Talk:Uyghurs/Archive 1

message: Without providing any explanation, 128.253.229.29 (on 1 August and then again on 7 August) seems to have tagged the article as having disputed neutrality, disputed accuracy, and as needing clean-up.  Two of the three tags have since been removed, but the neutrality dispute tag is still there.  Since there is no explanation of this anon user's rationale, and no apparent discussion of the so-called neutrality dispute, should the tag be removed? —Wookipedian 06:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Having just read through the article, I didn't find anything overtly lacking neutrality.  I would contend that the tag for disputed neutrality should be removed until either 129.253.229.29 decides to return to us with an explanation of his or her perception of the need for the tag, or until someone else decides to look into whatever minor or nuansical changes may be necessary in order to bring about a more neutral article. Paradokuso 05:33, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality dispute tag by [[User:128.253.229.29|128.253.229.29]] 

message: Uigur is Not just another romanization of huihe! The word Uygur means easily uniting and this is clearly turkic word! --Anon
Edit the text directly so people know the correct formation. For example, what is the origin of the name "Uygur" and how it became the name of a race ?.User:kt2
There are 30,000 Google entries for "Uyghur" and 101,000 for "Uighur".  Why was this name changed?  RickK 00:47, 17 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The spelling "Uyghur" better reflects the phonology and Turkic orthographies of the Uyghur language.  The spelling "Uighur" is not possible in Uyghur or in most of Turkic languages because it breaks the rules of vowel harmony.  Most of the websites expressly dedicated to Uyghur issues use the "y" spelling; the "i" is a legacy spelling of different origin.  "Uyghur" is the correct spelling, even if it doesn't get the most Google hits.  Finally, the "Uighur", "Uygur" and "Uigur" article names should be properly redirecting to these article names now, and these alternate spellings are provided at the top of the various "Uyghur" articles. - Gilgamesh 01:04, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Ignorance of the standard English usage is no excuse. --Wetman 19:21, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: All four spellings are used in English pages, but The spelling with "y" is preferred by Uyghurs themselves who write in English.  There is no one standard spelling for English, but four, all of which are acceptable in Standard English of any country.  In this case I yield respect to the ethnic group's own preference when speaking English.  Besides, most news sites, etc. that I have found mentioning the Uyghurs know little about them.  If they live in "China", most people would assume they are "Chinese", when they are not, so they aren't in a good position to make the judgments about spellings they know little about.  They are "Uyghur", "Uighur", "Uygur" and "Uigur", but "Uyghur" is most proper, just as "Hawai‘i" is more proper than "Hawaii", and "Turkistan" is more proper than "Turkestan".  That's just the way it is. - Gilgamesh 04:34, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uighur ''vs'' Uyghur 

message: Were the Uyghurs and Huis differentiated in Dr Sun Yat-sen's idea of five nationalities? — Instantnood  08:22, January 27, 2004, UTC
: I don't know about Sun Yat-sen's specific views, but according to Dru Gladney in Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (), under the KMT's five nationality policy, Uyghurs were included "under the general rubric of 'Hui Muslims', which referred to all Muslim groups in China at that time." (pp 104) --MC MasterChef 17:56, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Uyghurs and Huis

message: 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 23:18, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Invitation to join [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Uyghurs of Western China]] 

message: What's the correct pronunciation of the word Uyghur? I only know how to say Weiwu'er in Mandarin.
Answer:
Uyghur is pronunced 'Weiwu'er' in Chinese,but must be pronunced "uighur" or as in international transcription
In English, is it pronounced "weeg-hurr"?  Which syllable is emphasized?
In English the standard pronounciation is "Wee-grr" with the accent on the first syllable. --Entropy Rising 15:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation? 

message: This section has sprawled rapidly recently with several edits from User:69.105.58.88. I don't know enough Uyghur history to judge who qualifies as "notable", exactly, but many of these new article links are either broken or just lead to stubs. I'm also not clear as to whether these are correct transliterations of the names or not, but I think some sort of clean-up is neccessary here. --MC MasterChef 16:44, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Notable Uyghurs" 

message: Guys, if you would allow me to join in. I am a British Han Chinese, 100% or so I like to think of myself, although my mother had skin that was so white that it was almost transparent. I am also a keen observer of human morphology and I challenge myself to see whether I could work out people's ancestry by looking at their form. Why is this interesting, because unlike animal studies, we cannot for ethical reasons deliberately breed traits in humans for experiments as we do with animals; so we could only observe what happens naturally. Amongst the East Asians, I think I am successful at spotting the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thais, Malays, etc about 80% of the time, higher if the subjects were 'pure'. When in doubt, the person is probably 'Chinese', as the so called 'Han' race characteristics are much broader, and more hetereogenous. The uncertainties often lie when people are from the border regions, for example Chinese-Vietnamese mix, Thai-Chinese mix, which are quite commonly encountered. Even this is not a problem as far as classification is concerned, because these people do actually look somewhere in between, and the skill is in figuring what proportion of each is in the subject. Sometimes people describing themself as one, has strong characteristics of another, and I ask myself whether there was a marriage, a bit of rape and pillage, or infidelity, or adoption in the subject's recent or distant genetic past- questions of course that could not be asked or answered.
Now to the question of the Uyghurs. If the human race were to be divided into Caucasoids, Mongoloids, Negroids, Australoids, etc, then from an anthropological form, the Uyghurs look undoubtedly more typical of the Mongoloids, or East Asians as some of you describe them to be than Caucasoid. However, I would say that they do not look 100% East Asian, but about 75% to 90% East Asians depending on the individual. The Uyghurs do not resemble any peoples of 'pure' European stock, be they Swedish or Portuguese, and indeed the Uyghurs do not resemble the modern day people of Turkey, who are of mixed European Mediterranean/ Middle Eastern in appearance.
It may well be that the remaining features of Uyghurs are that of Caucasoids, but it could also have come from Middle-Eastern ancestry (Semitic), which some may argue is Caucasoid.
There is a feature among Caucasoids that is quite interesting, and that is the juvenile features change quite dramatically in adulthood. For example, babies and infants with blond or even white hair end up with dark brown or even black hair in adulthood; and blue eyes in infants go progressively darker into adulthood.
It may be that Uyghur juveniles look more different than Mongoloid juveniles than the adults of these populations.
A very distinct Mongoloid feature is that their ear-wax is hard and dry; whereas for Caucasoids and Negroids, their ear-wax is oily. So if the Uyghur lady here has dry solid ear-wax, she is Mongoloid, and not Caucasoid.
The question has to be asked why if the Uyghurs do not want to be classified as Mongoloids (against overwhelming physical evidence of appearance), why would they then want to be classified as Caucasoids and not Middle-Eastern? They share a religion with people of the Middle-East and a similar skin colour. I think the answer is one of psychology. They think it is better for them to identify with Europeans, even though the Uighurs now look nothing like Europeans.
Another question is then, did the ancestors of the modern Uighurs look European? Well, that would depend on what you mean by ancestors. The present day Uyghurs look about 3 quarters Mongoloid, so obviously a lot of their ancestors were Mongloids. Recently half the male population of Moscow and the Ukraine were identified to have the Mongoloid alcohol dehydrogenase gene, no doubt courtesy of Ghenghis Khan's people. These populations look White European, so does having a Mongol gene make them modern day Mongols? No, it means that somewhere in their genetic history, they had a Mongolain ancestor. Sometimes you can still see some remnant features- take Boris Yeltsin for example, take a look at the shape of his eyes and nose, they are more Mongolain than European.
Another example is that native Finns also have Mongolian genes (and language). I observe that a lot of Finns have blond hair, but brown eyes, and smaller noses than other Europeans, although their skin is quite white. It also turns out that a lot of them are lactose intolerant, just like the Mongolian people. The Finns were mixed with the Scandinavians, and a significant propertions of these people are also lactose intolerant. 
So this is sort of interesting, as within the Eurasian continent, there are people of 'pure' races, and people who appear to be of a 'pure' race, but are genetically hybrids, just as you would expect for a continuous land-mass. The Uyghurs are not really that unusual.
Yours
JC
:: Well, I think that I have been beaten to the punch on this one.  Unfortunately, my knowledge of genetic analysis is only somewhat good. However, what the user 136 seems to be stating is true from what i can read from the paper.  It looks like in figure 3, uighur is in one branch and turkish is in another genetic branch.Kennethtennyson 06:48, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I found this article also: 
Tissue Antigens. 2004 Aug;64(2):180-7. Human leukocyte antigen-A, -B and -C alleles and human leukocyte antigen haplotypes in Turkey: relationship to other populations.  
In this study, we present, for the first time, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I allele and haplotype frequencies at the DNA level in a sample of 142 donors from Turkey. HLA typing was performed by medium-to-high resolution polymerase chain reaction sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes method. The most frequent HLA alleles at class I locus were A*0201(0.257), -B*35(0.204) and -Cw*04(0.173). A*0201-B*35-Cw*04(0.056) was the most common three-locus haplotype. Allele and haplotype frequency comparisons and neighbour-joining dendrograms, constructed using DA genetic distances and correspondence analysis using HLA-A, -B and -C, and -DRB1 allele frequencies, revealed similarities with other Mediterranean and European populations, but not with Mongol populations. These results agree with previous studies and confirm that the present day Turkish population is genetically more similar to its geographic neighbours than its historical neighbours in central Asia. The comprehensive HLA data on the Turkish population at the DNA level including up to six-locus putative haplotypes generated in this study will be useful for further studies.
Hum Hered. 1998 May-Jun;48(3):126-37.
Genetic relationships among Japanese, northern Han, Hui, Uygur, Kazakh, Greek, Saudi Arabian, and Italian populations based on allelic frequencies at four VNTR (D1S80, D4S43, COL2A1, D17S5) and one STR (ACTBP2) loci.
The genetic polymorphism at four variable number of tandem repeats (D1S80, D4S43, COL2A1, D17S5) and one short tandem repeat (ACTBP2) loci was assessed by polymerase chain reaction analysis of genomic DNA obtained from blood samples of eight human populations (Japanese, Northern Han, Hui, Uygur, Kazakh, Saudi Arabian, Greek, Italian). Allele frequencies at all loci were in the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for each population. With the exception of ACTBP2, the allelic distribution patterns for these loci revealed a marked genetic divergence among the eight populations. A dendrogram constructed by the neighbor-joining method based on the allele frequencies of the five loci suggested that the five Asian populations (Japanese, Northern Han, Hui, Uygur, and Kazakh) formed one cluster, whereas the two European populations and one West Asian population (Italian, Greek, and Saudi Arabian) formed another. The genetic relationship among these populations may have been greatly influenced by admixture as a result of the migration of individuals along the Silk Road throughout history.  Kennethtennyson 07:04, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that you are misreading the genetic analysis for that one figure in MBE.  You need to measure the total horizontal length from one point to the other. If you measure that length for Uighur and compare it between the Uighurs vs. Mongols and the Uighurs vs. Turkish you will find that the distance between the Uighurs and turkish is much greater.  Further, don't you think that there is a reason why they separated the Uighurs and the Turkish into two different arms of the graph?  If the Uighurs and the Turkish were so close, wouldn't they have put the Uighurs and the Turks on the same arm?
Regardless, as to your picture, I hate to tell you this, but as an Anglo living in America the pictures that you have shown me are to my eyes and to most of my friend's eyes - people who look physically closer to East Asians than to Caucasians.  Black hair, epicanthal folds, light skin, high cheekbones, east asian characteristics generally.  That one particular picture of the young Uighur gentleman giving a speech looks Japanese or perhaps Korean to me.  The old man, looks sort of like a geriatric Japanese or Korean.  Regardless, as I have stated, let us compromise and use what the Encyclopedia brittanica has done since we are on the ENGLISH portion of wikipedia.  Let us describe Uighurs as Turkic speaking peoples as they have done (the first paragraph of encyclopedia brittanica is free online.)Kennethtennyson 04:34, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

text: There is little evidence that half the Uyghur population is of caucasian origins.  Can you provide evidence of that?  Uyghurs are a mixed race, but they are similar to their neighbours in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Uzbekistan.  There is no way of knowing if Tocharians are ancestors of modern Uyghurs.  It is somewhat unlikely, but possible.  And Victor Mair is unlikely to say anything to the contrary.  Look at his academic work.  Yes some Uyghurs look Korean.  Some are unquestionable of part Chinese descent.  The racist feelings of the Net-based Uyghur community is neither here nor there. Lao Wai 19:23, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: genetic analysis

message: ** I removed the following text:  Modern genetic study shows Uyghurs are geneticly closest to other central asian Turkic people and modern Turkey Turks.
The first reference (the Mergen paper) is a study of Anatolian mtDNA.  The authors make no attempt at investigating which populations the Uyghurs most closely resemble, and none of the evidence presented in the article leads to any conclusion on this point.
The second reference (the sample report by DNA Tribes) follows the same pattern. It purports to show the closest genetic matches to a hypothetical person from Turkey.  The Uyghur are one of the populations that show a medium-strength match to this hypothetical person from Turkey (along with Israeli and Italian populations), but there are two problems:  first, conclusions about the genetic similarity of two populations CAN NOT be drawn from a sample of one (which this report represents), much less a sample of unknown providence; and second, it is erroneous to conclude that because one Anatolian's DNA somewhat resembles an Uyghur population that the Uyghurs closest genetic relatives are Anatolian.  Vineviz 21:36, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: New genetic studies edits

message: Hey, hold on a second now... first of all, east asian refers to all people who look east asian not just the Japanese.  As the previous anonymous fellow on the 136 IP website stated, you can only use the genetic analysis to a certain point due to small sample size.  as to why i picked mongolian, i guess you could say that they are the prototypical east asian people since the racial classification that is currently in use and created by the Europeans (though flawed) classifies east asians as "Mongoloid." Hence I used "Mongolians."  Regardless, I am just trying to tell you what most people who are white in the US will state when looking at the images you gave me.  Secondly, the Turkish people who are in turkey now do not look at all like their previous ancestors from Central Asia.  This is a known fact in most "Turkic" circles.  And who knows what the Tocharians really looked like.    Anyways, I agree with you that the Uighurs have a mix of Caucasoid features, but I do not believe that it is the predominant feature of most Uighurs.  I mean, just look at the Time magazine article of the Uighurs in Xianjing! Every one of them look East asian in some way.   I am not ruling wikipedia - I'm just trying to straighten some articles out that are obviously POV or factually incorrect. I actually enjoyed this discussion, however, so please don't get upset.
As I stated earlier, this is the English site of Wikipedia and if you want to, you can read what the encyclopedia brittanica has written about Uighurs and what they have written about the whole concept of "Turkic."  I'm not sure if you really are Uighur, but we really need to avoid POV ideas. I mean, if I really wanted to push my POV, I would state that Clinton was a really great president.  But that's an opinion...Kennethtennyson 06:17, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While there are clear differences between populations as a whole in Asia, there is also vast overlap.  You can't look at one person and tell if they are Korean, or Japanese, or Chinese.  Or Uyghur for that matter.  On average you may get lucky, but you can't be sure for each and every case.  Many Uyghurs adopted and married Chinese girls.  Of course some of them look Chinese.  I have trouble believing any ecyclopedia refered to the Uyghurs living in tribes because they are a relentlessly non-tribal Turkic people and there are not many of those.  The Tocharians are irrelevant to a discussion of modern Uyghurs whose ancestors came to Xinjiang either in the 10th or 13th centuries.  Finding out what Tocharians looked like will only tell you what Tocharians looked like. Lao Wai 19:23, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I would be disappointed if you did not get involved in this site.  Please let me encourage you to do so.  But the Uyghurs used to live in Mongolia.  If you believe that the Uyghurs of modern Xinjiang are descended from those Uyghurs then clearly they only arrived after the Kyrghyz destroyed the Uyghur state.  There are some scholars who claim that they came later as part of the Mongol settlement of Central Asia (and hence that they are basically Uzbeks who live in China).  What they are not is Tocharians.  Now perhaps there is some intermixture, perhaps not.  Who knows?  On average Han and Uyghurs have facial differences, but only if you look at populations not at individuals.  It is impossible to be sure for any one person.  Some Uyghurs look like Han, some Han look like Uyghurs.  Some Han are of part Uyghur descent after all.  Actually made up versions of history sell very well in the United States - look at all the interest in claiming the Tocharians were blond and had blue eyes! Lao Wai 11:19, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually it kind of does mean that the Uyghurs did not live in Xinjiang until then.  At least not in any meaningful sense.  It is not the only one, but it is the only competently sourced one.  Exactly how do archaeologists prove that Turkic people lived in Xinjiang in the 3rd Century BC?  What is the evidence?  People who don't read and write much do not leave many clues as to the language they speak.  You're offering me a children's encyclopedia as proof?!  In Mongolia the Uyghurs were undoubtedly tribal, but they are not to any great extent in modern Xinjiang and have not been for a long time.  Your accusations against Western scholars are irrelevant and anyway it is better to study history to make a name than to rewrite history to justify modern nationalism.  You mean you are telling me to read some of those colonial Orientalists as opposed to anyone more modern?  Why - if those horrid Orientalists used to lie so much?  Much has happened in the world of scholarship since 1826. Lao Wai 10:26, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually Inuit does not have 20 words for snow.  This is an urban legend.  And of course the English were well aware of snow, being from England and coming from Germany, before they met the Inuit.  I think Anorack is an Innuit word.  But anyway, it remains the case that borrowing a word does not imply a genetic relationship.  In whatever century.  I can certainly look up a few references to Uyghurs adopting Chinese girls.  Just off the top of my head you might like to look at Cable, Mildred and French, Francesca, Through Jade gate and central Asia: an account of journeys in Kansu, Turkestan and the Gobi desert, 11th ed, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1947.  But that is only my recollection.  I'll check.  I think we can agree on the problems of modern nationalism and we may be able to agree on modern history.  I don't think it is necessarily the best, but anyone who reads what is known and adds more is usually (but not always) going to make a contribution.  History is an expanding area of knowledge.  I do like some of Dru Gladney's work and of course Wolfram Eberhard.  I'm with you on Said and the older historians - in general.  But Xinjiang was simply an area they knew little about and also the location of Aryan fantasies.  So you do have to be careful. Lao Wai 11:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I am not sure this is what the article is saying.  Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it saying that the Uyghurs are just Uzbeks, who in turn are closely related to other Central Asian people.  And somewhat distantly they are related to Europeans and even more distantly they are related to Han Chinese?  The word "caucasoid" has to be used with caution.  And there is not really any evidence the Tocharians were Western Europeans, nor is there much evidence that the Uyghurs are related to Western Europeans at all - as your article seems to be saying.  Western Eurasian presumably means Middle Eastern. Doubt away. Lao Wai 11:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

text: So this seems to be saying the Uyghurs and Uzbeks are closely related.  Fair enough the languages are more or less the same (before Stalin worked them over anyway).  The Kazaks have a similar distribution of these genes so they are probably close relations too.  Fair enough.  Central Asian nomads and all that.  I can explain this without any reference to Western Europe or Tocharians.  The Uyghurs are really Uzbeks.  The Uzbeks settled in a region without any Tocharians, but with a large Persian population.  They intermarried with said Persians and some came to Xinjiang.  Hence they have a larger Western Eurasian genetic background than the Hui.  Simple really. Lao Wai 11:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: hold on

message: You might be making the wrong conclusions from reading that paper.  First of all, all that paper states is that there are some european genes in 42% of the Uygur population, it does not state how many.  It could be that out of all of the Uygur genes, 1% of the genes is caucasian and 99% could be mongoloid and that this frequency occurs in 42% of the population. We just don't know from that paper. That is why most geneticists try to use comparisons and see how close one group (uygur) is to another (mongol) and compare it to another (european), like the previous authors in the papers that I gave above did. If they were to do the reverse, and look at east asian genes in the Uygur population , they might find that 90% of all uygurs have some mongoloid genes in them.  It's difficult to make any conclusion from that paper. Almost all of the papers that make the comparison between ethnic groups suggest that the Uygurs are closer to mongoloids than caucasoids.  Kennethtennyson 03:30, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The paper does not seem to be talking about Western Europe at all to me but Western Eurasia.  That is the Middle East.  No one is saying the Uyghurs are Eastern Asian but that they have some level of genetic contribution from East Asia. Lao Wai 11:09, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, you are misreading my comments.  I'm not stating that 90% of Uyghur genes are East asian (mongoloid) - i'm trying to make the point that you can not tell from that paper what the contributoins are.  anyways , read below for my comments.Kennethtennyson 19:13, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Error in logic

message: Following article was published by prestigious American Journal of Human Genetics. This paper further adds proof to argument: UYGHURS are mostly CAUCASOID RACE.
is there any way I can paste this picture?  please click open the following link, see Uyghurs location there. One picture is better than talking whole day.
History_asia 
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v63n6/970820/fg3.h.gif
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v63n6/970820/fg2.h.gif
Genetic Distances
Genetic distances (not shown) between central Asian populations and eastern Asian, Indian, western Asian, and European populations were calculated as described in the Material and Methods section. The four central Asian populations presented the shortest genetic distances among themselves, and Mongolians are the population genetically closest to these central Asian groups. If African populations are added to the analysis, they present large genetic distances to all other populations. It is interesting to note that Turks present shorter genetic distances to the British than to central Asians, even though the central Asian populations' samples in the present study speak Turkic languages. A neighbor-joining tree was built as described in the Material and Methods section, with the genetic distances estimated on the basis of the mismatch-intermatch distance. The robustness of the tree was assessed by means of 1,000 bootstrap replicates (Efron 1982; Felsenstein 1985), a consensus tree was built, and bootstrap supports >50% have been represented on its nodes (fig. 2). It is evident that central Asian populations occupy a position intermediate between the eastern Asian (Chinese, Korean, and Ainu) and the Western (Middle Eastern, British, and Turk) populations. Not surprisingly, the most robust nodes are those that cluster together the eastern Asian populations on one end and the Western populations on the other end. No robust branches subdivided the central Asian populations.
:Ok, now for the analysis.  We seem to be running around in circles.  First of all, East asian is not a racial group, but more of an ethnic group.  When I'm speaking of East asian, I mean Mongoloid, which although imprecise, is the racial term that includes east asians. Then there is caucasoid, which is the term that includes Europeans.  Now, what groups constitute Mongoloid? without a doubt the Mongolians are considered Mongoloid - they have epicanthal folds, black straight hair, and facial characteristics that look mongoloid. The europeans named a whole racial group after the mongolians. The Chinese have it, and the koreans have it.  As you can see from your papers, the Uyghur are closer to Mongolians than they are to mideastern and turks.  the turks seem close to the british.  All this states is that they are closer - it doesn't mean taht they are only mongoloid.  Further, these trees should not be used for racial identification but I guess many people like to do that.  they never were meant to be used in that way because race is a physical description, not a genetic one.  As you can see, the Ainu (eskimos) are considered by most people to be mongoloid but they are farther apart from the chinese than the uighurs are from the british.  all this tells you is that the eskimos separated from the chinese/koreans when they came to america earlier than the uyghurs and chinese have been separated.  Regardless, if you read your graphs, the Uyghurs are still closer to the mongolians (who are mongoloid) than they are to the british (caucasoid) or mideastern (considered to be partly caucasoid).  And the turks are close to the british.  of course, like that person said earlier, it all depends on sample size.  Maybe they sampled turks who had some british blood.  Kennethtennyson 19:28, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the picture just as easily as you.  Look at figure 2 with the single line graph. Figure 3 is a graphical representation that is a little more difficult to judge. I believe that the scale is a log scale and not linear for figure 3.  Like I said earlier, you can't make statements on race from genetic distances.  The authors are very careful in stating that Uighurs lie between east asians and turks/british. However, remember they make no statements on what racial group the Uighurs are in.  Race is a physical description.  As such, if everyone is willing to state that mongolians are the prototypical mongoloid group, then Uighurs are closer to mongoloids than they are to the british who you could say are the prototypical caucasoid group with middle eastern being the eastern end of the caucasoid group.  I'm not saying that all Uighurs are like this, just that the ones they measured.  Remember, 90% or so of all uighurs now reside in the xianjing province of china.  However, i'm not stating that uighurs are 100% mongoloid (or sinoid - i like that term better - no medical connotations with down's syndrome) just that they are closer to the mongolians - that is all.  anyways, this has been an interesting discussion. But it is quite funny that you showed me pictures that you thought represented caucasoid uyghurs and that I thought looked east asian (japanese or korean).  This is a common occurence. A lot of japanese will state that they have certain facial characteristics that distinguish them from the chinese but it is very difficult for a white american to differentiate.  The same can be said in reverse. Europeans can differentiate themselves somewhat but most middle eastern and east asians can not tell the difference between one european group and another (ie. french and british).Kennethtennyson 04:15, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Origin

message: I remember reading somewhere that the Uyghur people were really proud that one of the students who led the pro-democracy movement in 1989 was a Uyghur. Does anyone know who that would be? Does he have an article? pfctdayelise (translate?) 16:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuer_Kaixi.  Not really a Uyghur to be honest even though technically he is one.  A member of the "Fourteenth" minority.  Lao Wai 16:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Min kao Han? pfctdayelise (translate?) 02:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famous Uyghur in the 1989 democracy movement? 

message: The first paragraph in the History section refers to a Turkic Empire, then later there is a reference to the Second Turkic Empire.  This implies a centralized state under an emperor.  Is this, then, an accurate statement?  Do the "empires" in question correspond to the Gokturk empires noted in the maps to the right of the section?
--Eddylyons 20:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowFulltext&ProduktNr=224250&Ausgabe=225922&ArtikelNr=22793
:My reading of your link is different. I would quote from the conclusion of the study that you cited:
:"Asian populations (Japanese, Northern Han, Hui, Uygur, and Kazakh) formed one cluster, whereas the two European populations and one West Asian population (Italian, Greek, and Saudi Arabian) formed another at a genetic distance of 0.068. The geographically neighboring populations were closely related according to this approach. These genetic relationships among these neighboring populations may have been substantially influenced as a result of admixture through migration along the Silk Road."
:It means that Uygurs are more closely related to other Asian peoples than to Europeans and Arabs. The closest relationship is with Kazakhs. Tankred 21:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uygur population is basically European with some Asian admixture  

message: The article is totally unsourced; most of the text is copied from other Wikipedia articles - of course unsourced and poorly copy-edited. 
Given references are misinterpreted; scientific papers about genetics are not explained correctly (for example: the genetic similarity of Uyghurs with Turks in Turkey is NOT based on a common Turkish background, but rather on the NON-Turkic Mediterrainian population of Anatolia and the Iranian Plateau. Both the Turks of Turkey and the Uyghurs are mostly descendants of NON-Turkic, usually Indo-European populations accross Central- and West-Asia.)
Tājik 22:39, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  article is unsourced; accuracy disputed 

message: Suspicious of Weasel Words
*many human rights organizations are concerned that this is being used as a pretext to crack down on ethnic Uyghurs - who are these organisations?
*Most Uyghur exile groups today claim their cultural rights are being suppressed... - again, who?
*Often the Chinese government refers to general East Turkestan to refer to terrorists - source?
-- drybittermelon (talk．contribs) 07:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  unverified claims 

message: Recommendation for the English transcription of the word "ئۇيغۇر" / 《维吾尔》
The constant advances of the reform and opening policy and the growing trade and telecommunications exchanges between people in all sectors and the outside world, as well as increased activities in publication, news reporting and international affairs have for some time renewed the need for a uniform and normalized ethnonym for the major nationality of Xinjiang, known in its own language as [ujγur]. 
At present, there is utter confusion on how to render and use in English the name of that nationality, with no fewer than  seven different spellings attested: Uyghur, Uygur, Uighur, Uighuir, Uiguir, Uigur and Weiwuer. This situation causes a number of problems in our work and daily lives. Therefore, the Terminology Normalization Committee for Ethnic Languages of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region based on research and consultations with relevant experts on this issue recommends that the spelling Uyghur, corresponding to the pronunciation [ujγur], be used as the English transcription of the word.
Government organizations and individuals are invited to conform to the present notice.
The Terminology Normalization Committee for Ethnic Languages of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
October 11, 2006 
Source: http://www.xjyw.gov.cn/han/YWGZDT/wwesiyingwenzhuanxie.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ed4linda (talk • contribs) 14:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Orthography Suggestion