Dungan

Encyclopedia : D : DU : DUN : Dungan

Dungan (}; }; Дунгане) is a term used in territories of the former Soviet Union to refer to a Muslim people of Chinese origin. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, Dungans call themselves Hui. In the censuses of Russia and the former Soviet Central Asia, the Hui are enumerated separately from Chinese, and are labelled as Dungans. In the former Soviet Union, Dungans are found especially in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia (mostly in Tatarstan).

Contents

1 History
2 Language
3 Culture
4 Religion
5 See also
6 External links

History

The Dungan are thought to be Hui who fled China during the Hui Minorities' War in the 19th century. The name Dungan is of obscure origin, but is probably from Turkic döñän ("one who turns") or the Chinese term for "eastern Gansu", a province of China to which many of the Dungan can trace their ancestry. The Hui people, distributed across much of western and central China, are also referred to as "Dungans" by Turkic and Tajik peoples.

Language

Main article: Dungan language

The Dungan language is closely related to the Shaanxi dialect of Mandarin Chinese, but uses the Cyrillic script and has only three tones instead of four. Dungan also contains many loanwords from Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.

Unlike other minority nationalities in Central Asia, such as the Koreans, nearly all of the Dungan report that they continue to use their ethnic language as their mother tongue. More than two-thirds of the Dungan also speak Russian, and a small proportion can speak Kyrgyz or other languages belonging to the titular nationalities of the countries where they live. [link]

Culture

The Dungan are primarily farmers, growing rice and vegetables such as sugar beets. Many also raise dairy cattle. In addition, some are involved in opium production. The Dungan tend to be endogamous.

The Dungan are famous for their hospitality and hold many ceremonies and banquets to preserve their culture. They have elaborate and colorful observances of birthdays, weddings, and funerals. In addition, schools have museums to preserve other parts of their culture, such as embroidery, traditional clothing, silver jewelry, paper cuts of animals and flowers and tools.

Religion

The large majority of Dungan are Hanafi Muslim. Many Dungan villages contain a mosque run by village elders.

External links