| Also Known As: Huizu,Dzhunyan,Tungan,Zwn'jan,Kwuizwu,Dungan
Description:
The Dungan language is a Sinitic language spoken by the Dungan of Central Asia, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China.
The Dungan people of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (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 the 19th-century western writers) would normally speak the same Mandarin dialect as the Han people in the same area (or in the area from which the a particular Hui community had been resettled from). At the same time, due to their unique history, their speech would be rich in Islamic or Islamic influenced terminology, based on loanwords from Arabic, Persian, and Turkic languages, as well as translations of them into Chinese. 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. While not constituting a separate language, these words, phrases and turns of speech, known as Huihui hua (回回话, "Hui..... full article at Wikipedia |
