Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Where did the Uyghur people originate?
Rian Thum explored the concepts of identity among the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs in Altishahr (the native Uyghur name for eastern Turkestan or southern Xinjiang) before the adoption of the name "Uyghur" in the 1930s, referring to them by the name "Altishahri" in his article "Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism". Thum indicated that Altishahri Turkis did have a sense that they were a distinctive group separate from the Turkic Andijanis to their west, the nomadic Turkic Kirghiz, the nomadic Mongol Qalmaq, and the Han Chinese Khitay before they became known as Uyghurs. There was no single name used by them to refer to themselves, the various native names Altishahris used to refer to themselves were Altishahrlik (Altishahr person), yerlik (local), Turki, and Musulmān (Muslim), the term Musulmān in this situation did not signify religious connotations, because the Altishahris would exclude other Muslim peoples like the Kirghiz when referring to themselves as Musulmān. Dr. Laura J Newby has also noted that the sedentary Altishahri Turkic people felt themselves as a separate group from other Turkic Muslims since at least the 19th century.
Muhajir culture () is the culture of Urdu speaking Muslims that migrated mainly from North India after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 generally to the Sindh province and mainly to the city of Karachi. They are also known as Urdu speakers, on account of Urdu being their native language, and have also been referred to as Hindustani Musalman ("Indian Muslims"). Many Muhajirs of Pakistan are closely related to the Muslims of Uttar Pradesh in India. The Muhajirs are concentrated in urban areas of Sindh.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) officially recognizes 56 distinct ethnic groups, the largest of which are Han, who constitute 91.51% of the total population in 2010. Ethnic minorities constitute 8.49% or 113.8 million of China's population in 2010. During the past decades ethnic minorities have experienced higher growth rates than the majority Han population, because they are not under the one-child policy. Their proportion of the population in China has grown from 6.1% in 1953, to 8.04% in 1990, 8.41% in 2000, and 8.49% in 2010. Large ethnic minorities (data according to the 2000 census) include the Zhuang (16 million, 1.28%), Manchu (10 million, 0.84%), Uyghur (9 million, 0.78%), Hui (9 million, 0.71%), Miao (8 million, 0.71%), Yi (7 million, 0.61%), Tujia (5.75 million, 0.63%), Mongols (5 million, 0.46%), Tibetan (5 million, 0.43%), Buyei (3 million, 0.23%), and Korean (2 million, 0.15%).
Although the Xiongnu finally had been split into two parts in AD 48, the Xianbei (or Hsien-pei in Wade–Giles) had moved (apparently from the east) into the region vacated by the Xiongnu. The Xianbei were the northern branch of the Donghu (or Tung Hu, the Eastern Hu), a proto-Mongol group mentioned in Chinese histories as existing as early as the 4th century BC. The language of the Donghu is believed to be proto-Mongolic to modern scholars. The Donghu were among the first peoples conquered by the Xiongnu. Once the Xiongnu state weakened, however, the Donghu rebelled. By the 1st century AD, two major subdivisions of the Donghu had developed: the proto-Mongolic Xianbei in the north and the Wuhuan in the south.
On the other hand, ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks have been immigrating in large numbers to Kazakhstan ever since the collapse of the USSR. These immigrants come not only from the southern Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but also from the Kazakh dominated areas in Xinjiang and Mongolia. The Kazakh government is actively encouraging the settlement of these compatriots (known as "Oralman") in Slavic dominated North and East Kazakhstan as well as the German dominated Karaganda Region, in order to dilute the minority populations there. There is also a low intensity immigration of ethnic Slavs from the less tolerant neighboring nations like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan into Kazakhstan. An estimated 400,000 Uzbeks have migrated to Kazakhstan in recent years
The Muhajir people (also spelled Mahajir and Mohajir) () are Muslim immigrants, of multi-ethnic origin, and their descendants, who migrated from various regions of India after the independence of Pakistan. Although many of them speak different languages at the native level, they are primarily identified as native Urdu speakers and hence are called Urdu-speaking people. The term Muhajirs generally refers to those Muslim migrants from India who settled in urban Sindh.
Historically, the population of Tibet consisted of primarily ethnic Tibetans. According to tradition the original ancestors of the Tibetan people, as represented by the six red bands in the Tibetan flag, are: the Se, Mu, Dong, Tong, Dru and Ra. Other traditional ethnic groups with significant population or with the majority of the ethnic group reside in Tibet include Bai people, Blang, Bonan, Dongxiang, Han, Hui people, Lhoba, Lisu people, Miao, Mongols, Monguor (Tu people), Menba (Monpa), Mosuo, Nakhi, Qiang, Nu people, Pumi, Salar, and Yi people.
Ulaan-Uul ( = "red mountain") is a sum of Khövsgöl aimag. The area is close to 10,000 km². In 2000, Ulaan-Uul had a population of 3,726 people, mainly Darkhad. The sum center, officially named "Tögöl" (), is located 171 km north-north-west of Mörön and 942 km from Ulaanbaatar.
The Xiongnu () were a confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Asian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Chinese sources report that Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire.
Ordos Mongolian (also "Urdus"; Mongolian ; Chinese 鄂尔多斯 "È'ěrduōsī") is a variety of Central Mongolic spoken in the Ordos City region in Inner Mongolia and historically by Ordos Mongols. It is alternatively classified as a language within the Mongolic language family or as a dialect of the Central Mongolian Mongolian standard language. Due to the research of Antoine Mostaert, the development of this dialect can be traced back 100 years.
Muhajirs are also called "Urdu Speaking people". Muhajirs are a collective multiethnic group, which emerged by the migration of Indian Muslims from various parts of India to Pakistan starting in 1947, as a result of world's largest mass migration. Majority of Muhajirs are settled in Sindh mainly in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur and Mirpur Khas. But there are other parts of Pakistan, including cities like Lahore, Multan, Islamabad, Peshawar where Muhajirs have sizable community.Muhajirs held a dominating position during the nation building early years of Pakistan. Most Muslim politicians of pre-independence era who supported the Pakistan movement were Urdu speakers.The term Muhajir is also used for descendants of Muslims who migrated to Pakistan after the 1947 partition of India.
The Tibetan people () are an ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6 million. In addition to living in Tibet, significant numbers of Tibetans live in other parts of China, as well as India, Nepal, and Bhutan.
There are over 400,000 Urdu-speakers in the UK, some of whom are Muhajirs. Muhajirs originally migrated from present-day India to Pakistan following the partition of British India in 1947. Most of them settled in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, where they form the demographic majority. Many Muhajir Pakistanis later migrated to Britain, effecting a secondary migration. Altaf Hussain, leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)—the largest political party in Karachi, with its roots lying in the Muhajir community—has been based in England in self-imposed exile since 1992. He is controversially regarded to have virtually "ruled" and "remotely governed" Karachi from his residence in the north London suburb of Edgware.
The status of certain varieties in the Mongolic group—whether they are languages distinct from Mongolian or just dialects of it—is disputed. There are at least three such varieties: Oirat (including the Kalmyk variety) and Buryat, both of which are spoken in Russia, Mongolia, and China; and Ordos, spoken around Inner Mongolia's Ordos City.
A process of indigenization has occurred, and the Pathan are now indistinguishable from neighboring Muslim communities. They now speak Hindustani as well as various dialects such as Khari boli. They are found throughout Uttar Pradesh, with settlements in Rampur, Farrukhabad, Hathras, Shahjahanpur, Malihabad, Mirzapur and Rohilkhand being the densest. A cluster of Pathan settlements are referred to as a basti. Some Khans came from Iran usually belongs to Moguls Dynasty, Ghaziuddin Khan and his family belongs to Majhpurwa district Kannauj The city's name is traditionally derived from the term Kanyakubja.
China's official 55 minorities are located primarily in the south, west, and north of China. Only Tibet Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have a majority population of official minorities, while all other provinces, municipalities and regions of China have a Han majority. In Beijing itself, the Han ethnic composition makes up nearly 96% of the total population, while the ethnic minority total is 4.31%, or a population of 584,692 (as of 2008).
Christophe Jaffrelot says that, as per the 1951 census, Muhajirs in the generic sense constituted 6.3 million souls, or one-fifth of the total population of 33.7 million, but the towering majority were from East Punjab, India, who migrated into West Punjab, Pakistan, not constituting a different community because of obvious ethnic similarities, and in fact not using the "Muhajir" tag anymore ; the Muhajirs in the more accepted formal sense, that is diverse set of communities from Hindu-majority provinces which eventually adopted Urdu and formed a socio-linugistic group of its own, were numbered at around 1.2 million, 1.1 million being from Uttar Pradesh, Bombay Presidency, Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat who went to West Pakistan, while 100 000 Biharis went to East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Muhajirs were the Urdu-speaking Muslims, who migrated to Pakistan when the country emerged independent from the British Raj in 1947. Karachi was then home to a very diverse set of ethnicities including Urdu and Gujarati speaking immigrants, Punjabis, Pashtuns, Baluch and foreigners from several South Asian countries. Muhajirs advanced in commerce and the bureaucracy, but many resented the quota system which facilitated Sindhis in gaining university slots and civil service jobs. It was this very ethnic rivalry that led to Muhajir political mobilization, which was further provoked by the stagnant economy and the condition of Biharis in Bangladesh concentration camps.
The Romani constitute the second largest minority group in the country. The Romani in Bulgaria are descendants of Romani nomadic migrants who came from India across the narrows of the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, in the late 13th century and following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and also during the five centuries of Ottoman occupation.
Other minority languages spoken are Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Tatar, Greek, Romanian, Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian.
Ulaanbaatar, formerly anglicised as Ulan Bator (, , literally "Red Hero"), is the capital and largest city of Mongolia. The city is not part of any aimag (province), and its population was over 1.3 million, almost half of the country's total population. Located in north central Mongolia, the municipality lies at an elevation of about in a valley on the Tuul River. It is the country's cultural, industrial and financial heart, the centre of Mongolia's road network and connected by rail to both the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia and the Chinese railway system.
The western two-thirds of the border are sparsely populated and traverse largely desert areas, in stark contrast to the western third which is densely populated, containing some of the largest towns in Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan. The eastern-most section is mountainous and contains a series of national parks (Sayram-Ugam National Park and Aksu-Zhabagly Nature Reserve in Kazakhstan and Ugam-Chatkal National Park in Uzbekistan. 
Uzbekistan’s Jizzakh to Sirdaryo railway crosses through Kazakhstan briefly, a legacy of the Soviet era where infrastructure was built without regard to what were then internal boundaries.
Throughout its history, the term "Uyghur" has taken on an increasingly expansive definition. Initially signifying only a small coalition of Tiele tribes in Northern China, Mongolia, and the Altai Mountains, it later denoted citizenship in the Uyghur Khaganate. Finally, it was expanded into an ethnicity whose ancestry originates with the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 842, which caused Uyghur migration from Mongolia into the Tarim Basin. This migration assimilated and replaced the Indo-European speakers of the region to create a distinct identity as the language and culture of the Turkic migrants eventually supplanted the original Indo-European influences. This fluid definition of "Uyghur" and the diverse ancestry of modern Uyghurs create confusion about what constitutes true Uyghur ethnography and ethnogenesis.
Discovery of well-preserved Tarim mummies of a people European in appearance indicates the migration of an Indo-European people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the Bronze age around 1800 BCE. These people probably spoke Tocharian languages and were suggested by some to be the Yuezhi mentioned in ancient Chinese texts. However, Uyghur activists claimed these mummies to be of Uyghur origin, based partly on a word, which they argued to be Uyghur, found in written scripts associated with these mummies, although other linguists suggest it to be a Sogdian word later absorbed into Uyghur. Later migrations brought peoples from the west and north-west to the Xinjiang region, probably speakers of various Iranian languages such as the Saka tribes. Other people in the region mentioned in ancient Chinese texts include the Dingling as well as the Xiongnu who fought for supremacy in the region against the Chinese for several hundred years. Some Uyghur nationalists also claimed descent from the Xiongnu (according to the Chinese historical text the "Book of Wei", the founder of the Uyghurs was descended from a Xiongnu ruler), but the view is contested by modern Chinese scholars.
Some Uyghur nationalist claimed that they were descended from the Tocharians. Discovered well-preserved Tarim mummies of a people European in appearance indicates the migration of an Indo-European people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the Bronze age around 2,000 BCE. These people probably spoke Tocharian, and were suggested by some to be the Yuezhi mentioned in ancient Chinese text and who later founded the Kushan Empire. The Uyghur claim is based partly on a word, which they argued to be Uyghur, found in written scripts associated with these mummies, although other linguists suggested that it was a Sogdian word later absorbed into Uyghur. Later migrations brought peoples from the west and northwest to the Xinjiang area, probably speakers of various Iranian languages such as the Saka tribes. Other ancient people in the region mentioned in ancient Chinese texts include the Xiongnu who fought for supremacy in the region against the Chinese for several hundred years. Some Uyghur nationalists claimed descent from the Xiongnu (as well as being related to the White Huns), however this view is contested by modern Chinese scholars. This Xiongnu claim originated from various Chinese historical texts; for example, according to Chinese history "Weishu", the founder of the Uyghurs was descended from a Xiongnu ruler.
Uyghur independence activists express concern over the Han population changing the Uyghur character of the region, yet the historical native land of the Uyghurs is not the whole land of Xinjiang, but Tarim basin. Professor James A. Millward pointed out that the capital of Xinjiang Urumqi was even originally a Han and Hui (Tungan) city with few Uyghur people before recent Uyghur migration to the city, but foreigners mistakenly think that Urumqi was originally a Uyghur city and that the Chinese destroyed its Uyghur character and culture. Moreover, the Han and Hui mostly live in northern Xinjiang Dzungaria, and are separated from areas of historical Uyghur dominance south of the Tian Shan mountains (southwestern Xinjiang), where Uyghurs account for about 90% of the population. While a few people try to give a misportrayal of the historical Qing situation in light of the contemporary situation in Xinjiang with Han migration, and claim that the Qing settlements and state farms were an anti-Uyghur plot to replace them in their land, Professor James A. Millward pointed out that the Qing agricultural colonies in reality had nothing to do with Uyghur and their land, since the Qing banned settlement of Han in the Uyghur Tarim Basin and in fact directed the Han settlers instead to settle in the non-Uyghur Dzungaria and the new city of Urumqi, so that the state farms which were settled with 155,000 Han Chinese from 1760–1830 were all in Dzungaria and Urumqi, where there was only an insignificant amount of Uyghurs, instead of the Tarim Basin oases.