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Digital Research Archive of Dungan Studies

Coordination: Christoph Harbsmeier, Ivo Spira, Jens Østergaard Petersen.

Project

Within the HRA project Thesaurus Linguae Sericae (http://tls.uni-hd.de/) Digital Research Archive of Dungan Studies aims to provide easy access to information on Dungan language and culture in the context of Central Asian and East Asian studies.

This site is under construction and welcomes contributions from users, both in the form of additional materials and in the form of bibliographic references.

The Dungan People and their Language

The history of the Dungan language is a case which can contribute valuable data and insights to any general theory of how languages form and change over time. Dungan (Chin. Dōnggānyǔ 東干語, Rus. dunganskij jazyk) is a Central Asian minority language known to its speakers as Khuėjzŭ jüjan (Хуэйзў йүян, Chin. Huízú yǔyán 回族語言). It was established as a minority nationality language in Soviet Central Asia in the 1920s and 1930s, comprising several different Mandarin Chinese dialects spoken by Huí 回 ("Chinese Muslims") in different places in Northwest China. The predominantly illiterate Dungan migrants had brought their speech with them to Central Asia when they migrated there in the 19th century after abortive uprisings against the Qīng dynasty. Today, it is spoken by Dungans in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

The Dungan language has a number of significant features, especially when considered within the history of Chinese (Sinitic).

The Dungan language has not been written with Chinese characters for a period of well over 100 years. The medium of writing has since the 1950s been the Cyrillic (i.e. "Russian") script — a stark contrast to the Chinese morpho-syllabic script. It is thus a fascinating test-case in which one may study what happens to a Chinese dialect when it is completely cut off from the written tradition which continues to influence the development of all dialects within the PRC.

A full-fledged literature written in Dungan emerged in the 1930s and 1940s.

The concept of Dungan as an independent language with a written standard was created by Soviet scientists and authorities, a language incorporating several distinct, non-contiguous Chinese dialects.

The Dungans predominantly do not consider themselves or their native language to be "Chinese".

The language is now definitely endangered in as a result of ever-increasing Russian–Dungan bilingualism since the Second World War. A major language shift in favour of Russian has been underway for some time.

As Chinese influence is becoming more important in the Central Asian Region, there are signs that Dungan is being redefined from the outside as a Northwestern Mandarin Chinese dialect, a reappropriation, so to speak, of Dungan as a Chinese dialect.

Contact

If you have any additions, questions, or comments, please contact Ivo Spira (ivo.spira@ikos.uio.no").

About Us

The Digital Research Archive of Dungan Studies is led by Christoph Harbsmeier and Ivo Spira.

The project is an outcome of a delegation to Central Asia organized by the University of Oslo and financed by the Royal Norwegian Department of Foreign Affairs in 2009. It is being conducted in close cooperation with a related project organized by the Centre of East Asian Linguistics (CRLAO) at the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique in Paris under the leadership of Dr. Redouane Djamouri and Professor Alain Peyraube.

Acknowledgements

This collection owes a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Heinz Riedlinger (Bonn), polyglot dunganologist extraordinary, who kindly donated his extraordinarily rich collection of Dungan material, with the permission to make this available to the scholarly community.

Professor Victor Mair (University of Pennsylvania), who has had a long-standing enthusiasm for Dungan affairs, has offered his generous advice and has also promised to retrieve from his cellar a large box with dunganologica for inclusion in later versions of this bibliography.

We are most grateful to Professor M. Kh. Imazov (Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences) for setting an example in the internationalization of Dungan studies and for his many helpful suggestions and supportive attitude.

Professor Rudolf G. Wagner (Sinological Institute, University of Heidelberg) has provided essential help with the bibliographic search for Dungan material.

Dr. Taras Ivchenko (Humanistic University, Moscow) has provided his own precious dunganological collection for inclusion in our site.

Professor Hai Feng (Dean, University of Xinjiang, Ürümqi) has been extraordinarily generous in her cooperation within the present project, and has provided crucial additions in the form of contemporary Chinese publications.

Professor Lin Tao (Northern Nationalities University, Yinchuan) has generously supported our dunganological efforts in selfless ways

Professor O. I. Zavjalova (Russian Academy of Sciences) has contributed several publications to the archive.

Ms. Elke Rehorn (Bishkek) has kindly provided logistical support and important primary materials, as well as pioneering analyses of Dungan phonology.