Xiao'erjing, often shortened to Xiaojing, is the practice of writing Sinitic languages—such as the Lanyin Mandarin, Zhongyuan Mandarin and Northeastern Mandarin dialects—or the Dungan language using the Perso-Arabic script. It is used on occasion by many ethnic minorities who adhere to Islam 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.
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
Dungan is a Sinitic language spoken primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia and Kyrgyzstan by the Dungan people, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China. Although it is derived from the Central Plains Mandarin of Gansu and Shaanxi, it is written in Cyrillic and contains loanwords and archaisms not found in other modern varieties of Mandarin.
Books in Dungan or about Dungan (in Russian or English). Most of them were published in Frunze, Kirghiz SSR in the 1970s and 80s
Bilingual sign in Dungan and Russian respectively, at the home of Soviet war hero Mansuz Vanakhun [ru]