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Dungan (; Дунгане) 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).
History 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, however the character gan (干) is different from that used in the name of the province (甘). 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, "the 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." Language 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. * Culture 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. Religion The large majority of Dungan are Hanafi Muslim. Many Dungan villages contain a mosque run by village elders. Notes and Citations See also | ||||||||
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