Language
| Islam in China |
|---|
|
History
History Tang Dynasty • Song Dynasty |
|
Major figures
Chang Yuchun • Hu Dahai • Mu Ying • Yeheidie'erding Hui Liangyu • Ma Bufang |
|
Culture
Cuisine • Martial arts Chinese mosques • Sini |
|
Cities/Regions
Hong Kong • Kashgar • Linxia Ningxia • Taiwan • Xinjiang |
|
Groups
Hui • Uyhgurs Kazakhs • Dongxiang |
Both the Muslim Bonans in Gansu and their Buddhist cousins in Qinghai (officially classified as Monguor) have historically spoken the Bonan language, a Mongolic language. The Buddhist Bonan of Qinghai speak a slightly different dialect that the Muslim Bonan of Gansu. Whereas the Bonan language of Gansu has undergone Chinese influences, the Bonan language of Qinghai has been influenced by Tibetan.
They don't have a script for their language.
The Muslim Gansu Bonans are more numerous than their Buddhist Qinghai cousins (the estimates for the two groups were around 12,200 (in 1990), and around 3,500 (in 1980), respectively). However, it has been observed that in Gansu the use of Bonan language is declining (in favor of the local version – the "Hezhou dialect" – of Mandarin Chinese), while in Qinghai the language keeps being transmitted to younger generations.
Read more about this topic: Bonan People
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“English general and singular terms, identity, quantification, and the whole bag of ontological tricks may be correlated with elements of the native language in any of various mutually incompatible ways, each compatible with all possible linguistic data, and none preferable to another save as favored by a rationalization of the native language that is simple and natural to us.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Though language forms the preacher,
‘Tis “good works” make the man.”
—Eliza Cook (1818–1889)
“I shall christen this style the Mandarin, since it is beloved by literary pundits, by those who would make the written word as unlike as possible to the spoken one. It is the style of all those writers whose tendency is to make their language convey more than they mean or more than they feel, it is the style of most artists and all humbugs.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)