Chagatai

Also known as Old Uzbek, Chagatai language, Old Uzbek language, Chaghatay, Chaghatay language, chg

extinct Turkic language of Central Asia

AI overview

Chagatai was an extinct Turkic language that was spoken across Central Asia and served as a lingua franca for trade and administration in the region for several centuries. It matters historically because it played a crucial role in facilitating communication and cultural exchange across Central Asian empires and trade routes before it eventually fell out of use.

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Described at

Turkic Database at Elegant Lexicon

A searchable database of lexical items in the Turkic languages

turkic.elegantlexicon.com →

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Wikidata facts

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number of speakers, writers, or signers: 0
exact match: publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/CHG
Wikimedia Incubator URL: incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/chg
P10369: botany
described at URL: turkic.elegantlexicon.com/lx.php?lx=chg

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Article

Chagatai (چغتای, Čaġatāy), also known as Turki, Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic (Čaġatāy türkīsi), was a Turkic language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia. It remained the shared literary language in the region until the early 20th century when it went extinct. It was used across a wide geographic area including western or Russian Turkestan (i.e. parts of modern-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan), Eastern Turkestan (where a dialect, known as Kaşğar tılı, developed), Crimea, the Volga region (such as Tatarstan and Bashkortostan), etc.

Chagatai is the direct ancestor of the Uzbek and Uyghur languages. Kazakh and Turkmen, which are not within the Karluk branch but are in the Kipchak and Oghuz branches of the Turkic languages respectively, were nonetheless heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries.