In addition to other Turkic languages, Uyghur has historically been strongly influenced by Arabic and Persian, and more recently by Russian and Mandarin Chinese.

[8] According to Gerard Clauson, Western Yugur is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur and is also called "Neo-Uyghur".

[11] Robert Dankoff wrote that the Turkic language spoken in Kashgar and used in Kara Khanid works was Karluk, not (Old) Uyghur.

[12] Robert Barkley Shaw wrote, "In the Turkish of Káshghar and Yarkand (which some European linguists have called Uïghur, a name unknown to the inhabitants of those towns, who know their tongue simply as Túrki), ...

[13] Sven Hedin wrote, "In these cases it would be particularly inappropriate to normalize to the East Turkish literary language, because by so doing one would obliterate traces of national elements which have no immediate connection with the Kaschgar Turks, but on the contrary are possibly derived from the ancient Uigurs".

The book, described by scholars as an "extraordinary work,"[16][17] documents the rich literary tradition of Turkic languages; it contains folk tales (including descriptions of the functions of shamans)[17] and didactic poetry (propounding "moral standards and good behaviour"), besides poems and poetry cycles on topics such as hunting and love[18] and numerous other language materials.

[22] Shaw translated extracts from the Tazkiratu'l-Bughra on the Muslim Turki war against the "infidel" Khotan.

The historical term "Uyghur" was appropriated for the language that had been known as Eastern Turki by government officials in the Soviet Union in 1922 and in Xinjiang in 1934.

As a result, Uyghur can be heard in most social domains in Xinjiang and also in schools, government and courts.

[35] Of the other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, those populous enough to have their own autonomous prefectures, such as the Kazakhs and the Kyrgyz, have access to schools and government services in their native language.

However, research have shown that due to differences in the order of words and grammar between the Uighur and the Chinese language, many students face obstacles in learning courses such as Mathematics under the bi-lingual education system.

It has been argued, within a lexical phonology framework, that /e/ has a back counterpart /ɤ/, and modern Uyghur lacks a clear differentiation between /i/ and /ɯ/.

[45] The high vowels undergo some tensing when they occur adjacent to alveolars (s, z, r, l), palatals (j), dentals (t̪, d̪, n̪), and post-alveolar affricates (t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ), e.g. chiraq [t͡ʃʰˈiraq] 'lamp', jenubiy [d͡ʒɛnʊˈbiː] 'southern', yüz [jyz] 'face; hundred', suda [suːˈda] 'in/at (the) water'.

Both [i] and [ɯ] undergo apicalisation after alveodental continuants in unstressed syllables, e.g. siler [sɪ̯læː(r)] 'you (plural)', ziyan [zɪ̯ˈjɑːn] 'harm'.

Any vowel undergoes laxing and backing when it occurs in uvular (/q/, /ʁ/, /χ/) and laryngeal (glottal) (/ɦ/, /ʔ/) environments, e.g. qiz [qʰɤz] 'girl', qëtiq [qʰɤˈtɯq] 'yogurt', qeghez [qʰæˈʁæz] 'paper', qum [qʰʊm] 'sand', qolay [qʰɔˈlʌɪ] 'convenient', qan [qʰɑn] 'blood', ëghiz [ʔeˈʁez] 'mouth', hisab [ɦɤˈsʌp] 'number', hës [ɦɤs] 'hunch', hemrah [ɦæmˈrʌh] 'partner', höl [ɦœɫ] 'wet', hujum [ɦuˈd͡ʒʊm] 'assault', halqa [ɦɑlˈqʰɑ] 'ring'.

[49] The pairs /p, b/, /t, d/, /k, ɡ/, and /q, ʁ/ alternate, with the voiced member devoicing in syllable-final position, except in word-initial syllables.

This devoicing process is usually reflected in the official orthography, but an exception has been recently made for certain Perso-Arabic loans.

Other phonemes occur natively only in limited contexts, i.e. /h/ only in few interjections, /d/, /ɡ/, and /ʁ/ rarely initially, and /z/ only morpheme-final.

In general, Uyghur phonology tends to simplify phonemic consonant clusters by means of elision and epenthesis.

[55] The Karluk language started to be written with the Perso-Arabic script (Kona Yëziq) in the 10th century upon the conversion of the Kara-Khanids to Islam.

This Perso-Arabic script (Kona Yëziq) was reformed in the 20th century with modifications to represent all Modern Uyghur sounds including short vowels and eliminate Arabic letters representing sounds not found in Modern Uyghur.

There are two numbers: singular and plural and six different cases: nominative, accusative, dative, locative, ablative and genitive.

[56][57] Verbs are conjugated for tense: present and past; voice: causative and passive; aspect: continuous and mood: e.g. ability.

Many words of Arabic origin have come into the language through Persian and Tajik, which again have come through Uzbek and to a greater extent, Chagatai.

[58] Code-switching with Standard Chinese is common in spoken Uyghur, but stigmatized in formal contexts.

In a sentence, this mixing might look like:[59]مېنىڭMë-ning1sg-GENتەلەفونىمtelfon-imcellphone-POSS.1sgگۇئەنجى،guenji,shut.down,شۇڭاshungasoسىزگەsiz-ge2sg-DATدۇئەنشىنduenshintext.messageئەۋەتەلمىدىم.ewet-elmi-dim.send-CAP.NEG-PST.1sgمېنىڭ تەلەفونىم گۇئەنجى، شۇڭا سىزگە دۇئەنشىن ئەۋەتەلمىدىم.Më-ning telfon-im guenji, shunga siz-ge duenshin ewet-elmi-dim.1sg-GEN cellphone-POSS.1sg shut.down, so 2sg-DAT text.message send-CAP.NEG-PST.1sgMy (cell) phone shut down (关机; guānjī), so I wasn't able to send you a text message (短信; duǎnxìn).Below are some examples of common loanwords in the Uyghur language.

The following is a sample text in Uyghur of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with an English translation.