Uzbek Language

Uzbek
Oʻzbekcha
Native to	Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Russia, China
Ethnicity	Uzbek
Native speakers	27 million (2011–2014)
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Karluk Uzbek
Early forms	Middle Turkic Khorezmian Chagatai Uzbek
Writing system	Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Uzbek Braille (Uzbek alphabets)
Official status
Official language in	Uzbekistan
Language codes
ISO 639-1	uz
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	– inclusive code Individual codes: uzn – Northern uzs – Southern
Glottolog	uzbe1247
Linguasphere	44-AAB-da, db
Dark blue = majority; light blue = minority
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Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has 27 million native speakers and is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Uzbek belongs to the Eastern Turkic, or Karluk, branch of the Turkic language family. External influences include Persian, Arabic and Russian. One of the most noticeable distinctions of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is the rounding of the vowel /a/ to /ɒ/ or /ɔ/, a feature that was influenced by Persian.

In the language itself, Uzbek is oʻzbek tili or oʻzbekcha. In Cyrillic, the same names are written ўзбек тили and ўзбекча; in Arabic script, ازبېک تیلی and ازبېجه.

Turkic speakers probably settled the Amu Darya, Syr Darya and Zarafshan river basins since at least 600–700 CE, gradually ousting or assimilating the speakers of Eastern Iranian languages who previously inhabited Sogdia, Bactria and Khwarezm. The first Turkic dynasty in the region was that of the Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 9th–12th centuries, who were a confederation of Karluks, Chigils, Yaghma and other tribes.