Editing Dungan language (section)

== Vocabulary ==
The [[basilect]]s of Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin and Dungan are largely [[mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]]; Chinese journalists conversant in one of those Mandarin dialects report that they can make themselves understood when communicating with Dungan speakers. However, even at the level of basic vocabulary, Dungan contains many words not present in modern Mandarin dialects, such as [[Russian language|Russian]], [[Arabic language|Arabic]], [[Turkic languages|Turkic]], and [[Persian language|Persian]] [[loanwords]]. Svetlana suggests that the Arabic, Turkic and Persian influences are limited mostly to common personal names (such as [[Fatima]] and [[Mohamed|Mukhamed]]) and to days of the week. About 9% of Dungan words are Russian in origin.<ref name="notes" /> Furthermore, Dungan contains some archaic [[Qing dynasty]]-era Chinese vocabulary. Because of this, some Dungan vocabulary may sound archaic to Chinese people. For example, they refer to a President as an "[[Emperor of China|Emperor]]" (Хуаңды/皇帝, ''huan'g-di'') and call government offices ''[[yamen]]'' (ямын/衙門, ''ya-min''), a term for mandarins' offices in ancient China.<ref>{{cite news |date=2004-07-09 |title=The "Shaanxi Village" in Kazakhstan |url=http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/1857/2004-7-9/53@130293.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060424085207/http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/1857/2004-7-9/53@130293.htm |archive-date=2006-04-24 |publisher=China Radio International - CRIENGLISH.com}}</ref>

Furthermore, the [[acrolect]]s of Dungan and Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin have diverged significantly due to time and cultural influences. During the 20th century, translators and intellectuals introduced many [[neologism]]s and [[calque]]s into the Chinese language, especially for political and technical concepts. However, the Dungan, cut off from the mainstream of Chinese discourse by orthographic barriers, instead borrowed words for those same concepts from Russian, with which they came into contact through government and higher education. As a result of these borrowings, the equivalent standard Chinese terms are not widely known or understood among the Dungan.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mair |first=Victor |author-link=Victor H. Mair |date=May 1990 |title=Implications of the Soviet Dungan Script for Chinese Language Reform |url=http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/dungan.html |journal=Sino-Platonic Papers |issue=18}}</ref>