Talk:Ürümqi

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Incomplete and sanitised description

Why is there no mention made here of the persecution of the Uyghur people by the Chinese authorities? This is the capital of the Uyghur région, where reeducation camps or gulags imprison, oppress and brainwash people whose culture and religion is seen as a threat by the centralised China state. This page should include a chapter about the reality of life here for many people. LoloWik63 (talk) 01:54, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Name etymology

Dai MATSUI suggested that the name "Ürümchi" evolved from Old Uyghur place name "Yürüng-chin" meaning "white garrison" SatukBughraKhan (talk) 07:10, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Yue I don’t think it’s fair to treat Wiens’s hypothesis about the etymology of “Urumchi” as universally accepted or the only correct one, especially when compared to the more detailed and relatively recent study by Dai Matsui, which is also supported by factual evidence in the form of written documents—unlike Wiens’s theory, which resembles folk etymology much more. SatukBughraKhan (talk) 04:31, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SatukBughraKhan: Your characterisation of the the Oirat (Dzungar / Mongolian) explanation of the name "Ürümqi" as "Wiens's hypothesis" is false. It was not proposed by Wiens and Wiens does not write in the source given as if he is proposing a new idea:
"The name 'Urumchi' is derived from the Dzungar dialect of Mongolian, 'uru' meaning 'beautiful' and 'mchi' meaning 'pasture.'" (447)
This is made more clear by the fact that unlike Matsui's work, which is an analysis of and proposal on the name "Ürümqi" based on his research of primary sources, Wiens' paper was not focused on etymology and he cites secondary sources, i.e. the work of other authors. The Oirat etymology is mentioned in sources that long predate Wiens – e.g. Mildred Cable and Francesca French's 1927 book Through Jade Gate and Central Asia. An account of Journeys in Kansu, Turkestan and the Gobi Desert:
"The word 'Urumchi' is of Mongolian origin; to the Chinese the town is known as 'Tihwa,' but colloquially it is referred to as 'Hungmiaote' - 'The Red Temple.'" (260)
As well as sources that followed him, e.g. Ruchen Niu in his 1994 work A General Discussion of Xinjiang Place Names:
"'Ürümchi' is commonly believed to be a word of Mongolian origin, meaning 'beautiful grassland.'" (119)
The Oirat etymology is also repeated in non-scholarly sources consider reputable and fact-checked by independent authors, including Encyclopædia Britannica and UNESCO. Calling it "Wiens's hypothesis" is a misattribution, and while I agree it is not the etymology accepted universally, it is the one accepted generally.
While Dai Matsui is certainly a credible author on Uyghur history preceding the Qing dynasty, his theory is relatively new (first published in 2013 with that Uyghur-language source written in the Common Turkic alphabet, which I cannot read or use a translator tool for) and I do not see any citations of his peers who may have corroborated his research since. The citation of Márton Vér's PhD dissertation is a bit odd because page 162 is a translation of a citation of Matsui's 2013 paper, so it is a citation of a citation of a work that was already mentioned in the Wikipedia article. Vér was not corroborating or adding to Matsui's research, he was citing it uncritically. Using it to cite the following sentence in your original wording therefore does not make sense:
"As further evidence supporting this hypothesis, Matsui points to Old Uyghur documents from the 14th century in which the toponym 'Yürüngchin' is attested."
But page 162 only says in relation to the name:
"elči to go to Yürüŋčin412 ... 412: As it was proofed by Matsui Yürüŋčin was the Uyghur name of the modern Ürümči. Cf.: MATSUI 2013."
"Yürüŋčin was the Uyghur name of the modern Ürümqi" does not mean "Yürüŋčin was the Uyghur origin of the modern Ürümqi", and nothing about that page discusses Matsui's arguments; it is an uncritical citation.
So I do not think that it is fair to treat Matsui's recent hypothesis on the same level as a long-established and popular etymology and dismissing the existing etymology as "folk etymology" based on your own opinion. If Matsui's research has been corroborated and added to by his peers – and I do not doubt it has, I just cannot read Uyghur or Turkish which he mostly writes in – please include those sources in a similar manner to how I have. Yue🌙 20:46, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is reasonable to view the interpretation proposed by Wiens as his own individual theory, since he does not provide any sources for the etymology he suggests. Earlier works (Mildred Cable and Francesca French's 1927 book Through Jade Gate...) mention only that the name “Urumchi” is of Mongolian origin, but they do not offer any explanation of its meaning, whereas Wiens introduces a specific interpretation (“beautiful pasture”) derived from the Oirat-Mongolian components ürü and mchi without supporting evidence. Later encyclopedic publications (Encyclopædia Britannica and UNESCO) appear to repeat his formulation rather than present independent analysis.
In contrast, Matsui’s interpretation is grounded in documented historical material. He demonstrates that the form Yürüŋčin appears first in an Old Uyghur document and only later in a Mongolian document from 1352, which implies that the Old Uyghur form is primary and was subsequently adopted by Mongolian-speaking groups, eventually evolving into the modern “Urumchi” (Old.-Uyg. Yürüngçın > Mo. Yürüngčin > *Ürüngči(n) ~ *Ürümči(n) > *Ürümči’) in both Uyghur and Mongolian usage. This argument is strengthened by the fact that Matsui’s work has been cited by contemporary scholars such as Márton Vér (two times, first in his 2016's PhD dissertation and second time on 2025's article, pp. 20-21) and by György Kara in The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire (2023) (p. 991), a major academic publication edited by figures like Kim Hodong and Michal Biran. The absence of criticism from scholars of this level indicates that Matsui’s explanation is widely accepted within modern Turkological research.
Early travelers such as Mildred Cable and Francesca French likely recorded the name in the form used by local Mongols without knowing about its earlier Old Uyghur attestation. Wiens, similarly unaware of the Old Uyghur material, assumed the name to be originally Mongolian and sought to derive its meaning from Mongolian roots, leading to an unsupported etymology that was later reproduced by other authors.
For these reasons, Matsui’s interpretation is more credible: it is based on historical documentation, supported by contemporary scholarship, and methodologically sound, whereas the version proposed by Wiens appears outdated, speculative, and not grounded in primary sources.
P.S: The article by Dai Matsui that I referred to is written in Turkish, not in Uyghur, and it can be easily translated into English using Google Translate. SatukBughraKhan (talk) 12:07, 5 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi