The Dungan - Islam in Central Asia (sitios de interés)
Descripción del sitio
The Dungan are a group of Uyghurs separated from Xinjiang during the 19th century."1. The first group, of some 1000 people, originally from Turfan in Xinjiang... reached Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan.
2. The second group, originally from Didaozhou (???) in Gansu... were settled in the spring of 1878 in the village of Yrdyk... in Eastern Kyrgyzstan. They numbered 1130 on arrival.
3. The third group, originally from Shaanxi... were settled in the village of Karakunuz (now Masanchi), in modern Zhambyl Province of Kazakhstan...This group numbered 3314 on arrival."
(Source: Rimsky-Korsakoff Dyer, Svetlana. Karakunuz: An Early Settlement of the Chinese Muslims in Russia, with an English translation of V.Tsibuzgin and A.Shmakov's work. Pages 243-279.)
The Dungan speak a language similar to Mandarin Chinese, but with fewer tones and written in a Cyrillic script. They practice Sunni Islam, likely spread to them by invading Mongols hordes.