The Khitan language is a now-extinct language once spoken by the Khitan people. There were two writing systems for the Khitan language, known as the large script and the small script; they were functionally independent. The former was derived from Chinese (Han characters), and the latter was apparently inspired by the Uighur alphabet. Both scripts are currently undeciphered. The Khitan, in Chinese Qidan (契丹 Pinyin: Qìdān), were an ethnic group which dominated much of Manchuria and was classified in Chinese history as one of the Tungus ethnic groups (東胡族 dōng hú zú). ... 漢字 in Traditional Chinese and other languages. ... Uyghurs (also called Uighurs, Uygurs, or Uigurs) (Chinese: 維吾爾 or 维吾尔 in pinyin: wéiwúěr) are a Turkic ethnic group of people living in northwestern China (mainly in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they are the dominant ethnic group together with Han people), Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. ...

Both of the scripts remain to be connected to the Khitan spoken language. Although there are several clues to its origins, which might point to different origins, the Khitan language is most probably Mongolic, and its agglutinizing nature is not particularly suited to purely monosyllabic logographs. The small script had logographs as well as characters which were completely phonemic. The Jurchen (ancestors of the Manchu people) derived their large script in part from Khitan. The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia. ... An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. ... A Chinese logogram, which is also an ideogram. ... The Jurchens (Chinese: 女真, pinyin: nǚzhēn) were a Tungusic people who inhabited parts of Manchuria and northern Korea until the seventeenth century, when they became the Manchus. ... The Manchu (manju in Manchu; 滿族 (pinyin: mǎnzú) in Chinese, often shortened to 滿 (pinyin: mǎn) are an ethnic group who originated in Manchuria. ...

See also

• Khitan