spelling. ى (without dots) is a vowel (i in Yengi yezik̡) and ي (with dots) is a consonant (y in Yengi yezik̡). ى cannot stand at the beginning of a word, it has to be preceded by ئ like all vowels, while ي can stand at the beginning of a word. "Shihanza شیھانزا" is definitely wrong, but I have yet to find out the correct spelling. Babelfisch 01:29, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

ى (no dots) doesn't seem to connect correctly to the next letter for me. I've tried both IE and Firefox, apparently I have one font that connects correctly but adds two dots out of the blue, and another one that doesn't connect at all. What font would you use to view these correctly? -- ran (talk) June 28, 2005 20:50 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not sure which font I Firefox decides to use for which code range. I've installed several Arabic and Unicode fonts. It's difficult to find out. When I copy-paste from Firefox to Word, the font of the Uyghur is displayed as "Mangal", but in fact it isn't. If I copy text into OpenOffice, the font is displayed as "Tahoma", but it isn't Tahoma either. Ridiculous. Arial Unicode MS seems to work, but it's very ugly.

Something else: The spelling of place names should generally follow the official spellings used by the United Nations and given in Zhōngguó dìmínglù 中国地名录 / Gazetteer of China (Beijing, Zhōngguó dìtú chūbǎnshè 中国地图出版社 1997), ISBN 7-5031-1718-4.

And: The two templates Xinjiang and Xinjiang Administrative Divisions are a mess, and they overlap. —Babelfisch 03:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Export Import figures confusion

I see under the "economy" section, that the export and import figures in US dollars are listed as 30.47 and 25.88 Is is so riduculously low? or is it in millions? please clarify since i know nothing and came across this possible erroneous statement.--Idleguy 10:02, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The meaning of "Xinjiang"

Very interesting to see it's emphazied here what does "Xinjiang" mean. As a Chinese, i never thought about that (none of the names of the provinces actually). i thought it was just a "name". so it's quite nice to learn it means "new frontier". ^^ --User:Yacht (talk) 05:39, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

same here, i did realize what the "New Territory" of Canada meant though. 68.145.119.230

[edit] Disputed territories

the article does not explain the includion it in thre category:Disputed territories. AFAIK separatist movements are not included in thes category. Am I missing something else?

If there is a separetist movement in Xinjang, please add the corresponding article to category:Sovereignty movements. Thank you, mikka (t) 19:15, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] History section should be split

It should. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 10:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of administrative divisions of Xinjiang

I've recently been compiling this list, and I've gotten as many names possible from the Uyghur Wikipedia. However, I'm not a Uyghur-speaker, so I might have made mistakes, and there are several blanks for names I can't find. Any help would therefore be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance! -- ran (talk) 04:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

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