Old Uyghur texts are written monuments in Old Uyghur, the literary language of the Uyghur state in the Turfan oasis (Qočo) and of the Uyghurs of Gansu. Most of the texts date from the 9th–14th centuries and survive in manuscripts and blockprints from Turfan, Dunhuang and other sites of Eastern Turkestan and Gansu; some copies were made later.
Most texts are religious: Buddhist (translations of sūtras from Chinese, Tocharian and other languages, avadānas and jātakas, commentaries, poetry), Manichaean (hymns, the confessional text Xwāstwānīft, parables) and a small number of Christian texts. A large corpus consists of secular documents — contracts, letters, administrative orders — as well as medical, astrological and calendar texts.
The texts are written in the Uyghur script (developed from Sogdian) and also in Sogdian, Manichaean, Brāhmī and, rarely, runic script. The main manuscript collections are in Berlin (finds of the Turfan expeditions of 1902–1914), St Petersburg (Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, RAS), London, Paris, Kyoto, Beijing and Ürümqi.
Below are the main texts and series of editions; the full list of works is in the bibliography. General works on the Old Turkic language (grammars, dictionaries) are on the page “Old Turkic language”; the runic inscriptions of the Uyghur qaghans (Moyun Čor, Terkhin, Tes) are in “Orkhon monuments”.
| Language | Old Uyghur (the Old Turkic literary language of Turfan and Gansu) |
|---|---|
| Date | 9th–14th c.; some copies later |
| Scripts | Uyghur; also Sogdian, Manichaean, Brāhmī, runic |
| Find-spots | Turfan oasis (Qočo, Bezeklik, Sängim, Murtuq, Yarkhoto), Dunhuang, Hami, Gansu |
| Contents | Buddhist, Manichaean, Christian texts; secular documents; medicine, astrology |
| Uigurica I–IV | F.W.K. Müller (I–III, 1908–1922), A. von Gabain (IV, 1931) | SPAW / APAW, Berlin |
|---|---|---|
| Türkische Turfan-Texte (TT) I–X | W. Bang, A. von Gabain, G.R. Rachmati и др. / et al., 1929–1959 | SPAW / APAW, Berlin |
| Uigurische Sprachdenkmäler | W. Radloff, 1928 | Leningrad |
| Berliner Turfantexte (BTT) | с 1971 / since 1971 | Akademie-Verlag; Brepols |
| Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (VOHD) XIII | каталоги / catalogues: Alttürkische Handschriften | Wiesbaden; Stuttgart |
Works from these series are listed in the bibliography by the contents of the texts.
Compiled from the bibliography of V. Adam, J.P. Laut and A. Weiss (2000) with J.P. Laut’s supplements (2002–2008), the bibliographies of M. Erdal (2004) and S.G. Kljaštornyj (2003), and the library catalogue of Monumenta Altaica, 2026-11.