I Study Uyghur. Here’s Why You Should Too.

The first class I ever attended at Harvard was UYGHUR A: Elementary Uyghur.

Walking into the language center as a wide-eyed freshman for my class at 9 a.m., I was greeted with a warm smile and a comforting phrase: “Yakhshimusiz (How are you)?” Although the entire class occupied one small table, my heart could not have been more full.

For me, that Elementary Uyghur class was more than an academic exercise. It is an affirmation that despite everything, the Uyghur language lives, and it will continue to live in the voices of those who speak it. However, Harvard must do more than merely offer Uyghur as a language course — it must commit to being a center of Uyghur scholarship.

The Chinese government has been waging an all-out war against the Uyghur language. Today, it’s been “banned in schools, hospitals, and government buildings,” according to Abduweli Ayup, an Uyghur linguist and poet who was arrested after starting Uyghur language programs in 2013. He recalled his fellow Uyghur inmates in prison secretly writing the language on the walls to be able to fully express themselves. United Nations experts have described Uyghur children being taken from their families and forced into state-run boarding schools. Students have reported being punished for speaking their mother tongue.

As the Chinese government cleanses Uyghur culture and language from East Turkistan, an entire generation is growing up without the language that once shaped their identity — a language that has been spoken for over a thousand years now finds itself deliberately silenced. As these children lose the means to communicate with their families, they lose values, traditions, and customs that root them to their histories.

Besides language, Uyghur names are being erased and even criminalized. A report from Human Rights Watch notes that the culturally significant names of 630 Uyghur towns and villages were changed between 2009 and 2023, often replaced with generic terms associated with Chinese Communist Party propaganda. HRW has also documented bans on traditional Muslim baby names. These forms of Uyghur dispossession represent a dangerous loss of agency, religion, history, and collective memory.

The Uyghur language program at Harvard is thus important — but it’s also rare. Our University is one of the few institutions in the entire United States where the Uyghur language is formally taught. Undergraduates are able to obtain a formal language citation in Uyghur, an extensive learning plan that grants fluency and a deep knowledge of a language. As a result, students become able to speak, read, and engage with a language that needs speakers now more than ever.

The Uyghur language program is not only about language acquisition; it is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with a community whose voice is being systematically silenced.

This University has long positioned itself as a leader in academia and policy. But leadership demands a greater responsibility. Harvard must invest in Uyghur cultural and historical studies, fund research, and create spaces for Uyghur students and scholars to thrive. By strengthening its Uyghur program, Harvard can send a powerful message: that the Uyghur language — and by extension, the Uyghur people — are worth preserving, studying, and protecting.

Moreover, the case of Uyghur is not an isolated one. Whether it is Tibetan, Rohingya, or Indigenous languages across the Americas, languages are disappearing at an alarming rate due to structures like colonization and genocide. Institutions like Harvard have both the means and the moral imperative to act as custodians of these languages, ensuring they are not lost to history and occupation.

It’s been over two years since my first Uyghur lesson, and I continue to come back to the classroom in the Science Center basement. Since that class, biweekly Uyghur language tables have helped me connect more with the local Uyghur community in Boston. From enjoying home made Uyghur laghman cooked by my professor, Dr. Gülnar Eziz Yulghun, to learning from the most influential Uyghur leaders of our time, I’ve been able to engage in vital and active cultural preservation.

Each conversation, within and outside of Harvard’s halls, is a testament to the resilience of a people fighting to keep their voices alive.

As Elementary Uyghur is being offered again in the fall, the mere act of registering for the course is resistance against the systems that seek to erase, displace, and colonize Uyghur existence. As I learn the words my people are being punished for speaking and recall the histories that are being rewritten and erased, I am reminded that beyond simple words, language is identity, memory, and resistance.

Kawsar Yasin ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a joint History and Anthropology concentrator in Eliot House and the Founder and President of Harvard Undergraduates for Uyghur Solidarity.