Home to one of the world’s largest Uyghur diasporas, Central Asia has long been central to preserving Uyghur language and culture. In Tashkent, my field interviews in 2024 revealed a sharp decline in Uyghur cultural identity over the past five years. Across all interviews conducted in Uzbekistan, community members noted a drastic decline in Uyghur language use and preservation in the past year, particularly among Uyghur youth. Similar to Uzbekistan, Uyghur community members in Kazakhstan also described state-enforced methods of linguistic destruction and cultural eradication. While the Uyghur language is under increasing pressure in China, when it is used, it is written with the Arabic script.