Uyghur (ooey-GHUR say Uyghurs, WEE-gur say Americans; ISO 639-3: uig) is a Central Asian Turkic language spoken along the Silk Route in Chinese Turkestan (Xinjiang).
The Uyghurs, who number nearly ten million, are closely related to the Uzbeks, and have a rich body of literature, arts, music, and dance, that stretches back to the 9th century. Living at the eastern cultural crossroads of Central Asia and Chinese Inner Asia, the Uyghurs are influenced not only from Central Asian Turkic culture, but also Persian, Arabic, Mongolian, Indian, and ancient Indo-European cultures. Today, the language is geopolitically strategic as the region shares a border with Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Central Asian Turkic republics, Russia, and Mongolia. This means that someone who studies Uyghur will become one of a small number of experts in the world speaking this language, which increases job opportunities.
But more than that: learning Uyghur is a blast! And ...if you speak Uyghur, you can learn Uzbek within weeks. You can learn Turkish, Kazakh, or Kirghiz within months. Summer study is possible in China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan; research opportunities may also be available.
The University of Kansas regularly offered Uyghur. Its Uyghur studies group Kansas has announced the publication of their first-year Uyghur language textbook and grammar,"Greetings from the Teklimakan: a handbook of Modern Uyghur," by Tarjei Engesæth, Mahire Yakup and Arienne Dwyer. The textbook and accompanying audio are available for download **at no cost** from the following URL:
http://hdl.handle.net/1808/5624
The textbook, which also serves as a grammatical reference, is suitable both for self-study and for classroom use, and is equivalent to one year's study of the language.
Several other efforts are underway to facilitate instruction in Uyghur. There are several Uyghur-English dictionaries such as http://www.uyghurdictionary.org/