Demographics
Dungan is spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan, with speakers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia as well. The Dungan ethnic group are the descendants of refugees from China who migrated west into Central Asia.
According to the Soviet census statistics from 1970 to 1989, the Dungan maintained the use of their ethnic language much more successfully than other minority ethnic groups in Central Asia; however, in the post-Soviet period, the proportion of Dungans speaking the Dungan language as their mother tongue appears to have fallen sharply.
| Year | Dungan L1 | Russian L2 | Total Dungan population | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 36,445 (94.3%) | 18,566 (48.0%) | 38,644 | Soviet census |
| 1979 | 49,020 (94.8%) | 32,429 (62.7%) | 51,694 | Soviet census |
| 1989 | 65,698 (94.8%) | 49,075 (70.8%) | 69,323 | Soviet census |
| 2001 | 41,400 (41.4%) | N/A | 100,000 | Ethnologue |
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