User:Saraphina9666/Dungan language

The Dungan people are a Muslim ethnic minority group primarily in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan who are related to the Ethic group, Hui people in China. They are the descendants of refugees from China, who migrated west, who, because of their unique ethnic background, developed a language based on a Mandarin-based dialect that is infused with specific words from the Persian, Turkic, and Arabic dialects. The Dungan language has flourished, “Despite the fact that the two languages belong to different language families, Chinese belonging to the Sino- Tibetan language family and Persian to the Indo- European, there is a significant percentage of Persian loan words found in the vocabulary of Chinese Muslims, many of them descendants of Persian traders travelling the Silk Road who settled in China and married Chinese women.”[1]

The Dungan language, now considered an endangered language, is written in Cyrillic. Dungan is a tonal language with influences of Russian, Chinese and Turkish languages. It is one of the few variations of Chinese that is not normally written using traditional Chinese characters and the Hui people wrote their language in an Arabic-based alphabet, Xiao'erjing. In the Soviet Union, the standard Dungan language, as we know it today, was evolved mostly in the Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan regions. It was based on a dialect of the Gansu Province, rather than Standard Chinese. "Speakers of Dungan fled from Manchu and Chinese persecution over a hundred years ago after an abortive rebellion." Ager, Simon. "Omniglot - writing systems and languages of the world". 17^th February 2021. [https://omniglot.com/chinese/dungan.htm.

The Dungan language is a Sinitic language of the Sino-Tibetan family. Spoken in the countries of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.” There are 90,000 native speakers. They also speak Mandarin, Russian and Arabic. It is currently endangered. "The native name for the language is Хуэйзў йүян, which translates into 'language of the Hui'. In Chinese language, it is known as 东干语 (dōnggānyǔ)" . Dungan is a tonal language and was originally written in the Arabic alphabet. "Following the Hui migration into what would become the Soviet Union, the language also became fell under the influence of Russian speaking people, along with neighboring Turkic languages and it began to be written with the Cyrillic Alphabet. During the Soviet era, Russian technical vocabulary began to enter Dungan which made it a more unique form of Mandarin." "The term "Dungan" was first used in the late 18th century. Between 1755 and 1759, after suppressing a rebellion of local tribes, the Qing government moved floods of Hui people from Shaanxi and Gansu into Xinjiang to open up the frontier areas on a vast scale."

‘The language was used in the schools in Dungan villages. In the Soviet time there were several school textbooks published for studying the Dungan language, a three volume Russian–Dungan dictionary (14,000 words), the Dungan–Russian dictionary, linguistics monographs on the language and books in Dungan. The first Dungan-language newspaper was established in 1932; it continues publication today in weekly form.” Wiki’

“When Dru C. Gladney, a professor of anthropology, who had spent some years working with the Hui people in China, met with Dungans in Almaty in 1988, he described the experience as speaking "in a hybrid Gansu dialect that combined Turkish and Russian lexical items".^{” wiki}

History

“Dungans mother tongue is based on the Shaanxi and Gansu dialects found in north-western China, but has been influenced by Turkic, Persian, Arab and Russian over the last 200 years.” Fougner, K. 18. “These small ethnic groups reside in post-soviet states- Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for around 150 years.” But many argue when the big migration from China started (after the revolt against the Qing Empire) and another migration to Russia.

Linguistic properties

Dungan is influenced by the many languages that are used throughout the region. “Their mother tongue is based on the Shaanxi and Gansu dialects found in north-western China”(Fougner, K. 18)

However, the core structure of the Dungan language is not too different from Mandarin Chinese and Zhongyuan Mandarin. The Dungan language has one classifier from the Chinese languages that it is partly based on. Its linguistic properties consist of two main dialects. Since Dungan is a tonal language, the standard Dungan has three tones and the other has four tones. Old Dungan spelling consists of Hanyu Pinin, the romanization for Mandarin Chinese. Dungan also has rhotacized vowels and syllables seen in Russian, Arabic, Kyrgyz, etc. Basilects of Dungan and other languages like Gansu Manrin are “mutually intelligible” but “Dungan has words that are not present in modern mandarin dialects like Arabic and Persian loanwords and vocabulary from the Qing dynasty-era.” ( 2021) And that’s because of Mandarin has changed over a long period of time, while Dungan has kept their vocabulary. However, Dungan also borrowed words for the same concepts from Russian which went into the communities’ higher education and authority. As such, some Chinese terms are not understood in Dungan. Modern Dungan is the only form of Chinese that is Cyrilllic. Initially, Dungan was written in an Arabic-based writing system, known as “Xiao’erjing”. “Asia initially also adopted the system of transliterating Chinese characters into Arabic script called xiaojing, using the northwestern dialect of China. To some degree this xiaojing contributes to the formation of the Dungan language, since the initial Dungan language adopted the Arabic letters. ”(Hong, 2005)

Additionally, the Russian government and language has also shaped Dungan. “the Soviet Union banned all Arabic scripts in the late 1920s which then lead to latin orthograpghy based on Janalif, which lasted until 1940, when the Soviet government promulgated the current Cyrillic system.  Xiao'erjing is now virtually extinct in Dungan society, but it remains in limited use by some Hui communities in China.” ( 2021)

Origin of its name

Despite the many different theories, it is generally accepted that the origin of “The name Dungan is of obscure origin. One popular theory derives this word from Turkic döñän ("one who turns"), which can be compared to Chinese 回 (huí), which has a similar meaning. Another theory derives it from the Chinese 东甘 (Dong Gan), 'Eastern Gansu', the region to which many of the Dungan can trace their ancestry; however the character gan (干) used in the name of the ethnic group is different from that used in the name of the province (甘).” wiki

The name “Dungan” is rarely used by its people or ancestors. They are most known for being the Hui people descendants.

Culture

Dungan is heavily influenced by many other cultures and languages because of migration. They developed a separate ethnicity outside of China.  “For historical reasons, the Dungan people may have broken off contacts with China. With a small population of a little over 110,000, they have scattered across the three countries in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It is their ethnic identity that unites Dungan people into an ethnic entity with a well-developed economy and culture. In this sense, the ethnic identity serves not only as the coherent power for the existence of the Dungan ethnicity but also as the impetus for their development to keep abreast with other ethnic groups.” (Hong, 2005) The Dungan people live in a Muslim community compared to the rest of China, which is not a Muslim society. It should be noted that the Dungan people differentiate themselves from Chinese Hui people by their religion, rather than their language. They both share Han culture. Dungan people have inherited Han elements into their lives, as traditional cultural heritage, like the dragon symbol shown in ancient mosques, which distinguish them from other Muslim groups. Some Chinese folklore were borrowed by the Dungan people. Since Dungan people are nomadic, it makes it harder to build mosques. “Sometimes, when people come back late after a day of herding, they perform rituals facing west on the grasslands. It is with simple and appropriate forms of this kind that the herdsmen incorporate Islamic culture into the domain of their daily life.” Also depending on their living conditions. “Perrovarsk Mosque, built in 1910 and preserved to the present, has been hailed as a miracle in the history of Dungan architecture and is even highly valued by other Central Asians. At present, it is under the protection of the Kyrgyzstan government as an important culture relic.” (Hong, 2005) Sometimes they were discriminated against in public school for their faith in Islam. So, they went migrated west to Central Asia. When settling, they had to learn find a language to communicate with the locals. Russian was the next option. The dungans had learned Arabic alphabets through Islamic education and developed a new writing system which uses Arabic and Persian letters (xiaojing). Children would interpret Arabic scrip into Chinese but also include Arabic and Persian vocabulary. The compilation of languages was called the “Maddras” language. And it worked but was damaging between other ethnic Chinese groups. At this point, they had made improvements. By the twentieth century, they were forming a new style of communication. But they lived among Turkish people while Russian groups were in the region and was considered a global language. The dungans first fled from Qing China to Tsar Russia and bult a unity from the outside. They were given nationality after the revolution by the soviet empire. They have a unique ethnicity that differs from their ancestors.

Clothing

Not only did the Dungans had to be involved with many languages such as Russian, Arabic and Persian, and mastered Chinese, they also had to coexist with these communities for survival. Some traditional clothing that the Dungans wear are also influenced by Chinese and Turkish styles, like the Tunisian Daban and colorful robes and scarves. They prefer to not their adaptation but rather their own ethnic and unique features. Their traditional clothing is different from the Chinese Huis. Chinese elements make them stick out with other Islamic groups. Some things like architectural styles have been preserved. The Dungan people have a much shorter history than the Hui, whose culture is a combination of Islamic and Chinese traditional cultures. The Dungan have absorbed Hui morality, value systems, costumes and living style. They have also absorbed elements from other Central Asian and Russian cultures and also developed their own modern culture. The Dungan culture is clearly an example showing that different socio-economic environments can produce different ethnic cultures.” (Hong, 2005)

Barriers

When new nations were formed in the three states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, the national boarders became “increasingly different for Dungans to visit friends and relatives living on the other side of the boarder.” Fougner, K 29. This became a problem for the Dungan population because of the Uzbek-Kazakh boarders. These populations needed visas to visit the new nations. “The Dungans do not regard themselves in any respect as Chinese” Dyer, Rimsky-Korsakoff, 350.

Present

“Dungan is an `inside language. It is only spoken within own ethic community. When the Dungans are communicating with someone of an ethnicity other than own: Russian, Kyrgyz, Kazak, Uzbek, Russian usually function as a lingua franca.” Fougner, K. 30. Many of these ethic groups are bilingual or multilingual. When arriving to Russia, The Dungan people preserved their language and culture by staying with their people and practicing agriculture.

When these groups settled on the new land, it became too much for one place to hold. Kyrgyzstan was unable to accommodate mass migrations due to population explosion, economic change, and unemployment. Eventually, this led to modernization as well as to bilingualism. Since a lot of change happened, the Russian language (the lingua franca for these countries) was chosen in favor over Dungan. Schools were taught in Russian and government documents were all in Russian. Thus, the Dungan society was changed. The Dungan populations have multiplied since migrating to Russia, however, the use of the Dungan language was decreased in these areas. This is not the case in the countryside though, since the Dungan people have found a place fwhere they can use their native tongue regularly.

Dungan women in traditional clothing.

yi jin men jiu jiang Donggan hua

“Once you enter your home you speak Dungan” Fougner, K. 32.

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[1] (Fougner)