Dungan language

Spoken in

• Sinotibetanisch Chinese Northern Chinese dialect Dungan

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The Dungan language ( Dungan: Хуэйзў йүян / Huejzw jyian; pronunciation [ Hɤuɛjtsu jyiɑn ]; Chinese东 干 语/东 干 语, Pinyin Donggan yǔ; Russian дунганский язык / dunganskij jazyk ) is a Sinitic language that is spoken by the Dungan people, a person living in Central Asia, the Hui Chinese related ethnic group.

Dungan and Mandarin Chinese are largely mutually intelligible. The fact that this Chinese language written in Cyrillic, is a unique special case dar.

Dissemination

Dungan is mainly spoken in Kyrgyzstan, with speakers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and also in Russia. The ethnic group of the Dungan people are the descendants of refugees from China, who moved into the 70s of the 19th century westward to Central Asia. It is used in the classroom. In Soviet times, there were several text books in the schools, which were published for the instruction of the Dungan language, a three-volume Russian - Dunganisches dictionary ( 14,000 words), the Dungan - Russian dictionary, philological monographs on the language and books on Dungan. The first newspaper in dunganischer language Hueyimin bo, was founded in 1932, it still appears monthly.

According to the statistics of the Soviet census of the years 1970 to 1989 the Dungan retained the use of their own language more successful in this than other minority ethnic groups in Central Asia; in the post- Soviet period, however, the proportion of Dungan speaking as a native language Dungan seems to have plummeted more detailed studies in this area but there is no.

Phonology and vocabulary

In its basic structure and its vocabulary Dungan language is not very different from Mandarin Chinese, especially as spoken in the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu Mandarin dialect. Like other Chinese languages ​​is the Dungan a tonal language. There are two main dialects, one with four tones, and the other, which is considered as the standard pronunciation with only three colors.

The Basilekte of Gansu / Shaanxi Mandarin and Dungan are largely mutually intelligible. Chinese journalists who are familiar with one of these Mandarin dialects, reported that they were able to make themselves understood when they communicated with Dungan speakers. At the level of basic vocabulary the Dungan contains many words that do not exist in modern Mandarin dialects, such as Arabic and Persian loan-words and outdated phrases from the Chinese vocabulary from the time of the Qing Dynasty. Moreover, the Akrolekte the Dungan and the Gansu / Shaanxi Mandarin have significantly diverged with time and external influences. During the 20th century translators and intellectuals led many neologisms and calques in the Chinese language, especially in the areas of politics and technology. This, however, is cut off from the mainstream of Chinese discourse by orthographic barriers Dungan borrowed the words for the same areas from the Russian, with which it came into contact with management and study. As a result of these borrowings, the equivalent standard Chinese names from the Dungan in wide circles are unknown or can not be understood by them.

Writing system

The modern Dungan alphabet, with IPA and Latin transcription

* The letters О, Ъ and Ь be used only in Russian loanwords.

Dungan is the only variety of Chinese languages ​​, which is not usually written with Chinese characters. Originally wrote the Dungan, the Muslim descendants of the Hui are, their language in a work based on the Arabic alphabet system, which is known under the name Xiao'erjing. The Soviet Union banned all Arabic writings in the late 1920s, which led to a Latin orthography. The Latin orthography existed until 1940, when the Soviet government used the current based on the Cyrillic alphabet system. The Xiao'erjing is now virtually extinct in the Dungan, has remained in some Hui communities in China in limited use.

The writing system is based on the standard dialect with three tones. Tone marks or Tonnummerierungen do not occur in ordinary purposes serving Scripture, but are specified in dictionaries, even for loanwords.