Dungan
Dungan (; Ð"унгане) is a term used in territories of the former
Soviet Union to refer to a
Muslim people of
Chinese origin. Turkic-speaking peoples in Xinjiang Province in China also refer to members of this ethnic group as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves
Hui. In the censuses of Russia and the former Soviet Central Asia, the Hui are enumerated separately from Chinese, and are labelled as Dungans. In the former Soviet Union, Dungans are found especially in
Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and
Kyrgyzstan, but some also reside in
Russia (mostly in
Tatarstan).
The Dungan in the former Soviet republics are Hui who fled China during the
Hui Minorities' War in the 19th century. The name
Dungan is of obscure origin, but is probably from Turkic
döñän ("one who turns") or the Chinese term for "eastern
Gansu", a
province of China to which many of the Dungan can trace their ancestry. The Hui people, distributed across much of western and central China, are also referred to as "Dungans" by Turkic and Tajik peoples.
As Hong (2005) notes, [t]he Dungan people derive from China's Hui people, and now live mainly in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Their population is over 110,000. This people has now developed a separate ethnicity outside China, yet they have close relations with the Hui people in culture, ethnic characteristics and ethnic identity."
Main article: Dungan language
The Dungan language is closely related to the Shaanxi dialect of
Mandarin Chinese, but uses the
Cyrillic script and has only three
tones instead of four. Dungan also contains many loanwords from
Arabic,
Persian, and
Turkish.
Unlike other minority nationalities in Central Asia, such as the
Koreans, nearly all of the Dungan report that they continue to use their ethnic language as their mother tongue. More than two-thirds of the Dungan also speak
Russian, and a small proportion can speak
Kyrgyz or other languages belonging to the titular nationalities of the countries where they live. [
1]
The Dungan are primarily farmers, growing rice and vegetables such as sugar beets. Many also raise dairy cattle. In addition, some are involved in
opium production. The Dungan tend to be
endogamous.
The Dungan are famous for their hospitality and hold many ceremonies and banquets to preserve their culture. They have elaborate and colorful observances of birthdays, weddings, and funerals. In addition, schools have museums to preserve other parts of their culture, such as embroidery, traditional clothing, silver jewelry, paper cuts of animals and flowers and tools.
The large majority of Dungan are
Hanafi Muslim. Many Dungan villages contain a mosque run by village elders.
* Allès, Elisabeth. 2005. "The Chinese-speaking Muslims (Dungans) of Central Asia: A Case of Multiple Identities in a Changing Context,"
Asian Ethnicity 6, No. 2 (June): 121-134.
* Hong, Ding. 2005. "A Comparative Study on the Cultures of the Dungan and the Hui People,"
Asian Ethnicity 6, No. 2 (June): 135-140.
*
Karakol*
Chinabroadcast.cn*
About the Dungan alphabet*
Soviet Census data analyzed by mother tongue and second language, in English*
Association of Dungans of the Kyrgyz Republic, in English and Russian
