Author Description

This volume contains a complete edition of the Chinese text U 5335 in the Berlin Turfan collection which is written in Uighur script. It also presents a reconstruction of the Inherited Uighur Pronunciation of Chinese (IUPC) based on U 5335 and other Chinese texts also written in Uighur script. The book consists of four chapters: the first begins with a review of research on IUPC and then discusses Chinese words in the Uighur translation of the Xuan-zang Biography. Moreover, it provides analysis and explanations of the phonological characteristics of IUPC. In addition, this chapter also deals with eight new Chinese texts written in Uighur script other than U5335. The introductory chapter concludes with a discussion of diachronic aspects of IUPC. The second section deals with the edition of U 5335 and the reconstruction of the Chinese pronunciation reflected in U 5335. Chapter three discusses two ways of reading Chinese characters used by Uighurs: IUPC and the so-called Uighur reading. The final section of this in-depth study presents a complete list of IUPC, including U5335 and other Chinese texts written in Uighur script.