Xiao'erjing

Xiao'erjing, often shortened to Xiaojing (the 'original script' being the Perso-Arabic script), is the practice of writing Sinitic languages such as Mandarin (especially the Lanyin, Zhongyuan and Northeastern dialects) or Dungan in the Perso-Arabic script. It is used on occasion by many ethnic minorities who adhere to the Islamic faith in China (mostly the Hui, but also the Dongxiang and the Salar) and formerly by their Dungan descendants in Central Asia. Orthography reforms introduced the Latin script and later the Cyrillic script to the Dungan language, which continue to be used today.
Xiao'erjing is written from right to left, like other writing systems using the Perso-Arabic script. The Xiao'erjing writing system is unusual among Arabic script-based writing systems in that all vowels, long and short, are explicitly marked at all times with Arabic diacritics; this means that Xiao'erjing is technically an abugida, in contrast to the abjad classification of most Perso-Arabic script varieties. This is also in contrast to some other Arabic-based writing systems in China, such as the Uyghur Ereb Yéziqi, which uses full letters and not diacritics to mark short vowels.
Nomenclature
Xiao'erjing does not have a single, standard name. In Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Eastern Shaanxi and also Beijing, Tianjin and the Northeastern provinces, the script is referred to as , which when shortened becomes or (the latter has the meaning of "to review" in the aforementioned regions). In Ningxia, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Western Shaanxi and the Northwestern provinces, the script is referred to as . The Dongxiang people refer to it as the "Dongxiang script" or the "Huihui script"; The Salar refer to it as the "Salar script"; The Dungan of Central Asia used a variation of Xiao'erjing called the "Hui script", before being made to abandon the Arabic script for Latin and Cyrillic. According to A. Kalimov, a famous Dungan linguist, the Dungan of the former Soviet Union called this script .
Origins
Since the arrival of Islam during the Tang Dynasty (beginning in the mid-7th century), many Arabic and Persian speaking people migrated into China. Centuries later, these peoples assimilated with the native Han Chinese, forming the Hui ethnicity of today. Many Chinese Muslim students attended madrasas to study Classical Arabic and the Qur'an. Because these students had a very basic understanding of Chinese characters but would have a better command of the spoken tongue once assimilated, they started using the Arabic script for Chinese. This was often done by writing notes in Chinese to aid in the memorization of surahs. This method was also used to write Chinese translations of Arabic vocabulary learned in the madrasas. Thus, a system of writing the Chinese language with Arabic script gradually developed and standardized to some extent. Currently, the oldest known artifact showing signs of Xiao'erjing is a stone stele in the courtyard of in Xi'an in the province of Shaanxi. The stele shows inscribed Qur'anic verses in Arabic as well as a short note of the names of the inscribers in Xiao'erjing. The stele was done in the year AH 740 in the Islamic calendar (between July 9, 1339, and June 26, 1340). Some old Xiao'erjing manuscripts (along with other rare texts including those from Dunhuang) are preserved in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Usage
Xiao'erjing can be divided into two sets, the "Mosque system" and the "Daily system". The "Mosque system" is the system used by pupils and imams in mosques and madrasahs. It contains much Arabic and Persian religious lexicon, and no usage of Chinese characters. This system is relatively standardised, and could be considered a true writing system. The "Daily system" is the system used by the less educated for letters and correspondences on a personal level. Often simple Chinese characters are mixed in with the Arabic script, mostly discussing non-religious matters, and therewith relatively little Arabic and Persian loans. This practice can differ drastically from person to person. The system would be devised by the writer himself, with one's own understanding of the Arabic and Persian alphabets, mapped accordingly to one's own dialectal pronunciation. Often, only the letter's sender and the letter's receiver can understand completely what is written, while being very difficult for others to read. Unlike Hui Muslims in other areas of China, Muslims of the northwest provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu had no knowledge of the Han Kitab or Classical Chinese, they used Xiao'erjing. Xiao'erjing was used to annotate in Chinese, foreign language Islamic documents in languages like Persian.
Xiao'erjing was used mostly by Muslims who could not read Chinese characters. It was imperfect due to various factors. The differing Chinese dialects would require multiple different depictions with Xiao'erjing. Xiao'erjing cannot display the tones present in Chinese, syllable endings are indistinguishable, i.e. xi'an and xian. Xiao'erjing was much simpler than Chinese characters for representing Chinese.
Modern usage
In recent years, the usage of Xiao'erjing is nearing extinction due to the growing economy of the People's Republic of China and the improvement of the education of Chinese characters in rural areas of China. Chinese characters along with Hanyu Pinyin have since replaced Xiao'erjing. Since the mid-1980s, there has been much scholarly work done within and outside China concerning Xiao'erjing. On-location research has been conducted and the users of Xiao'erjing have been interviewed. Written and printed materials of Xiao'erjing were also collected by researchers, the ones at Nanjing University being the most comprehensive. is leading a project in Japan concerning Xiao'erjing. Books are printed in Xiao'erjing. In Arabic language Qur'ans, Xiao'erjing annotations are used to help women read. Xiao'erjing is used to explain certain terms when used as annotations. Xiao'erjing is also used to write Chinese language Qurans.
A Dachang Hui Imam, Ma Zhenwu, wrote a Qur'an translation into Chinese including Chinese characters and Xiao'erjing.
Alphabet
Xiao'erjing has 31 letters, 4 of which are used to represent vowel sounds. The 31 letters consists of 28 letters borrowed from Arabic, 4 letters borrowed from Persian along with 2 modified letters and 1 extra letters unique to Xiao'erjing.
Initials and consonants
Below table demonstrates the list of consonants, and cases in which two consonants represent the same initial, in the Bopomofo order.
Note:
د is more commonly used instead of ݣ‌ in Linxia manuscripts to better closely match the local dialect's pronunciation.
ٿ is more commonly used instead of ک in Linxia manuscripts to better closely match the local dialect's pronunciation.
Below is the list of initials and consonants used in Xiao'erjing.
Additional consonants
The consonants in this list are either lesser used alternatives used in regional varieties of Xiao'erjing, or they are common Arabic or Persian letters that are exclusively used for writing loan words in Xiao'erjing texts.
Finals and vowels
Below is the list of final and vowel endings in each syllable representing each Hanzi in Xiao'erjing.
Vowels in Arabic and Persian loans follow their respective orthographies, namely, only the long vowels are represented and the short vowels are omitted. Although the sukun can be omitted when representing Arabic and Persian loans, it cannot be omitted when representing Chinese. The exception being that of oft-used monosyllabic words which can have the sukun omitted from writing. For example, when emphasised, "的" and "和" are written as and; when unemphasised, they can be written with the sukuns as and, or without the sukuns as and.
Similarly, the sukun can also sometimes represent the Chinese - final, as such. This is sometimes replaced by the fatḥatan, the kasratan, or the dammatan in manuscripts.
In polysyllabic words, the final 'alif that represents the long vowel -ā can be omitted and replaced by a fatḥah representing the short vowel -ă.
Xiao'erjing is similar to Hanyu Pinyin in the respect that words are written as one, while a space is inserted between words. A shall be used for separation between different syllables within the same word. Unlike Persian or Arabic, syllables (each representing one Hanji character) are not continuously connected.
When representing Chinese words, the shaddah sign represents a doubling of the entire syllable on which it rests. It has the same function as the Chinese iteration mark "々".
Arabic punctuation marks can be used with Xiao'erjing as can Chinese punctuation marks, they can also be mixed (Chinese pauses and periods with Arabic commas and quotation marks).
Correspondence chart between Pinyin and Xiao'erjing
Example
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Xiao'erjing, simplified and traditional Chinese characters, Hanyu Pinyin and English:
Xiao'erjing
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Correspondense between Chinese characters and Xiao'erjing
Pinyin
English "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
See also
:Category:Arabic alphabets
Islam in China
Sini (script)
Jawi alphabet
Aljamiado
Arebica
Uyghur Arabic alphabet
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
A. Forke. Ein islamisches Tractat aus Turkistan // T’oung pao. Vol. VIII. 1907.
O.I. Zavyalova. Sino-Islamic language contacts along the Great Silk Road: Chinese texts written in Arabic Script // Chinese Studies (《漢學研究》). Taipei: 1999. No. 1.
Xiaojing Qur'an (《小經古蘭》), Dongxiang County, Lingxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu, PRC, 1987.
Huijiao Bizun (Xiaojing) (《回教必遵（小經）》), Islam Book Publishers, Xi'an, Shaanxi, PRC, 1993, 154 pp., photocopied edition.
Muhammad Musa Abdulihakim. Islamic faith Q&A (《伊斯兰信仰问答》) (2nd ed.). Beiguan Street Mosque, Xining, Qinghai, PRC, appendix contains a Xiao'erjing–Pinyin–Arabic comparison chart.
Feng Zenglie. Beginning Dissertation on Xiao'erjing: Introducing a phonetic writing system of the Arabic script adopted for Chinese in The Arab World (《阿拉伯世界》) Issue #1. 1982.
Chen Yuanlong. The Xiaojing writing system of the Dongxiang ethnicity in China's Dongxiang ethnicity (《中国东乡族》). People's Publishing House of Gansu. 1999.
Further reading
— blog post about the decline of Xiao'erjing and problems surrounding its use
Arabic alphabets
Transcription of Chinese