Writing system for Chinese in the Perso-Arabic script
A book on law in Arabic, with a parallel Chinese translation in the Xiao'erjing script, published in Tashkent in 1899. The page on the left side shows the book information in Arabic. The page on the right has mixed lines of Arabic—marked by a continuous black line on top—and their Chinese translation in Xiao'erjing script, that follow the Arabic original on the same line.Pages from a Book titled "Questions and Answers on the Faith in Islam", Published in Xining, which includes a Xiao'erjing–Hanji transliteration chart, as well a paragraph that includes Arabic loanwords
Xiao'erjing is written from right to left, like other Perso-Arabic writing systems.
Xiao'erjing is unusual among Arabic script-based writing systems in that all vowels, long and short, are explicitly notated with diacritics, making it an abugida. Some other Arabic-based writing systems in China, such as the Uyghur Arabic alphabet, use letters and not diacritics to mark short vowels.
Nomenclature
Xiao'erjing does not have a single, standard name. In Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, and eastern Shaanxi, as well as also Beijing, Tianjin and the northeastern provinces, the script is referred to as Xiǎo'érjīng, which when shortened becomes Xiǎojīng or Xiāojīng (the latter Xiāo 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 Xiǎo'érjǐn. 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 щёҗин (şjoⱬin, 消經).
Origins
Since the arrival of Islam in Tang dynasty China 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 suras. 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 Daxue Xixiang Mosque [de] in Xi'an. 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 Literary Chinese, they used Xiao'erjing.[6] Xiao'erjing was used to annotate foreign language Islamic documents (in languages like Persian) using the Chinese language.[7]
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.[8] Xiao'erjing was much simpler than Chinese characters for representing Chinese.[9]
Modern usage
In recent years, the usage of Xiao'erjing is nearing extinction due to the growing Chinese economy and the improvement of Chinese character education in rural parts of the country. Chinese characters, along with 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. Kazuhiko Machida [ja] is leading a project in Japan concerning Xiao'erjing.[10] Books are printed in Xiao'erjing.[11] In Arabic language Qur'ans, Xiao'erjing annotations are used to help women read.[12] Xiao'erjing is used to explain certain terms when used as annotations.[13] Xiao'erjing is also used to write Chinese language Qurans.[14][15]
A Dachang Hui Imam, Ma Zhenwu, wrote a Qur'an translation into Chinese including Chinese characters and Xiao'erjing.[16]
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 letter 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.[1]
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.[1][17]
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 (دِ) and (حـَ); when unemphasised, they can be written with the sukuns as (دْ) and (حـْ), or without the sukuns as (د) and (حـ).
Similarly, the sukun can also sometimes represent the Chinese -[ŋ] final, as such (ـنْ / نْ). This is sometimes replaced by the fatḥatan (), the kasratan (), or the dammatan () in manuscripts.
In polysyllabic words, the final 'alif (ـا) 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 U+200CZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER (‌) 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).
Correspondences with pinyin
Example
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Xiao'erjing, as well as simplified and traditional Chinese characters, pinyin, and 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."
^ a b c d e f gSobieroj, Florian. (2019) "Standardisation in Manuscripts written in Sino-Arabic Scripts and xiaojing". Creating Standards: Interactions with Arabic script in 12 manuscript cultures, edited by Dmitry Bondarev, Alessandro Gori and Lameen Souag, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 177–216. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110639063-008
^Michael Dillon (1999). China's Muslim Hui community: migration, settlement and sects. Richmond: Curzon Press. p. 155. ISBN 0-7007-1026-4. Retrieved 2010-06-28.
^Howard Yuen Fung Choy (2008). Remapping the past: fictions of history in Deng's China, 1979–1997. Brill. p. 92. ISBN 978-90-04-16704-9. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Daftar-i Muṭālaʻāt-i Siyāsī va Bayn al-Milalī (Iran) (2000). The Iranian journal of international affairs, Volume 12. Institute for Political and International Studies. p. 52. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism (2003). Religion in communist lands, Volume 31. Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism. p. 13. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Tōkyō Daigaku. Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo (2006). International journal of Asian studies, Volumes 3–5. Cambridge University Press. p. 141. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Geoffrey Roper (1994). World survey of Islamic manuscripts. 4. (Supplement ; including indexes of languages, names and titles of collections of volumes I-IV), Volumes 1–4. Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation. p. 96. ISBN 1-873992-11-4. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Jonathan Neaman Lipman (2004). Familiar strangers: a history of Muslims in Northwest China. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 51. ISBN 0-295-97644-6. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
^Geoffrey Roper (1994). World survey of Islamic manuscripts. 4. (Supplement ; including indexes of languages, names and titles of collections of volumes I-IV), Volumes 1–4. Al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation. p. 71. ISBN 1-873992-11-4. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
^Stéphane A. Dudoignon (2008). Central Eurasian Reader: a biennial journal of critical bibliography and epistemology of Central Eurasian Studies, Volume 1. Schwarz. p. 12. ISBN 978-3-87997-347-7. Retrieved 2010-11-28.
^Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism (2003). Religion in communist lands, Volume 31. Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism. p. 14. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Suad Joseph, Afsaneh Najmabadi (2003). Encyclopedia of women & Islamic cultures, Volume 1. Brill. p. 126. ISBN 90-04-13247-3. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Daftar-i Muṭālaʻāt-i Siyāsī va Bayn al-Milalī (Iran) (2000). The Iranian journal of international affairs, Volume 12. Institute for Political and International Studies. p. 42. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Archives de sciences sociales des religions, Volume 46, Issues 113–116. Centre national de la recherche scientifique. 2001. p. 25. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
^Kees Versteegh; Mushira Eid (2005). Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics: A-Ed. Brill. pp. 381–. ISBN 978-90-04-14473-6.
^Garnaut, Anthony (March 2006). "The Islamic Heritage in China: A General Survey". China Heritage Newsletter (5).
^Suutarinen, M. (2015). Arabic Script among China’s Muslims: A Dongxiang folk story. Studia Orientalia Electronica, 113, 197–208. Retrieved from https://journal.fi/store/article/view/51814
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.
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
Look up Xiao'erjing in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Machida, Kazuhiko; Ando, Junichiro; Kuroiwa, Takashi; Sato, Minoru; Sugawara, Jun; Wang, Jianxin; Yoshizawa, Seiichiro. "Corpus of "Xiao-Er-Jin" Script of Muslim Chinese: Collection and Digitalization". Grammatological Informatics based on Corpora of Asian Scripts. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
"Xiao'erjin [sic] is not quite Pinyin". Sinoglot. — blog post about the decline of Xiao'erjing and problems surrounding its use
"Xiao'erjing Conversion Tool". 17 October 2023. — Chinese to Xiao'erjing online transcription tool.
) 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 (دِ) and (حـَ); when unemphasised, they can be written with the sukuns as (دْ) and (حـْ), or without the sukuns as (د) and (حـ).
), the kasratan (
), or the dammatan (
) in manuscripts.
) representing the short vowel -ă.