An Example of Old Uyghur’s Use of Chinese: Interpretation of a Colophon to the Qianziwen in the Berlin Turfan Collection

Abstract

Ancient Turfan was an important crossroad of languages and scripts on the Northern Silk Road where various languages and scripts coexisted simultaneously. This point is strongly supported by the diversity of languages and scripts attested in the texts discovered in the region and the complex relation between languages and scripts as well as the language use. This paper first examines a colophon to the Chinese premier Qianziwen 千字文 kept in the Berlin Turfan Collection with the shelf number Ch 3716 (T II Y 62) which clearly followed the syntax of Old Uyghur, and then reconstructs the text with the assumption that the text was read in Old Uyghur. After briefly discussing some aspects of Old Uyghur’s use of the Qianziwen, this paper examines another Chinese colophon in the same manuscript. The main aim is to illustrate some aspects of Old Uyghur’s use of Chinese in medieval Turfan.