Talk:Dungan language

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[edit] Ң/ң

Do they actually use the letters "Ң" and "ң"? What sound does it represent? I read documents that they record the "ng" sound with two characters "N"+"G" instead of a special character.--Tomchiukc 18:26, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Further reading

I found two interesting links on Dungan language online, in case anyone with free time wants to expand on this stub or wants some further reading.

Omniglot: Dungan Alphabet This page shows the letters of the Dungan alphabet. According to the website, "khueuzwu yuuyan, means 'the language of the Hui People' - 回族语言 in the Chinese script". Information and pictures from the site can be used for non-commercial purposes, if the original Omniglot page is cited.

Dungan Script and Language Reform This link contains an essay on the use of a phonetic alphabet to write a Chinese language, and the adaptations made to do so, arguing why a Chinese alphabet isn't an unfeasible idea. Throughout the essay, the author describes many details and specifics on the Dungan language, and has text samples.

--Yuje 09:13, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] mutually intelligible?

Does any one know if this language is mutually intelligible with spoken Chinese in anyway? I tried to read the romanized Dungan paragraph, but was only able to pick up a few words. --Voidvector 09:29, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

I've read online accounts by journalists from Shaanxi or Gansu about how they conversed quite easily with the Dungans. They were able to provide examples from their conversation of Qing Dynasty vocabulary that the Dungan were still using (and, apparently, the journalists understood), such as "jingcheng" for capital (in the Dungans' case, Moscow or Bishkek), and "yamen" for government. -- ran (talk) 14:46, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

Is Dungan a subset of Mandarin? SIL ethnologue has classified it separately. — Insta ntnood 20:04, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

I would consider this as another language entirely different from the Chinese language. It has a unique set of alphabets, a similar case to Vietnamese. -- Jerry Crimson Mann 20:39, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Vietnamese is of another language family, though it used to be written in a modified form of Chinese characters until recently, with many loan words. It is the same case for Korean. Dungan is considered a Chinese language, except the script. — Insta ntnood 20:45, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Vietnamese is a very poor analogy... it is not part of Mandarin, or even the Sinitic family. It could readopt Chinese characters tomorrow and it would still be a language separate from Chinese. Better examples would be Moldovan, which used Cyrillic until independence, or Croatian and Serbian. And in these cases we can see that from the intelligibility point of view, Moldovan is a part of Romanian, while Croatian and Serbian are both part of Serbo-Croatian, but from a political and cultural standpoint (the same sort that makes Mandarin and Cantonese the "same" language), Moldovan, Croatian, and Serbian are independent languages. The same can probably be said about Dungan. -- ran (talk) 23:22, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

I see. Obviously linguistics is something beyond my ken. :-P -- Jerry Crimson Mann 06:46, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Umm in that case Dungan is within the Mandarin family from the intelligility point of view, am I right? :-) — Insta ntnood 08:35, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Taking sometime to digest, it is quite easy to find that it is intelligible to Mandarin. With the help of English, I was able to transcribe almost the entire sentence using Chinese characters (source). There was only 1 character of which I am not sure:

Dungan: KHAN-YAN (III-1). Tu yigeh bufindi yisisi "gandi", di eirgeh bufindi yis'isi "yikhozi tsomyo" (bilyun: khuon-yan, khiyan).
Exact Chinese: 旱烟 (III-1). 它一个部分的意思是“干的”，第二个部分的意思是“一科子草苗”（比如：？烟、黑烟）
English: tobacco (III-I). The meaning of the first part is "dry," the meaning of the second part is "a kind of grass" (for example: tobacco [plant], black smoke).

--Voidvector 22:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

That is amazing work! Yes, you are right.. It is actually just Mandarin with slight accent/pronounciation changes and written in Cyrillic!!

86.42.180.90 (talk) 22:52, 30 March 2008 (UTC)Tomz

[edit] Autonym

Is "khueuzwu yuuyan" cognate to "回族語言"? Might be useful to indicate this, if true. -- CaliforniaAliBaba

Yes it is, except it would be written in Cyrillic, not Hanzi) or Roman alphabet.--Yuje 15:22, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

If someone could supply the Cyrillic form for the language box, I'd be grateful. I was tempted to write "Хуеузў үүян" on the basis of the transliteration provided at [1], but I don't know if that's actually correct. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:24, 26 September 2005 (UTC) Never mind, just found it at Omniglot! --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 11:25, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Sl,any reason why you deleted all mention of Хуэйзў йүян from the introductory sentence, changed the native name Хуэйзў йүян to Дунганский Язык, which is a Russian term, and the like? cab 15:56, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Huizu yuyan (Хуэйзў йүян, 回族語言), literally means Hui ethnic language(s). It is a term to describe the language(s) of the genetic Hui ethnicity (includes Uyghur in a broad sense). I admit that “Дунганский Язык” is a Russian term. Should we merely use “Дунган” instead? --Hello World! 16:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Uh, dunno. Since both of our sources (admittedly, that's just Omniglot and Ethnologue) claim Хуэйзў йүян, I'd say leaving it as that makes more sense until someone can point to some real books on the subject. Though to be honest, I can't imagine that an ethnic group in a Russian-speaking country would actually use the name Хуэйзў very long (given the visual resemblance of the first syllable to a very famous item of impolite language). cab 13:13, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, this book review claims that, as far as the ethnic autonym goes, the Dungan call themselves "Хуэйзў", and "Дунган" was the name that others give them. (This agrees with what Dungan says too.) I'm starting to lean towards the position that we should list the native name of the language as Хуэйзў йүян. cab 13:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I re-added Хуэйзў йүян Xuejzw jyian to the article, forgetting that there had been this discussion here. However, it seems that this is indeed their autonym. — Gareth Hughes 13:27, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ISO 639-2 tag

Should the ISO 639-2 tag of Dungan be zho (Chinese) instead of SIT (generic Sino-Tibetan)? --Hello World! 11:19, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

The standard says it's SIT. AFAIK ZHO is not used as a collective code. cab 16:13, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabet

As this is the English wikipedia, a romanized reading of each letter ought to be included in the chart of the alphabet. The reading differs from the standard, you know, when the Cyrillic alphabet is adapted to non-Russian languages. This information is included in the Omniglot page. Can somebody proficient in IPA add a reading intelligible to English speakers? Until this is done, I will add the transliteration from the Mair document--Javiskefka 23:58, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] arabic script

Can arabic script be added to the chart? Xiao'erjing equivalency would be nice. 70.55.84.6 06:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese equivalency

Can chinese equivalency be provided for the chart? In bopomofo and pinyin, and chinese characters used for phonetics. 70.55.84.6 06:57, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I highly doubt they standardized the Dungan Cyrillic writing system on modern Mandarin, so it shouldn't be possible. --Voidvector (talk) 20:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russian/Japanese translation needed

The Russian and Japanese articles on this topic are a more comprehensive, suggest translation. --Voidvector 08:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tone Marks

If in Dungan writing, tone marks or indicators are not shown, then how are you suppose to distinguish between words that are spelt the same!!? It is a tonal language and being able to distinguish the tones is the most important aspect. How do Dungan speakers tell apart those words then if there are no tone marks with the Cyrillic letters?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.42.180.90 (talk) 23:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)