Uyghurs
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.
History of the Uyghur people
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.