Dungan Alphabets

During its existence, the character set or alphabet of the Dungan language has changed its graphic base several times and has been repeatedly reformed. Currently, the Dungan script functions in Cyrillic. Three stages are distinguished in the history of the Dungan script:

* pre-1927 - written completely in Chinese characters;
* 1927-1928 - attempts to create a writing system based on the Arabic script system Xiao'erjing, developed in China by the Hui Muslims;
* 1928-1953 - writing based on the Latin alphabet;
* since 1953 - writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet.

It is used in the territory of the former USSR, in regions where the Dungan language is widespread (mainly Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan).

Chinese characters

In China, to write texts in their native Chinese language, the Hui people, whom the Dungan people directly descend from and who are occasionally also referred to as Dungans, used either Chinese characters or a modified Arabic script called Xiao'erjing (literally, "children's script"). In China, the Hui people continue to use Chinese characters to write and speak their dialect of Chinese.

Arabic script

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the first Cyrillic records of Dungan dialects in the Russian Empire were made by V. I. Tsibuzgin, a teacher at the Russian-Dungan school in the village of Karakunuz, and his assistant, Zhebur Matsivang. During the Soviet era (1928), an alphabet clearly based on the Xiao'erjing system was proposed in Tashkent by Dungan students Ya. Shivaza, Yu. Yanshansin, and H. Makeev.

This alphabet included the following letters:

ى ه ۋ و ن م ل ڴ گ ک ق ف غ ﻉ ﻅ ﻁ ڞ ﺽ ﺹ ش س ژ ز ر ﺫ د خ ﺡ چ ﺝ ث ﺕ پ ب ا

Diacritics were used when writing the finals of syllables. This alphabet did not manage to gain popularity, since at that time the question of Latinization of the Dungan script was raised.

Latin

In January 1928, at the 2nd Plenum of the All-Union Central Committee of the New Turkic Alphabet in Tashkent, the Dungan Latinized alphabet was adopted. Its authors were Ya. Zhang and a group of Dungan students studying at Tashkent universities. Soviet scientists V. M. Alekseev, A. A. Dragunov and E. D. Polivanov assisted them in developing the alphabet.

The first Dungan alphabet had the following form: A a, B в, C c, Ç ç, D d, E e, F f, G g, Ƣ ƣ, H h, I i, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, Ꞑ ꞑ, O o, Ɵ ɵ, P p, R r, S s, Ş ş, Ꟍ ꟍ, T t, U u, V v, X x, Y y, Z z, Ƶ ƶ, Ь ь. In the finally approved version of the alphabet, the letter ''S̷ s̷'' was cancelled and the letter Ә ә was introduced (however, in the first Dungan primer, capital letters were not used). The alphabet also used 4 digraphs: Dƶ dƶ, Ts ts, Tş tş, Uv uv. In March 1932, at a meeting on the Dungan alphabet, it was decided to reform it. Thus, the letters ''H h'', ''Ƣ ƣ'', ''Ɵ ɵ'', as well as all digraphs, were abolished. The letters W w and Ⱬ ⱬ were introduced.

The following changes were made to the meanings of the letters: ts → c, tş → ç, dƶ → ⱬ, h → şj, c → çj, ç → ⱬj, ɵ → yә. The letter ƣ, which denoted the jagged, unrolled in Dungan words, was replaced by the letter r, which had previously denoted in Russian borrowings. One of the goals of the writing reform was the unification of the Dungan alphabet with the newly created Chinese Latinized alphabet. The letter j denoted the softness of the preceding consonant, but was not written before i and y. In June 1932, the conference in Frunze generally approved these changes, while retaining the letter Ƣ ƣ. Later, it was proposed to exclude from the alphabet the letter Ꞑ ꞑ, which was used in only a few words.

Dungan Latinized alphabet after the reform:

Cyrillic

The question of switching the Dungan alphabet to Cyrillic was raised shortly before the Great Patriotic War, which prevented the implementation of this project. It was revisited in 1952, when the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences decided to create a commission to develop a Dungan Cyrillic alphabet. The commission was headed by A. A. Dragunov. Their projects were presented by Yu. Yanshansin, A. A. Dragunov, , G. P. Serdyuchenko and A. Kalimov. Opinions were expressed about the need for a separate letter ''ҷ'' for the sound ɕʰ about using the letter'' у' ''instead of ''ў'', about the uselessness of the letter ''ң'' and about replacing the letter ''р'' (r) in native Dungan words with ''э̡''. As a result of discussions in 1953 (with some changes), the project of Yusup Yanshansin was approved. This alphabet is still in use today and has the following form:

Tones are not indicated in practical writing. In dictionaries and scientific publications, they are designated by Roman numerals I II III after the word or by superscripts of numbers ¹²³ after each syllable (for example: Җўжынҗя II-I-I ''owner, master'' or ми¹хуар³ ''chamomile'').

Correspondence chart

Compiled by,

Notes to the table:
* ⁰ Due to different spelling rules, a one-to-one correspondence between letters of different alphabets cannot be established.
* ⁰⁰ The letters and letter combinations in brackets were not part of the official alphabet.
* ¹ After vowels, й, ъ, ь and at the beginning of a word
* ² Before е, ё, и, ү, ю, я
* ³ In the finals ўй, ый
* ⁴ After б, м, п and in finals он, ор
* ⁵ In borrowed words
* ^5а In native words
* ⁶ In the finals уа, уан, уә, уон, уэ
* ⁷ After ж, й, ч, щ
* ⁸ After ж, җ, з, с, ц, ч, ш
* ⁹ In the finals ый, ын

References

* (1st edition appeared in 1991)

{{Language orthographies

Dungan
Mandarin Chinese
Cyrillic alphabets
Languages written in Cyrillic script
Latin alphabets
Alphabets