Chagatai language

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The Chagatai language (Chagatai: جغتای) is an extinct Turkic language which was once widely spoken in Central Asia and most of Khorasan region. The word Chagatai relates to the Chagatai Khanate, the western part of the Mongol empire, which was left to Genghis Khan's second son Chagatai Khan. Many of the Chagatai Turks and Tatars who were the speakers of this language claimed descent from Chagatai Khan.

It was developed as a sophisticated written language using the Arabic alphabet. It was heavily influenced by the Arabic and Persian languages, and incorporated much of the nomadic Turkic, having thus served as a lingua franca in Central Asia. It can be divided into three periods:

Pre-classical Chagatai 1400-1465
Classical Chagatai 1465-1600
Post-classical Chagatai 1600-1921

The first period is a transitional phase characterized by the retention of archaic forms; the second phase starts with the publication of Mir Alisher Navoi's first Divan and is the highpoint of Chagatai literature, followed by the third phase, which is characterized by two bifurcating developments. One is the preservation of the classical Chagatai language of Navoi, the other trend is the increasing influence of the dialects of the local spoken languages. Uzbek and modern Uyghur are the two modern languages most closely related to Chagatai. In Uzbekistan, then a part of the Soviet Union, Chagatai was replaced by a literary language based on the local Uzbek dialect in 1921.

Its last speaker is thought to have died in the 1990s.

[edit] Famous Chagatai Literature

The most famous of the Chagatai poets is Mir Alisher Navoi. This is attested by the fact that Chagatai is sometimes called Nava'i's language. Among the prose works, Baburnama, which is also known as "Tuska Babure" and was written by first Mughal Emperor Babur, is highly regarded.

[edit] External link

Russian imperial policies in Central Asia by H.B.Paksoy

v • d • e Turkic languages
West Turkic
Bolgar	Bolgar* \| Chuvash \| Hunnic* \| Khazar*
Chagatay	Aini²\| Chagatay* \| Ili Turki \| Lop \| Uyghur \| Uzbek
Kypchak	Baraba \| Bashkir \| Crimean Tatar¹ \| Cuman* \| Karachay-Balkar \| Karaim \| Karakalpak \| Kazakh \| Kipchak* \| Krymchak \| Kumyk \| Nogay \| Tatar \| Urum¹
Oghuz	Afshar \| Azerbaijani \| Crimean Tatar¹ \| Gagauz \| Khorasani Turkish \| Ottoman Turkish* \| Pecheneg* \| Qashqai \| Salar \| Turkish \| Turkmen \| Urum¹
East Turkic
Khalaj	Khalaj
Kyrgyz-Kypchak	Altay \| Kyrgyz
Uyghur	Chulym \| Dolgan \| Fuyü Gïrgïs \| Khakas \| Northern Altay \| Shor \| Tofa \| Tuvan \| Western Yugur \| Sakha / Yakut
Old Turkic*
Notes: ¹ Listed in more than one group, ² Mixed language, * Extinct