Santa language

Santa
Santa
Native to	China
Region	Gansu province, mainly in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, and Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Native speakers	200,000 (2007)
Language family	Mongolic Shirongolic Santa
Writing system	Arabic, Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sce
Glottolog	dong1285

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

Phonology

Dongxiang has neither vowel harmony nor distinctions of vowel length.

Grammar

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

Writing system

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, the official Latin alphabet for Dongxiang, developed on the basis of the Monguor alphabet, remained in the experimental stage.

Numerals

	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 language

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 Chinese. The linguist Mei W. Lee-Smith calls this 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 and argues it is a creolized language. 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.

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.

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).

External links

• The Dongxiang Mongols and Their Language