Qanat: Uyghur Subtitles

About

Qanat brings Uyghur subtitles to YouTube, automatically translating captions so Uyghur speakers can watch any video in their language.


WHAT IT DOES

YouTube hosts an enormous amount of content — tutorials, documentaries, news, lectures, entertainment — but almost none of it is subtitled in Uyghur. Qanat bridges that gap. When you open any YouTube video that has captions (including auto-generated ones), Qanat silently intercepts the caption track, translates it to Uyghur using Google Translate, and displays the result as a native-style subtitle overlay on the video — synchronized to the exact moment each line is spoken.

The subtitles appear automatically. There are no buttons to click, no copy-pasting, no waiting for a page to reload. You just watch.


HOW IT WORKS

Qanat runs entirely inside your browser. When a video loads, it detects whether captions are available. If they are, it fetches the caption track, parses the timestamps, and begins translating each line progressively in the background — starting from the beginning so that by the time you reach any given moment, the translation is ready and waiting.

The subtitle overlay is synchronized to the video's playback position in real time, so captions appear and disappear at exactly the right moments, just like native YouTube subtitles.


WHO IT'S FOR

Qanat was built for the Uyghur-speaking community — people who are most comfortable reading in Uyghur, whether living in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Turkey, Europe, the United States, Australia, or anywhere in the Uyghur diaspora. It is also useful for anyone learning Uyghur who wants to use YouTube content as a study resource.


FEATURES

- Automatic subtitle detection, no manual setup required
- Real-time progressive translation, subtitles are ready as you watch
- Native-style overlay, right-to-left, in the correct Uyghur script
- Supports both manual captions and YouTube's auto-generated captions
- Font size scales automatically with the video player, including full screen
- Subtitles shift with YouTube's control bar, matching native caption behavior
- Works across YouTube's single-page navigation, updates automatically between videos
- Ad-aware, does not display subtitles during ads and resumes correctly after
- Toggle on and off instantly from the extension popup without reloading the page


PRIVACY

Qanat does not collect, store, or transmit any personal data. It does not track what you watch, log your activity, or communicate with any server other than Google Translate.

The only network request Qanat makes beyond normal YouTube browsing is sending caption text to Google Translate to produce the Uyghur translation. No account is required and no data is retained.


TECHNICAL NOTES

Qanat works by intercepting YouTube's caption requests at the browser level, which means it does not depend on any YouTube UI element staying consistent over time.

Translation quality varies by source language. For major languages such as English, Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, and Russian, results are generally good. Videos with no captions at all cannot be translated, as there is no source text to work from.


ABOUT THE NAME

A qanat is an ancient underground aqueduct system used for centuries across Central Asia and the Middle East to carry water from highland sources to communities in arid lowland areas. The name felt fitting: Qanat the extension carries meaning — knowledge, entertainment, culture — from the vast world of online video to Uyghur-speaking communities that have historically been underserved by language technology.