Editor's note: Luke Johnston, a special commentator for CGTN, is a PhD Candidate at Shanghai Jiao Tong University majoring in Statistics, currently residing in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

After a classic by Sanubar Tursun, "Köngülgä Näsihet," a singer in my favorite Uygur bar pauses and grins at me. "Siz qayerdin kelgansiz?" Ah, a foreigner? Where are you from? It feels like a hundred faces all tilt my way. Although I'm from the UK, I do understand and reply in Uygur, clumsily but loud enough, and the room breaks into laughter and cheers. Later someone buys me a drink and we become great friends. Nights like this are why I keep studying it; the people are so welcoming. They are also why I smile when people abroad ask if the Uygur language is banned. Spend a day in Urumqi and the language simply finds you.

I actually first came to Xinjiang in 2021 (yep, back in the pandemic). I fell in love with the place, and due to the sheer size of Xinjiang, I kept returning each year until I made the decision to finally live here in January 2025. I am a British student at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, specializing in artificial intelligence. I've now submitted my thesis, and as I wait for the results, which takes a long time, I thought I'd move to the place I love most in China. Here I am in Xinjiang, where I teach A-level statistics and IELTS at an international school. My students write personal statements for universities in Canada, the UK and Australia. That detail tends to jar with some of the stories told about this place. Aren't Uygur supposed to be unable to go abroad? Hmm, obviously not.

Some people might be suspicious about why I moved here, but I genuinely love the Uygur culture. I'm a huge fan of Uygur music, performances like the Mukam, and the beautiful clothing they wear too, of which I've bought a lot! To fully understand the culture, I embarked on the mission of learning their language, a tough ask as hardly any foreigners ever learn it! I have a weekly lesson with a Uygur student who teaches me how to speak, and then I also attend a group class that anyone can join to improve my reading and grammar. There are about 15 of us and it costs around 250 Chinese yuan per hour, which is a little pricey, but worth it!

My students have also become tutors without meaning to. One afternoon a student handed me his old "Elipba" book – the Uygur "alphabet" book – that he used a few years back in his school. After class, they chatted with me in my office, and showed me how to write my name and then simple words I can use in daily life. I can read a little now, not very well. I often just lean on Latin transliteration. Speaking is easier. The greeting I hear most is a warm "Essalamu aleykum," a greeting amongst Muslims, which some of my students often say to me.

The city invites you to use what you learn. As soon as someone knows I'm a foreigner speaking Uygur, they treat me so well that I've had free taxi rides after speaking to the driver about why I moved here in Uygur, and I've had free dinners and drinks from people in restaurants. The fact is, the language is absolutely everywhere in the city, in shops, markets, cafes, streets and so on. Compare it to dying languages in the UK such as Welsh or Manx, which are forced on in classrooms and hardly used in daily life, so nobody has the motivation to learn. But in Xinjiang, because it's so much part of everyday life, everyone wants to learn. In fact, I once interviewed a police officer in one of my YouTube videos asking about a Uygur festival. Did I get arrested? No!

At home I learn by listening. I bought an IPTV box in Xinjiang and it is packed with Uygur language content. News bulletins help with formal vocabulary, dramas tune your ear to rhythm, and dubbed films turn familiar plots into listening practice. There is a comedy sketch I have watched too many times called "Anar Pishti." It would be a little odd for a government trying to ban a language to allow these films and news programs to be all broadcast on TV! But how about books? Well, Xinjiang is full of bookstores with Uygur books. Probably the biggest one is Xinhua Bookstore, which has novels, children's books, textbooks and even recipes all in Uygur!

Xinjiang's best university, Xinjiang University, even runs a Uygur language and literature program for students wanting to master their mother tongue. In Beijing, Minzu University of China offers a program that also includes a Uygur track. I do not study there, although I know people who have and they know so much about their own language, and know it far better than Mandarin. It matters that young people can specialize in the language at university level. A language thrives in markets and family rooms, and it also needs classrooms and archives, places where forms are taught, history is kept, and new research sets new questions.

So, the question that follows me is always the same. If Uygur is so present, why do some people abroad insist it is disappearing? Part of the confusion comes from mixing two different things. One is the language of daily life, the soundscape of streets and cafés and buses. The other is the language used as a medium of instruction in schools, where Mandarin is prioritized in many places. I am not a policy expert and I will not pretend to know the variations across a vast region over many years. I can describe what I see and hear in the city where I live. I hear Uygur. I use it. People answer me in it, and help me when I have difficulties.

I've filmed so much of my experiences in Xinjiang, where I interview and chat to all sorts of Uygurs, from young to old, to get a better idea of how the language is and learn from them what their culture is like. You could listen to Western media, but have they spoken to Uygurs in Xinjiang in their mother tongue? No, but I have!

This is not a postcard and it is not a manifesto. I've traveled all around Xinjiang, a region seven times larger than the UK, which has provided me with a strong idea about how life truly is like here. I can't claim I know everything about this region, and I won't counter every single claim that I don't know about, but one thing I'll die on a hill for is the language is certainly not banned, something I have verified firsthand.

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