The follow bits of text appear on a tapestry bought in Ürümqi about 50 years ago. My guess is that the writing is in Uighur – can anyone decipher it?
4 thoughts on “Puzzle”
Unfortunately the images are not so clear, and so is the text.
Anyway, I think reading Uyghur by me won’t be that beneficial, since I don’t know much of it generally.
I’m amazed that they produce such tapestry in fact… I thought it is mainly a profession for Persians and Turks.
Do you live anywhere near London? Perhaps a thorough study of the Rosetta Stone translation by Young and Champollion is in order on this one…
Well, it is some kind of nastaliq but sorry I can’t make poridge out of it…
Nastaliq (or Farsi style as we call it) is very common in the east for people who adopted the Arabic script for their languages. I imagine it as, Nastaliq is the Naskh style for people in the east of the ME. Urdu, Farsi, Pashto and others, you’d notice them mostly written in this style.
Uyghur as I saw somewhere in the web is more often written in Naskh style rather than Nastaliq.
Anyway, judging from the scenery here, I think the text is to tell some epic, or talking about some scene in some war or battle. The main task here is to “read” the letters in the first place! Then, we might worry about translating. I think the main thing about the Uyghur language that makes it difficult a bit to read is that they use the Arabic script in an alphabetical way, and because of this you will find many short syllables making one word to be cut into pieces, and to me this is somehow frustrating to read. Most of nations that use the Arabic script don’t use it in the same way.
Unfortunately the images are not so clear, and so is the text.
Anyway, I think reading Uyghur by me won’t be that beneficial, since I don’t know much of it generally.
I’m amazed that they produce such tapestry in fact… I thought it is mainly a profession for Persians and Turks.
Do you live anywhere near London? Perhaps a thorough study of the Rosetta Stone translation by Young and Champollion is in order on this one…
Well, it is some kind of nastaliq but sorry I can’t make poridge out of it…
Nastaliq (or Farsi style as we call it) is very common in the east for people who adopted the Arabic script for their languages. I imagine it as, Nastaliq is the Naskh style for people in the east of the ME. Urdu, Farsi, Pashto and others, you’d notice them mostly written in this style.
Uyghur as I saw somewhere in the web is more often written in Naskh style rather than Nastaliq.
Anyway, judging from the scenery here, I think the text is to tell some epic, or talking about some scene in some war or battle. The main task here is to “read” the letters in the first place! Then, we might worry about translating. I think the main thing about the Uyghur language that makes it difficult a bit to read is that they use the Arabic script in an alphabetical way, and because of this you will find many short syllables making one word to be cut into pieces, and to me this is somehow frustrating to read. Most of nations that use the Arabic script don’t use it in the same way.