Editing Dungan language (section)

== Geographical distribution ==
Dungan is spoken primarily in [[Kyrgyzstan]], with speakers in [[Russia]], [[Kazakhstan]] and [[Uzbekistan]] 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 native language appears to have fallen sharply.

{| style="margin: 3em auto 3em auto" class="wikitable sortable"
|+'''Dungan speakers by population'''
|-
! Year !! Dungan [[First language|L1]] !! Russian [[Second language|L2]] !! Total Dungan population !! Source
|-
! 1970
| 36,445 (94.3%) || 18,566 (48.0%) || 38,644 || [https://web.archive.org/web/20060903124153/http://www.hum.uit.no/a/trond/s70.html Soviet census]
|-
! 1979
| 49,020 (94.8%) || 32,429 (62.7%) || 51,694 || [https://web.archive.org/web/20060903124204/http://www.hum.uit.no/a/trond/s79.html Soviet census]
|-
! 1989
| 65,698 (94.8%) || 49,075 (70.8%) || 69,323 || [https://web.archive.org/web/20060903124216/http://www.hum.uit.no/a/trond/s89.html Soviet census]
|-
! 2001
| 41,400 (41.4%) || N/A || 100,000 || [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=dng Ethnologue]
|}