Uyghur literature

Uyghur or Uighur literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Uyghur language, a Turkic language used primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.

Uyghur writing system observed significant changes by its native writers who switched from Turkic script to Arabic that originally began in the 10th century until the 12th century. This development adopted language reforms from Arabic literature. Yūsuf Balasaguni, Mahmud al-Kashgari, Ahmad Yugnaki, and Ahmad Yasawi were among the leading writers of that time who flourished Uyghur literature by adopting language reforms. Also,Ahmad Yasawi one of the other writers who introduced new genre in Uyghur literature. Yesevi's poetry collection Divan-i hikmet (Book of Wisdom) is composed of various dialects, such as Arabic and Persian, which features Turkic metre.