Dungan
PrintA language of Kyrgyzstan
ISO 639-3
Alternate Names
Dzhunyan, Kwuizwu, Tungan, Zwn’jan
Population
40,000 in Kyrgyzstan (Johnstone and Mandryk 2001). Population total all countries: 41,900. Ethnic population: 100,000.
Location
Gansu mainly in Prschewalsk and Osh; Shaanxi in Kazakhstan, and Fergana, Uzbekistan. Also in Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Language Maps
Language Status
4 (Educational).
Classification
Dialects
Ganzu (Gansu), Shaanxi (Shensi), Yage. Shaanxi and Ganzu varieties have difficult mutual inherent intelligibility. Debate over whether Dungan has 3 tones (a merging of 2 standard Mandarin tones) or 4 tones (with only a partial merging of the 2 standard Mandarin tones). Different from Mandarin [cmn] in phonology and lexicon.
Language Use
Those under 50–55 speak Russian [rus] as L1.
Language Development
Bible portions: 2002–2011.
Language Resources
Writing
Cyrillic script.
Came from China over 100 years ago. Muslim (Sunni).