Social:Dungan language

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Short description: Sinitic language spoken in Central Asia
Not to be confused with Tongan language.
Dungan
Хуэйзў йүян 回族語言 خُوِزُو یُوِیًا
Books in Dungan or about Dungan (in Russian or English). Most of them were published in Frunze, Kirghiz SSR in the 1970s and 80s
Pronunciationcmn
Native toCentral Asia
RegionChu Valley (Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan), Altai Krai, Saratov Oblast (Rovensky District) (Russia), Fergana Valley (Uzbekistan)
EthnicityDungan
Native speakers
145,000 (2009–2021)e27
Sino-Tibetan
Cyrillic (official)
Chinese characters (obsolete)
Xiao'erjing (obsolete)
Latin (historical)
Language codes
ISO 639-3dng
Glottologdung1253[1]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.
Dungan language
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Dungan (/ˈdʊŋ.ɡɑːn/ or /ˈdʌŋ.ɡən/) is a Sinitic language[2] spoken primarily in the Chu Valley of southeastern Kazakhstan and northern Kyrgyzstan. It is the native language of the Dungan people, a Hui subgroup that fled Qing China in the 19th century. It evolved from the Central Plains Mandarin varieties spoken in Gansu and Shaanxi. It is the only Sino-Tibetan language to be officially written in the Cyrillic script. In addition, the Dungan language contains loanwords and archaisms not found in other modern varieties of Mandarin.

History

The Dungan people of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (with smaller groups living in other post-Soviet states) are the descendants of several groups of the Hui people that migrated to the region in the 1870s and the 1880s after the defeat of the Dungan revolt in Northwestern China. The Hui of Northwestern China (often referred to as "Dungans" or "Tungani" by 19th-century western writers, as well as by some Turkic peoples) would normally speak the same Mandarin dialect as the Han people in the same area[3] (or in the area from which the particular Hui community had been resettled). At the same time, due to their unique history, their speech would be rich in Islamic or Islam-influenced terminology, based on loanwords from Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages, as well as translations of them into Chinese.[3] The Hui traders in the bazaars would be able to use Arabic or Persian numbers when talking between themselves, to keep their communications secret from Han bystanders.[4] While not constituting a separate language, these words, phrases and turns of speech, known as Huihui hua (回回話, "Hui speech"), served as markers of group identity.[3] As early 20th century travellers in Northwestern China would note, "the Mohammedan Chinese have to some extent a vocabulary and always a style and manner of speech, all their own".[5]

As the Dungans in the Russian Empire — and even more so in the Soviet Union — were isolated from China, their language experienced significant influence from the Russian and the Turkic languages of their neighbors.

After the foundation of the Soviet Union, researchers established a literary (standard) form of Dungan.[6] Intelligentsia have published school textbooks, a three volume Russian–Dungan dictionary (14,000 words), a Dungan–Russian dictionary, linguistic monographs on the language, collections of folk tales, original and translated fiction, and poetry. Usual print runs were no more than a few hundred copies. Yakub Dzhon wrote the first language primer in 1929.[7][8] The first Dungan-language newspaper, Huimin bao, was established in 1932; it continues publication today in weekly form. By the count of the chief librarian of the National Library of Russia's bibliography, nearly 400 Dungan books have been published.[8]

Dungan's first alphabet was Latinized. Publications began in 1929, ceased shortly before WWII, and continued in 1955 after the development of a new Cyrillized alphabet.[8]

Many literary works of Dungan poet Iasyr Shivaza have been translated into Russian, Standard Chinese and a number of other languages, with print runs in some of them been much higher than in the original Dungan. English translations of some of them, along with the original Dungan text, are available in (Rimsky-Korsakoff Dyer 1991).

Dungan-language television programs and radio broadcasts appeared in the 90s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and weakening of the Russian language's status;[9] however, by one 2012 report, these were terminated and moribund, respectively.[10]

Geographical distribution

Dungan is spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan, with speakers in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as well.

According to the Soviet census statistics from 1970 to 1989, the Dungan maintained the use of their ethnic language much more successfully than other minority ethnic groups in Central Asia; however, in the post-Soviet period, the proportion of Dungans speaking the Dungan language as their native language appears to have fallen sharply.

Dungan speakers by population
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

Dialects

Dungan is composed of two dialects. The Gansu dialect, or "Bishkek group", is concentrated in Kyrgyzstan. The Shaanxi dialect, or "Tokmak group", is concentrated in Kazakhstan.[11][6] There are minor differences in vocabulary and phonology. For example, the Gansu first-person pronoun is вә, while the Shaanxi first-person pronoun is ңә.[11][12]

Standard Dungan is based largely on the Gansu dialect.[11][6]

The Dungan of Osh have lost most of their language.[11]

Phonology

In basic structure and vocabulary, the Dungan language is not very different from Mandarin Chinese, specifically a variety of Zhongyuan Mandarin (not Lan-Yin Mandarin) spoken in the southern part of the province of Gansu and the western part of the valley of Guanzhong in the province of Shaanxi. Like other Chinese varieties, Dungan is tonal. There are two main dialects, one with 4 tones and the other, considered standard, with 3 tones in the final position in phonetic words and 4 tones in the nonfinal position.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Dungan
Labial Alveolar Retroflex (Alveolo-)
palatal 		Velar
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop voiceless p t k
aspirated pʰ tʰ kʰ
Affricate voiceless t͡s ʈ͡ʂ t͡ɕ
aspirated (p̪͡fʰ)[13] t͡sʰ ʈ͡ʂʰ t͡ɕʰ
Fricative voiceless f s ʂ ɕ x
voiced v ʐ ʝ
Approximant l ɻ
Consonant table with orthography
Unaspirated Aspirated Nasal Fricative Voiced
Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA
б [p] п [pʰ] м [m] ф [f] в [v], [w]
д [t] т [tʰ] н [n] л [l]
з [t͡s] ц [t͡sʰ] с [s] р [ɻ]
җ [t͡ʂ] ч [t͡ʂʰ] ш [ʂ] ж [ʐ]
[t͡ɕ] [t͡ɕʰ] щ [ɕ] й [ʝ]
г [k] к [kʰ] ң [ŋ] х [x]
  • /ŋ/ can also be heard as a voiced fricative [ɣ] among other Gansu dialects.
  • /v/ can be heard as [w] in the Şanşi dialects.
  • The labialized retroflex fricatives and affricates [ʂʷ][tʂʷ][tʂʰʷ] can be respectively pronounced as the labiodental [f][p̪͡f][p̪͡fʰ]. This phenomenon can be observed through the word фə, with the initial being [f], as opposed to [ʂʷ] in Old Mandarin. Svetlana Rimsky-Korsakoff: "There is a tendency in some speakers for the retroflexed alveo-palatals to be pronounced as rounded labio-dental affricates. Hashimoto has traced this phenomenon in other North-west dialects."[13] Hashimoto: "A theoretically more interesting point here is that Chinese palatals /č, č’, etc./ go to [Dungan] labials [pf, pf’, etc.]"[14]

Vowels

Medial Nucleus
∅ a ɤ ɛ ɔ ʊ əj ∅̃ æ̃ ɔ̃ ʊ̃ ɚ
∅ ɨ a ɤ ɛ ɔ ʊ əj ə̃ æ̃ ɔ̃ ʊ̃ ɚ
j i ja je jɔ jɤw ĩ jɛ̃ jɔ̃
w u wa wɤ wɛ wɔ u wəj wæ̃ wɔ̃ ũ
ɥ y ɥa ɥe ỹ yɛ̃
Finals
Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA Cyrillic IPA
ы [ɨ] и [i], [ɪi] ў [u], [ɤu] ү [y]
а [a] я [ja] уа [wa] үa [ɥa]
ә [ɤ] е [je] уә [wɤ] үә [ɥe]
э [ɛ] уэ [wɛ]
о [ɔ] ё [jɔ] уэй [wəj]
ый [əj] уй
у [ʊ] ю [jɤw] уо [wɔ]
ан [æ̃] ян [jɛ̃] уан [wæ̃] үан [yɛ̃]
он [ɔ̃] ён [jɔ̃] уон [wɔ̃]
ын [ə̃~ɤ̃] ин [ĩ], [ɪĩ] ун [ʊ̃], [ʊə̃] үн [ỹ]
эр [ɚ~əɻ] ўн [ũ]
  • /ə˞/ can be heard as [ɯ˞] in Kyrgyzstan.
  • With х-, -уй is respelled as -уэй[15] to avoid homography with the Russian-language vulgarity.[16] This is the same treatment as in the Palladius system.

In addition to the above table, there are rhotacised vowels, as well as some finals only seen in loanwords from Russian, Arabic, Kyrgyz, etc.

Finals beginning with (й)и (including я, е, ё, ю) or (й)ү are also valid syllables. Dungan is characterized by a paucity of zero-initial syllables otherwise, with zero initial being limited to the rhotacized эр, the prefix а-, and to interjections.[17]

Tones

Tonal comparison between Dungan and Mandarin
Tone name Dungan example Gansu-Dungan Shaanxi-Dungan Notes Standard Chinese tone number Chinese character Standard Chinese
Orthography IPA Pitch pattern Tone contour Pitch pattern Tone contour Orthography IPA Pitch pattern Tone contour
пиншын
平聲
píngshēng 		陰平
yīnpíng 		хуа I
хуа Ia 		/xwǎ/ Rising ˨˦ (24) Falling ˥˩ (51) Ia merges to Ib in word-final syllables, including monosyllables. 1 花 /xwá/ High ˥ (55)
陽平
yángpíng 		хуа I
хуа Ib 		/xwǎ/ Rising ˨˦ (24) 2 華 /xwǎ/ Rising ˧˥ (35)
шоншын
上聲
shǎngshēng 		вə II /vɤ̂/ Falling ˥˩ (51) Falling ˥˧ (53) 3 我 /wò/ Low/dipping ˩, ˨˩˦ (1, 214)
чишын
去聲
qùshēng 		чў III /t͡ɕú/ High ˦ (44) High ˦ (44) Some syllables originating in tone 4[clarification needed] fall into tone 1 in modern Mandarin. 4 去 /t͡ɕŷ/ Falling ˥˨ (52)
輕聲
qīngshēng 		зы I
зы 		/t͡sɨ/ Short Varies Short Varies Actual pitch depends on the preceding syllable. 0 子 /t͡sɹ̩/ Short Varies

Writing system

Main article: Social:Dungan alphabets
Bilingual sign in Dungan and Russian respectively, at the home of Soviet war hero Mansuz Vanakhun (ru). The sentence includes the Russian loanwords Совет "Soviet" and музей "museum".

The modern Dungan language is the only Chinese language that is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, as they lived under Soviet rule. It is a Russian-based alphabet plus five additional letters: Ә, Җ, Ң, Ў and Ү. As such, it differs from the Palladius System that is normally used in Russia to render Chinese in Cyrillic.

Modern Dungan alphabet and letter pronunciations
Cyrillic А/а Б/б В/в Г/г Д/д Е/е Ё/ё Ә/ә Ж/ж Җ/җ З/з И/и Й/й К/к
Name a бэ вэ гэ дэ e ё ә жэ җe зэ и йи кa
IPA [a] [pɛ] [vɛ] [kɛ] [tɛ] [je] [jɔ] [ɤ] [ʐɛ] [t͡ɕʲe] [t͡sɛ] [i] [ʝi] [kʰa]
Cyrillic Л/л М/м Н/н Ң/ң О/о П/п Р/р С/с Т/т У/у Ў/ў Ү/ү Ф/ф Х/х
Name эль эм эн ың o пэ эр эc тэ у ў ү эф xa
IPA [ɛlʲ] [ɛm] [ɛn] [ɨŋ] [ɔ] [pʰɛ] [əɻ] [ɛs] [tʰɛ] [ʊw] [u] [y] [ɛf] [xa]
Cyrillic Ц/ц Ч/ч Ш/ш Щ/щ Ъ/ъ Ы/ы Ь/ь Э/э Ю/ю Я/я
Name цэ чэ шa щa нин xo ы ван xo э ю йa
IPA [t͡sʰɛ] [t͡ʂʰɛ] [ʂa] [ɕa] [nʲɪ̃ xɔ] [ɨ] [vã xɔ] [ɛ] [jʊw] [ja]

Dungan is unique in that it is one of the few varieties of Chinese that is not normally written using Chinese characters. Though it may be seen written in Chinese characters, this writing system is now considered obsolete. Originally, the Dungan, as descendants of the Hui, wrote their language in an Arabic-based alphabet known as Xiao'erjing. The Soviet Union banned all Arabic scripts in 1925,[18] which led to a Latin orthography based on Yañalif. The Latin orthography lasted until 1952, when the Soviet government promulgated the current Cyrillic-based system. Xiao'erjing 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. Tone marks or numbering do not appear in general-purpose writing, but are specified in dictionaries, even for loanwords. The tones are specified using Roman numerals.

Comparison with Palladius system

Pinyin Palladius Dungan Pinyin Palladius Dungan Pinyin Palladius Dungan Pinyin Palladius Dungan
b б p п m м f ф
d д t т n н н / л l л
z цз з c ц s с
j цз / цзь җ / җь q ц / ць ч / чь x с / сь щ / щь
zh чж җ ch ч sh ш ш / с / ф r ж
g г k к h х

Grammar

Classifiers

Chinese varieties usually have different classifiers for different types of nouns, with northern varieties tending to have fewer classifiers than southern ones. -гә 個 (formerly spelled as -гы[19]) is the only classifier found in the Dungan language, though not the only measure word.[20]

Vocabulary

There is a varying degree of mutual intelligibility between Dungan and various Mandarin dialects.

The basilects of Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin and Dungan are largely mutually intelligible; Chinese journalists conversant in one of those Mandarin dialects report that they can make themselves understood when communicating with Dungan speakers.

On the other hand, Dungan speakers like Iasyr Shivaza and others have reported that people who speak the Beijing Mandarin dialect can understand Dungan, but Dungans could not understand Beijing Mandarin.[21]

At the level of basic vocabulary, Dungan contains many words not present in most Mandarin dialects, such as Russian, Arabic, Turkic, and Persian loanwords. When Dru C. Gladney, 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".[22] Rimsky-Korsakoff Dyer suggests that the Arabic, Turkic and Persian influences are limited mostly to common personal names (such as Fatima and Mukhamed) and to days of the week. About 9% of Dungan words are Russian in origin.[21] Furthermore, Dungan contains some archaic Qing dynasty-era Chinese vocabulary. Because of this, some Dungan vocabulary may sound archaic to Chinese people. For example, they refer to a president as an "emperor" (хуаңды 皇帝) (in addition to зунтун 總統[23]) and call government offices yamen (ямын 衙門), a term for mandarins' offices in ancient China.[24][23][25]

Furthermore, the acrolects of Dungan and Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin have diverged significantly due to time and cultural influences. During the 20th century, translators and intellectuals introduced many neologisms and calques into the Chinese language, especially for political and technical concepts. Meanwhile, the Dungan, cut off from the mainstream of Chinese discourse by orthographic and political barriers, instead borrowed words for those same concepts from Russian, with which they came into contact through government and higher education.[26]

These borrowings, as well as native Sinitic Dungan vocabulary, affect mutual intelligibility between Dungan and Standard Mandarin.

1950s-era immigrants from Ili and 21st-century increased contact have resulted in mainstream Chinese vocabulary entering the lexicon; for example, radio broadcasts used to sign off with хозэди 好再的 but have switched to зэ җян 再見.[9][27]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Dungan". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/dung1253. 
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named e27
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Gladney 1991, pp. 393–394. The following pages in this book, 321–395, are occupied by "A Select Glossary of Hui Chinese Islamic Terms", into which Gladney included only words (many found in older publications) that he could verify as known or recognized by people in at least some Hui communities he visited.
  4. ↑ Gladney 1991, p. 68.
  5. ↑ Owen Lattimore, The Desert Road to Turkestan. London, Methuen & Co, ca. 1928–1929. Page 196.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 橋本, 万太郎 (1957). "ジユンヤン語 (ドウンガーン語) 研究の歴史と現状". 中国語学 1957 (58): 13–18. doi:10.7131/chuugokugogaku.1957.13. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/chuugokugogaku1955/1957/58/1957_58_13/_article/-char/ja/. 
  7. ↑ "«С волшебной палочкой поэта» — к 120-летию дунганского поэта Ясыра Шивазы. Книжные экспозиции". https://expositions.nlr.ru/ve/RA11118/yasyr-shivaza. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Андронов, Алексей Викторович (2025). "Национальная библиография дунганской книжности: через тернии… / National bibliography of Dungan literature: through the thorns…". «Ұлттық библиографияны дамыту: тәжірибе, заманауи технологиялар мен интергация мәселелері» атты халықаралық ғылыми-тәжірибелік конференция материалдарының жинағы (Алматы: Қазақстан Республикасының ұлттық кітапханасы). https://nlr.ru/nlr_visit/dep/artupload/media/article/RA1717/NA117356.pdf. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 丁, 宏 (1999). "东干语及东干文". 东干文化研究. 
  10. ↑ 菅野, 裕臣. "最近のドゥンガン研究の概況――特にソ連崩壊後の言語学研究について". 日本中央アジア学会報 9. ISSN 1880-0076. http://www.jacas.jp/jacasbulletin/009/index.htm. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 林, 涛 (2012). "东干语概况". 东干语调查研究. 跨境语言研究系列丛书. 北京. ISBN 978-7-5161-1418-6. 
  12. ↑ Janxjansyn, Jusup (1938). Gansьn de Şanşi fonjan. Frunze - Xazan: Xьrgwjçwʙan. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :0
  14. ↑ Hashimoto, Mantaro J. (1978). "Current Developments in Zhunyanese (soviet Dunganese) Studies / ????????". Journal of Chinese Linguistics 6 (2): 243–267. ISSN 0091-3723. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23752833. 
  15. ↑ 橋本, 萬太郎 (1957). "ジュンヤン語の新字母と音節の綴り方規則". 中国語学 1957 (68): 219–232. doi:10.7131/chuugokugogaku.1957.219. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/chuugokugogaku1955/1957/68/1957_68_219/_article/-char/ja/. 
  16. ↑ Salmi 2007.
  17. ↑ Zavyalova 2015.
  18. ↑ Dietrich, Ayşe. "Soviet and Post-soviet Language Policies in The Central Asian Republics and The Status of Russian". Ayk.gov.tr. 
  19. ↑ Salmi 2017.
  20. ↑ Yue, Anne O. (2003). "Chinese dialects: grammar". in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J.. The Sino-Tibetan languages. Routledge. pp. 84–125. ISBN 978-0-7007-1129-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=YlyuDQAAQBAJ&q=dunganese&pg=PT175. 
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Rimsky-Korsakoff Dyer, Svetlana (1977). "Soviet Dungan nationalism: a few comments on their origin and language". Monumenta Serica 33: 349–362. doi:10.1080/02549948.1977.11745054.  p. 351.
  22. ↑ Gladney 1991, pp. 33, 102.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 林, 涛 (2012). "东干语分类语汇". 东干语调查研究. 跨境语言研究系列丛书. 北京. ISBN 978-7-5161-1418-6. 
  24. ↑ "The "Shaanxi Village" in Kazakhstan". China Radio International - CRIENGLISH.com. 2004-07-09. http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/1857/2004-7-9/53@130293.htm. 
  25. ↑ 林, 涛 (2012). "东干语词汇特点". 东干语调查研究. 跨境语言研究系列丛书. 北京. ISBN 978-7-5161-1418-6. 
  26. ↑ Mair 1990.
  27. ↑ 海, 峰 (HAI Feng) (2003). "试析中亚东干语中的借词 A Pilot Study of Loan Words in Central-Asian Dungan Language". 新疆大学学报(社会科学版) Xinjiang University Journal (Social Science Edition) 28 (3). 

Sources

General references

Template:Sino-Tibetan languages Template:Languages of Kazakhstan Template:Languages of Kyrgyzstan



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