So you're thinking about learning Uyghur?
Yakshi!
I'm about to walk you through a review of
one the few -- and most comprehensive -- beginner
Uyghur resources available so you can know
whether it's the right fit for you or not.
Uyghur is an elementary textbook written by
Gulnisa Nazarova and Kurban Niyaz and published
by Georgetown University Press.
It's a pretty hefty book with over 500 pages
and weighing in at almost 3 lbs.
You'll get a DVD along with it which we'll
walk through here shortly.
To start, this book is designed for the absolute
beginner and places a pretty heavy emphasis
on reading and writing over oral development.
If you don't master chapter one about reading
and writing Uyghur script, you can't move
on.
The rest of the book is divided into 14 additional
chapters that cover topics such as greetings,
daily routines, shopping, weather and health.
What I love about the textbook is that each
chapter not only covers each topic fully but
also includes supplementary material like
Uyghur proverbs, plenty of color photos 
and cultural and historical notes to give
regional context to the language you're learning.
This is especially helpful if you've never
lived in Xinjiang before.
Grammatical explanations are clear and the
examples used throughout the book are both
relevant to Xinjiang and interesting.
For example, at one point during a lesson
on giving directions, students are asked to
explain how to get to certain Xinjiang cities
based on a map.
The book remains politically neutral for the
most part, although there are references to
an alternate name for Xinjiang that would
be heavily frowned upon here within the province.
The DVD that accompanies the book covers the
vocabulary for each lesson and has individual
exercises that go along with what you're learning.
Most of this is audio, although there are
a couple videos.
The interactive DVD is useful, but there are
a few things I'm not incredibly pleased with.
First is the quality of both the audio and
video, which make this recently published
textbook feel like it's a decade old.
The second thing I'm not happy with is that
the audio files aren't available in an mp3
format, which means that the program is only
useful if you're in front of a computer screen.
I can't download the files to listen on the
go, which is one thing I personally like doing.
But it's important to note here that this
textbook is obviously designed for classroom
use, not individual study.
So I would only use this book for self-study
if you have a tutor that can teach alongside
it.
So to sum up: despite a disappointing supplementary
DVD, the textbook itself is beautifully laid
out and one of the best tools available for
beginners learning the Uyghur language.
Although designed for classrooms, it can work
well within a tutor setting
