The word Chagatai relates to the Chagatai Khanate, a descendant empire of the Mongol Empire left to Genghis Khan's second son, Chagatai Khan. Many of the Chagatai Turks and Tatars, who were the speakers of this language, claimed descent from Chagatai Khan. As part of the preparation for the 1924 establishment of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, Chagatai was officially renamed "Old Uzbek", which Edward A. Allworth argued "badly distorted the literary history of the region" and was used to give authors such as Ali-Shir Nava'i an Uzbek identity. It was also referred to as "Turki" or "Sart". In China, it is sometimes called "ancient Uyghur".
The first period is a transitional phase characterized by the retention of archaic forms; the second phase starts with the publication of Ali-Shir Nava'i's first Divan and is the highpoint of Chagatai literature, followed by the third phase, which is characterized by two bifurcating developments. One is the preservation of the classical Chagatai language of Nava'i, the other trend is the increasing influence of the dialects of the local spoken languages.
Influence on later Turkic languages
and Uyghur are the two modern languages most closely related to Chagatai. Uzbeks regard Chagatai as the origin of their own language and claim Chagatai literature as their own. In 1921 in Uzbekistan, then a part of the Soviet Union, Chagatai was replaced by a literary language based on a local Uzbek dialect. The Berendei, a 12th-century nomadic Turkic people possibly related to the Cumans, seem also to have spoken Chagatai. Ethnologue records the use of the word "Chagatai" in Afghanistan to describe the "Tekke" dialect of Turkmen. Up to and including the eighteenth century, Chagatai was the main literary language in Turkmenistan as well as most of Central Asia. While it had some influence on Turkmen, the two languages belong to different branches of the Turkic language family.
Literature
15th and 16th centuries
The most famous of the Chagatai poets is Ali-Shir Nava'i, who – among his other works – wrote Muhakamat al-Lughatayn, a detailed comparison of the Chagatai and Persian languages, in which he argued for the superiority of the former for literary purposes. His fame is attested by the fact that Chagatai is sometimes called "Nava'i's language". Among prose works, Timur's biography is written in Chagatai, as is the famous Baburnama of Babur, the Timurid founder of the Mughal Empire. A attributed to Kamran Mirza is written in Persian and Chagatai, and one of Bairam Khan's was written in the Chagatai language.
17th and 18th centuries
Important writings in Chagatai from the period between the 17th and 18th centuries include those of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur: Shajarayi Tarakima and . In the second half of the 18th century, Turkmen poet Magtymguly Pyragy also introduced the use of the classical Chagatai into Turkmen literature as a literary language, incorporating many Turkmen linguistic features.
Ármin Vámbéry 1832–1913, Ćagataische Sprachstudien, enthaltend grammatikalischen Umriss, Chrestomathie, und Wörterbuch der ćagataischen Sprache;.
Sheykh Suleyman Efendi, Čagataj-Osmanisches Wörterbuch: Verkürzte und mit deutscher Übersetzung versehene Ausgabe.
Sheykh Süleymān Efendi, Lughat-ï chaghatay ve turkī-yi 'othmānī.
Mirza Muhammad Mehdi Khan Astarabadi, Mabaniul Lughat: Yani Sarf o Nahv e Lughat e Chughatai.
Abel Pavet de Courteille, Mirâdj-nâmeh : récit de l'ascension de Mahomet au ciel, composé a.h. 840, texte turk-oriental, publié pour la première fois d'après le manuscript ouïgour de laBibliothèque nationale et traduit en français, avec une préf. analytique et historique, des notes, et des extraits du Makhzeni Mir Haïder.
The Qing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on the major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki, such as the Pentaglot Dictionary.
Alphabet
The Chagatai alphabet is based on the Perso-Arabic alphabet and known as Kona Yëziq.
