Dongxiang Language

Santa
Dongxiang
Spoken in	China
Region	Gansu province, mainly in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, and Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region^[1]
Native speakers	250,000 (1999)
Language family	Mongolic Shirongolic Santa
Writing system	Arabic, Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`sce`

The Santa language, also known as Dongxiang (东乡语), is a Mongolic language spoken by the Dongxiang people in northwest China.

1 Phonology
2 Grammar
3 Writing system
4 Numerals
5 The Tangwang creole language
6 References
- 6.1 Sources
7 Further reading
8 External links

Phonology [link]

Dongxiang has neither vowel harmony nor distinctions of vowel length.^[2]

In common with other Mongolic languages, Dongxiang is basically a subject–object–verb language. In Linxia, however, under the influence of the Mandarin dialects spoken by the neighbouring Hui people, sentences of the subject–verb–object type have also been observed.^[3]

Writing system [link]

Dongxiang language Arabic script sign in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, which is the centre of the ethnic minority of the Dongxiang

Knowledge of Arabic is widespread among the Sarta, and as a result, they often use the Arabic script to write down their language informally (cf. the Xiao'erjing system that was used by Hui people); however, this has been little investigated by scholars. As of 2003^[update], the official Latin alphabet for Dongxiang, developed on the basis of the Monguor alphabet, remained in the experimental stage.^[4]

Numerals [link]

	English	Classical Mongolian	Dongxiang
1	One	Nigen	Niy
2	Two	Qoyar	Ghua
3	Three	Ghurban	Ghuran
4	Four	Dorben	Jierang
5	Five	Tabun	Tawun
6	Six	Jirghughan	Jirghun
7	Seven	Dologhan	Dolon
8	Eight	Naiman	Naiman
9	Nine	Yisun	Yysun
10	Ten	Arban	Haron

The Tangwang creole language [link]

Main article: Tangwang language

There are about 20,000 people in the north-eastern part Dongxiang County, who self-identify as Dongxiang or Hui people who don't speak Dongxiang language, but speak natively a Dongxiang-influenced form of Mandarin. The linguist Mei W. Lee-Smith calls this creole language the "Tangwang language" (Chinese: 唐汪话), based on the names of the two largest villages (Tangjia and Wangjia, parts of Tangwang Town) where it is spoken. ^[5] According to Lee-Smith, the Tangwang language uses mostly Mandarin words and morphemes with Dongxiang grammar. Besides Dongxiang loanwords, Tangwang also has a substantial number of Arabic and Persian loanwords.^[5]

Like standard Mandarin, Tangwang is a tonal language, but grammatical particles, which are typically borrowed from Mandarin, but are used in the way Dongxiang morphemes would be used in Dongxiang, don't carry tones.^[5]

For example, while the Mandarin plural suffix -men (们) has only very restricted usage (it can be used with personal pronouns and some nouns related to people), Tangwang uses it, in the form -m, universally, the way Dongxiang would use its plural suffix -la. Mandarin pronoun ni (你) can be used in Tangwang as a possessive suffix (meaning "your"). Unlike Mandarin, but like Dongxiang, Tangwang has grammatical cases as well (but only 4 of them, instead of 8 in Dongxiang).^[5]

References [link]

^ Bao 2006
^ Gordon 2005, Dongxiang
^ Bao 2006, 1.1: 东乡语的语序特点
^ Kim 2003, p. 348
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Lee-Smith, Mei W. (1996), "The Tangwang language", in Wurm, Stephen A., Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, Volume 2, Part 1. (Volume 13 of Trends in Linguistics, Documentation Series)., Walter de Gruyter, pp. 875–882, ISBN 3-11-013417-9, https://books.google.com/?id=glU0vte5gSkC