Dungan people facts for kids
The Dungan people are ethnic Muslims that came from from China who live in regions of the former Soviet Union and Xinjiang. Their ancestors are the Hui people in China. Russians and Turkic-speaking peoples call them Dungan, but the Dungan call themselves Hui because that is what their ancestors called themselves.
The Dungan language came from Mandarin Chinese, and it is most like the dialects in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces in China. The Dungan call their language the Hui language. Like Chinese, it is a tonal language. However, it is different from Chinese because it uses some words that are no longer used in Chinese dialects today. There are also many Arabic and Persian loanwords. Unlike Chinese, it is written using Cyrillic instead of Chinese characters.
Images for kids
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The gate of the Dungan Mosque in Karakol, Kyrgyzstan. The upper text on the sign is a partially Uyghurized rendering of the mosque's Kyrgyz name into the Uyghur Arabic alphabet: Isiq-köl oblasttiq Qaraqol sharindaghi Ibrahim Haji atindaghi borborduq mäsjid. The lower text is Kyrgyz in the Cyrillic script: Ysyk-Köl oblasttyk Karakol shaaryndagy Ibrakhim Ajy atyndagy borborduk mechit—Central Mosque in the name of Ibrahim Hajji in the city of Karakol, an oblast of Ysyk-Köl.
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Caption: "Shooting exercises of taifurchi [gunners]. Dungans and Kashgar Chinese". A French engraving from the Yaqub Beg's state period
See also
In Spanish: Pueblo dungano para niños