Dungan language
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The Dungan language (Russian: Дунганский Язык, Simplified Chinese: }}}; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Dungan or (Hui) of Central Asia.
Demographics
Dungan is spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan, with speakers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia as well. The Dungan ethnic group are the descendants of refugees from China who migrated west into Central Asia. It is used in the school system. The first Dungan-language newspaper was established in 1932; it continues publication today in weekly form.Soviet census statistics from 1970 to 1989 reported that the Dungan maintained the use of their ethnic language much more successfully than other minority nationalities in Central Asia; however, in the post-Soviet period, the proportion of Dungans speaking the Dungan language as their mother tongue appears to have fallen sharply. It is unclear whether the precipitous drop in the number of speakers tabulated reflects an actual trend, manipulation of earlier data by Soviet officials, errors in the non-governmental surveys from which more recent numbers are derived, or an increase in the number of ethnic Dungan non-Dungan speakers identifying as Dungan.
| Year | Dungan L1 | Russian L2 | Total Dungan population | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 36,445 (94.3%) | 18,566 (48.0%) | 38,644 | [Soviet census] |
| 1979 | 49,020 (94.8%) | 32,429 (62.7%) | 51,694 | [Soviet census] |
| 1989 | 65,698 (94.8%) | 49,075 (70.8%) | 69,323 | [Soviet census] |
| 2001 | 41,400 (41.4%) | N/A | 100,000 | [Ethnologue] |
Phonology and vocabulary
In basic structure and vocabulary, the Dungan language is not very different from Mandarin Chinese, specifically the dialects of Mandarin spoken in the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu. Like other Chinese languages, Dungan is tonal. There are two main dialects, one with 4 tones, and the other, considered standard, with only 3 tones.
The basilects of Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin and Dungan are largely intercomprehensible; Chinese journalists conversant in one of those Mandarin dialects report that they can make themselves understood when communicating with Dungan speakers. However, even at the level of basic vocabulary, Dungan contains many words not present in modern Mandarin dialects, such as Arabic and Persian loanwords, as well as archaic Qing dynasty-era Chinese vocabulary.[link]. Furthermore, the acrolects of Dungan and Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin have diverged significantly due to time and environmental influence. During the 20th century, translators and intellectuals introduced many neologisms and calques into the Chinese language, especially for political and technical concepts. However, the Dungan, cut off from the mainstream of Chinese discourse by orthographic barriers, instead borrowed words for those same concepts from Russian, with which they came into contact through government and higher education. As result of these borrowings, the equivalent standard Chinese terms are not widely known or understood among the Dungan.[link]
Writing System
| А/а | Б/б | В/в | Г/г | Д/д | Е/е | Ё/ё | Ж/ж | Җ/җ | З/з | И/и | Й/й | К/к | Л/л |
| М/м | Н/н | Ң/ң | Ә/ә | О/о | П/п | Р/р | С/с | Т/т | У/у | Ў/ў | Ү/ү | Ф/ф | Х/х |
| Ц/ц | Ч/ч | Ш/ш | Щ/щ | Ъ/ъ | Ы/ы | Ь/ь | Э/э | Ю/ю | Я/я |
Dungan is unique in that it is the only variety of the Chinese language which is not normally written using Chinese characters. Originally the Dungan, who were Muslim descendants of the Hui, wrote their language in an Arabic-based system known as Xiao-Er-Jin. The Soviet Union banned all Arabic scripts in the late 1920s, which led to a Latin orthography. The Latin orthography lasted until 1940, when the Soviet government promulgated the current Cyrillic-based system. Xiao-Er-Jin is now virtually extinct in Dungan society, but it remains in limited use by some Hui communities in China.
The writing system is based on the standard 3-tone dialect. Tones marks or numbering do not appear in general-purpose writing, but are specified in dictionaries, even for loanwords.
See also
External links
- [Ethnologue entry]
- ["Implications of the Soviet Dungan Script for Chinese Language Reform"]: long essay on Dungan, with sample texts
- [Omniglot entry]
- [The Shaanxi Village in Kazakhstan]
- [Soviet census data for mother tongue and second language, in English]
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| Categories: |
Gan | Hakka | Hui | Jin | Mandarin | Min | Ping | Xiang | Wu | Cantonese Danzhouhua | Shaozhou Tuhua | |||
| Subcategories of Min: | Min Bei | Min Dong | Min Nan | Min Zhong | Puxian | Qiongwen | Shaojiang | |||
| Subcategories of Mandarin: | Northeastern | Beijing | Ji-Lu | Jiao-Liao | Zhongyuan | Lan-Yin | Southwestern | Jianghuai | Dungan | |||
| Note: The above is only one classification scheme among many. The categories in italics are not universally acknowledged to be independent categories. | ||||
| Comprehensive list of Chinese dialects | ||||
| Official spoken varieties: | Standard Mandarin | Standard Cantonese | |||
| Historical phonology: | Old Chinese | Middle Chinese | Proto-Min | Proto-Mandarin | Haner | |||
| Chinese: written varieties | ||||
| Official written varieties: | Classical Chinese | Vernacular Chinese | |||
| Other varieties: | Written Vernacular Cantonese | |||
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