New flag for Uyghur language #1789
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@cueyayotl what do you think about this? Can we go ahead and merge it? |
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I don't think you would find any Uyghurs agreeing the change of the current flag, but I accept that some Chinese people may find it a threat to their 'national unity'. While Muslims are the easiest target in the current zeitgeist, they might want to change the Tibetan flag used on Tatoeba, too, if possible. It's also banned in China according to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Tibet Btw, the Uyghur flag was adopted in 1933. Linking it with the ISIS flag is pure propaganda. Anyway, If the Uyghur flag is going to be changed, I suggest using 'UIG' (the ISO code for Uyghur) on a blue background. It's more universal and not all Uyghurs use the Arabic script. Also, if the Uyghur flag is replaced and the Kabyle (MAK) flag stays, that will be just one big double standard. |
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Mr @soliloquist-tatoeba says:
I respectfully disagree. This flag was only adopted once by a proto-state, that no countries on earth have ever recognised it as a legitimate country. If as you said, it is Chinese people's intention to target muslim, then I think you completely misunderstood the situation. There are more than 20,000,000 people in China – not living in a single province, but over the entire country – who are Muslim; they are Chinese, and most of them are Chinese since a thousand years ago. How could Chinese people targeting themselves? In conclusion, I would insist using this flag: |
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One could easily check from Policy paper: Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations, page 18. It states clearly that 'East Turkistan' is a Terrorist Organisation. This public policy paper is a public document by UK government, available on gov.uk.
I am not exaggerating at all. They are friends of ISIS, they kill innocent people in Xinjiang, while most of the victims were Uyghurs. I believe it is an 'authentic' voice of English-speaking countries as well as many other sovereigns in the world. |
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I'm not an Uyghur and I won't personally prolong the discussion, but I sent e-mails to some Uyghur websites to inform them of the issue. https://www.uyghurcongress.org/en/ I also sent PMs to some Tatoeba users who list Uyghur on their profiles. So, some Uyghurs may also join the discussion in the future (if they read my message and are interested). I hope this will also increase contributions in the Uyghur language as a positive side effect. That was the case with the Berber-Kabyle issue. Such debates tend to boost contributions. It's good to look on the bright side of things. |
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@sabretou what do you think? |
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On Tatoeba, we have used unofficial, cultural flag icons frequently on Tatoeba. Our goal with using a flag as an icon on Tatoeba should be to maximise potential users. Tatoeba is apolitical not in the interests of 'political fairness', but in the interests of its own expansion. It is not Tatoeba's objective to mediate political conflicts, but to promote language learning. In this particular case, I have not seen any credible evidence so far that the flag we are using on Tatoeba is directly linked to a terrorist organisation. However, I am still in favour of changing it. The reason I think it should be changed is that the flag is unacceptable in China, which is where the majority of Uighur speakers are based. As such, the use of this flag could discourage a number of Uighur users and learners from contributing to Tatoeba. I believe the best solution to this issue is to adopt a 'neutral' flag, i.e. to have the flag code on a white field, similar to Kashmiri. I am also in favour of applying the same solution to Tibetan. |
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Normally, I wouldn't take part in this discussion any longer, but seeing no Uyghurs came (perhaps they didn't even read my email - they're probably dealing with thousands of spam mails every day), I want to add a few more words.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1/2017/12/17/14/wire-1924764-1513521495-204_634x422.jpg Even narrow streets are full of PRC flags.
I object to the proposed flags on the first message. A black-and-white flag with some Arabic script on a plain background looks more like the flags used by extremist/terrorist groups. Flag of Taliban Flags of ISIS and Al-Qaeda Flag of Al-Nusra Front When it comes to terrorism, this style is the most popular. Those people don't like other colors and symbols much. Also, many neo-nazi symbols and the famous pirate flag is b&w. What I'm trying to say is that using black and white doesn't necessarily guarantee neutrality. If the Uyghur flag is going to be replaced, I suggest preserving the background color (see my first message). Light blue is a common color on Turkic flags (Kazakhstan, Crimean Tatars, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan etc.). It symbolizes their Turkic identiy which isn't something to be neutralized but a fact. The flag used for Arabic on Tatoeba has a green background, too. Just removing the symbolism should be sufficient. Why censoring the color? Will China sue Tatoeba for picking an 'unacceptable' color? We should at least have that much respect for Uyghurs. Seeing their language with a plain b&w flag among other colorful flags would demotivate most people. |
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On the wall, Porfiriy gave some valuable information about the issue. I want to copy it here, too.
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Hello! I'm Impersonator, and I'd like to chip in and voice my opinion. From what I've heard about the situation in PRC, Uyghurs from Xinjiang are very unlikely to contribute to Tatoeba anyway. Using Uyghur language is considered unpatriotic, and contacting foreigners lowers Uyghur's social credit and is likely to end them in a 'transformation through education' concentration camp. Uyghur people are required to install spyware called Jingwang that monitors the websites they visit. Contributing to Tatoeba in Uyghur is downright dangerous in Xinjiang, so flag change is very unlikely to affect the contributions in Uyghur from Xinjiang people in any way. That the flag change will do, in my opinion, is:
I personally hope that the flag will remain. If choosing between Mandarin and Uyghur, I hope Tatoeba will choose Uyghur. Mandarin has quite a lot of proponents without Tatoeba, it has big government backing it up. Not so for Uyghur. If projects like Tatoeba don't choose Uyghur when forced with a dilemma 'Uyghur or Mandarin?', then who will? |
My honourable friend, I agree with your suggestion of using tint blue as the background. However, showing that something is banned in a sovereign country doesn't says anything about its legitimacy. And, as there are no laws against the use of this flag in China, I would consider it an 'unpopularity' rather than 'ban'. From the journal I have seen in Chinese, it was only shown in the picture of terrorism happened in Xinjiang, which enforces its association with it. This the a fact, just as people would associate fried chicken with black minorities in the US and prevent using it. In conclusion, your suggestion is appropriate. Notwithstanding our points, we should consider replacing it to weaken this bad association.
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I fully consent your feeling. However, whether to change the flag is not a zero-sum game, but a choice for 'the interests of its own expansion', as @sabretou noted. Mandarin, as a language of the most native speaker in the world, is attracting more and more learners. This means speakers of English, Russian as well as many other languages will learn Chinese as their second language, which enables Tatoeba (a powerful tool for language learning and referencing) to gain more influences and more users. Notice that China also has the most speakers of Esperanto – one of the most used language on Tatoeba, which has no government backup – who contribute to Tatoeba everyday. To be honest, I see no profit in favouring any of these languages. |
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Hello! Thank you for your answer. Unfortunately, it doesn't really convince me.
The official recognition doesn't tell much. In the Soviet Union, Belarusian was an official language in Belarus, but it was actively discouraged nevertheless. Also, the information from 2010 is outdated. The change of policy is a relatively modern one: replacing Uyghur with Mandarin started in 2017, Uyghur re-education camps were only establised in 2014. The changes rarely happen overnight: the language is not erased immediately. What is important is dynamics: is the language encouraged or discouraged, how the numbers change, etc.
The fact that some content is being created in a language doesn't tell much about the place of the language in the public life. For example, North Korea has a website in Japanese, but that doesn't mean Japanese is welcome there. So the fact that there was an interview with Dilraba Dilmurat hardly tells us much. Of course, it's great that interviews like that with Dilraba Dilmurat are being shot. But the question is: how much? How much is being aired in Uyghur as compared to Chinese, how much is being aired now as compared to 2010, etc. Also, the interview with Dilraba Dilmurat seems undated (but my Uyghur is bad — if the date is mentioned, could you please tell at what second?), but the video mentions the 2013 drama Anarhan (ئانارخان 阿娜尔罕), and the end of the video mentions Swords of Legends (古剑奇谭), a TV series from 2014. So I assume the video is from around 2013 or 2014. The policy to erase Uyghur from the public life is a recent one, so 2014 videos don't offer much information about the current state of things.
Again, the question is how many schools are like this. The fact that Uyghur is taught somewhere doesn't give much of a picture: the policy change is a relatively recent, and you can't wipe out the language in a day — it takes some time to do that. What is important is the dynamics, and from what I've read, in most schools it's being removed, and after switch to Mandarin many Uyghur students' grades declined. The fact that a single school might have kept Uyghur doesn't tell much, alas.
I find the comparison with racism curious, and I think we shouldn't cater to people's racist stereotypes (by somehow removing things related to black people). Instead, we should combat racism and harmful stereotypes. I think the same applies to Uyghurs: we shouldn't cater to people's misconceptions about Uyghurs (and Muslims in general). Instead, we should combat these stereotypes, not to play along with them. |
Dear Chinese-speaking Esperantist friend, I'm relieved to hear that. If that's true, then there's no valid reason or urgent need for change. After all, that's not Algerians' or Turks' decision to make but Uyghurs' whether this flag is unpopular or not, whether it represents them or not. I think we should leave it up to them. I also liked your comparison of changing the Uyghur flag and avoiding fried chicken, but there's one difference. The latter is just a personal choice while the former is not. |
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@cueyayotl @sabretou @soliloquist-tatoeba Should we go ahead and change this flag or keep everything as they are and close this issue? |
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Under these circumstances, I'm in favor of closing it, @RyckRichards.
https://tatoeba.org/eng/wall/show_message/31369#!#message_31369 https://tatoeba.org/eng/wall/show_message/31370#!#message_31370
Therefore, I find picking only the Uyghur flag discriminating and unfair. That said, I won't object changing it if the other flags are handled in a similar manner. We could then create custom flags for them. Also, I won't object if the icons of all languages that are spoken in PRC (like Cantonese, Tibetan and Manchu) are replaced with PRC flag + 3-letter language codes, including that of Uyghur. But since that would be too proactive, I think keeping the current flags on Tatoeba would be a better approach. |
Please don't do that. PRC flag carries way too much baggage itself, especially when used for those languages. One of our biggest Uyghur contributors, FeuDRenais, has stated he won't be contributing to Tatoeba because of the PRC policies:
It feels wrong to use the flag of the government that is suppressing Uyghur culture to represent the Uyghur culture itself. If you're going to change the flag (please don't), I think black-and-white text is better than PRC flag... Anything is better than a PRC flag. |
This is the one that's been proposed in the PR. I consider it less political than the original one though. It still uses the turquoise background colour which reflects the old. The wiki page of Uyghur language also uses the Perso-Arabic script icon for the language since 2014. |
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FeuDRenais is the person who suggested the initial flag. He made the request to add the language back in May 2010. I asked him the following:
He replied the following:
I will try to get in touch with him and ask his opinion. |
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I was able to get in touch with FeuDRenais and he also would not change the flag, even if he still doesn't think it's ideal. He is confident that Uyghur speakers outside of China would be 99% in favor of keeping the flag. This is only confirming what porfiriy mentioned on the Wall. I asked if he could survey a few people to simply ask which icon is most representative of their language (between our current one and the one suggested by BaksiLi). He unfortunately cannot help with this as he is still dedicating all his time to the Xinjiang project. He has however provided some contact points with other activists. We can try to reach out to them so that they can help us reach out to Uyghur native speakers. Even if the result might be exactly what porfiriy predicted, I think it's still important we collect opinions of native speakers for ourselves, to leave any assumption out of the way. |
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Hello everyone: |
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Hi, If it were before 2016, there would be plenty of Uyghur computer/language experts inside Xinjiang who would be a natural choice for proposing standards in Uyghur language. One of them is Alim Ahat, the well-known computer scientist & entrepreneur, who had become a de-facto authority on Uyghur language standards in Computer Science and the language in Xinjiang. In 2011, the fact that he is named as one of the top 10 innovative professionals in China proves that he holds nothing against the Chinese government. Now, most of those Uyghur experts disappeared without any trace, presumably in camps/prisons or even dead already. Asking their whereabouts would be considered to be an ill-attempt against the Chinese government, or even treated as a conspiracy of anti-China force led by CIA. You may try if you don't believe me. Xinjiang and possibly China as a whole has now effectively become a powerful and advanced version of North Korea. Since 2017, studying Uyghur language and culture (by Uyghur people) is banned, most of the people who were in this field (like poets) disappeared without any trace, and the rest is transferred to factories to work with very low salaries. Anybody who visits Xinjiang and has the slightest human compassion could easily realise that this horrible reality with a little bit of effort. One example is: if you speak in Uyghur to Uyghur people, they would reply in Chinese even though they know Uyghur language. You can see their fear from their eyes, from their unnatural smiles, their extreme and robotic loyalties to the Chinese government and Xi Jinping and Communistic idea. Xi Jining is now effectively a religion in Xinjiang, everybody worships him as a God. The Xi Jinping religion is now slowly spreading from Xinjiang to the rest of China. The next step is the world, you will see. Uyghur people is now effectively a modern slavery/commodity in China, while their elites are destroyed. Most of the Uyghur people I speak to seems to support to use the ET flag. If you ask my opinion: I don't like to be involved in politics, so I am neutral on this. However, I think it is ridiculous to relate terrorism to the ET flag. Because when ET was established, even Stalin and Mao Zedong decorated their achievements. And the integration of ET into China was actually peaceful with the arrangement of Stalin. The Chinese government openly linked ET to terrorism only after 2001. There are indeed some Uyghur terrorists, who claim to represent ET, and they eagerly claimed that they have organized the killings of innocent’s people in China. But they do not represent Uyghur people, and they do not represent ET in the same way Muslim Terrorists do not represent Islam. Again, if it were before 2016, many Uyghur people would have preferred not to use the ET flag for fear of being used as an excuse for Chinese Government to punish innocent Uyghur people. Now Uyghur people lost everything, and many of us have nothing left to lose. So most of us is now wishing somehow our country can be independent from China, although we know in our heart that it is an impossible dream because we know that the Chinese regime rather destroys the world with its nuclear bombs than to give away one inch of what they already have. It is ironic that the Chinese government is using “terrorists” labels, they should look at themselves on the mirror, internally to their own people, they are using the same language when accusing the US with something. Compare those with those used by IS and other Islamic terrorists. Ironically, they have the same enemy, which is US, and using the same language, and covertly supporting each other against their common enemy, while never do any real harm to each other. For these reasons, when it comes to discussing the issue anything related to Uyghur, Uyghur community outside China becomes a natural authority. However, the real question is not about what flag should be used. The real question is, can you afford the consequence of using the ET flag, there will be a powerful repercussion from Chinese government, and the individuals who supported the idea would be blacklisted in the Chinese government’s database for visa etc, and there would be some personal attack from the powerful Chinese Internet army. |
I searched this guy, Alim Ahat, who I believe is the founder of Uighursoft. Through this official website, I found products including a dictionary (لۇغەت), an input method (ئەلكاتىپ), and a grammar checker (كوررېكتور). These Softwares are still maintained and for sale these days. They also have an official WeChat account, where the latest post was on 09/01/2020.
Is he the guy you talked about? He is still there teaching online C# courses in Uyghur language. That's a good sign of Uyghur people living wealthy in Xingjiang. If it is like you said, learning Uyghur language/culture is 'banned', why are there still books and courses about Uyghur language taught in Chinese? You can easily find them from Zhihu, or even the State-run press like Xinhua News Agency and CNR Uyghur Press. Every government website in Xinjiang is bilingual even the one of the Xinjiang Kunlun Government CCP I don't really bother with which flag is used to represent Uyghur language on Tatoeba. I simply think it is better to go with something that mess-up less with politics. I respect maintainers of Tatoeba no matter which choice is made. By the way, I'm not an agent. Just a polyglot programmer. |
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Hello everyone, So much appreciated to all of your hard works in this project. As a native Uyghur living abroad, witnessing the 21st century concentration camps, the Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity committed by Communist China against Uyghurs and other turkic people in occupied East Turkistan - our beloved homeland, I would not hesitate to use/suggest our national flag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_East_Turkestan Many countries in the world, in the fear of economic loss or other types of threat from communist china, are paying really heavy price this year, especially when the evil communist regime lied to the world about the deadly COVID-19 virus pandemic outbreak. Among those that hit hard are: Italy, Germany, France, United States, United Kingdom... But this time, the world will never ever let Communist Chinese Regime get away with this. Recently, even Google add Uyghur translate into their website. The entire Uyghur community in the diaspora are in rejoice and deep appreciation. |
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@BaksiLi Thank you for paying attention to my post and have done some research. Please continue your effort on this, do some effort to locate him to prove my information is incorrect. A current video doing research or teaching in Xinjiang University will be enough. I am 100% sure you will be disappointed and your view on China will be transformed completely because you will realise that China is going against you because you are digging something that it does not want you to. Information about him is a sate secret! That is why his families and friends are staying quiet! I am not saying anything before 2016. Since 2016, Chinese government made Xinjiang a hell for Uyghur people. You can find lots of information But as you said, his works and his company is not banned. His books and most of works he has done are still available online, somebody maintaining his WeChat account, and you can find lots of information online, giving impression that Uyghur life seems normal. But offline Uyghur people' life are completely distroyed, Uyghur language and boosk are banned, those materials online are staying there for show only. It it like the show in stage is still on, while the audiences are all killed. Please look for audience, you will see the horror! |
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This issue has been open long enough, it is time to close it. We will keep the East Turkestan flag as the icon for the Uyghur language in Tatoeba. We haven't been able to find a native speaker who is in favor of changing the flag and without any native speaker who would support the change, there is no reason for us to make a change. Thanks everyone for your input. |
As posted by Leolaaziano on the wall:
https://tatoeba.org/eng/wall/show_message/31358#message_31358
I have made a new one like this:
the font used is Thabit, which is free.
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