1.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
2.
Uyghur language
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Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family, like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination, lacks noun classes or grammatical gender, and is a left-branching language with subject–object–verb word order. More distinctly Uyghur processes include, especially in dialects, vowel reduction. In addition to influence of other Turkic languages, Uyghur has historically been influenced strongly by Persian and Arabic, the modified Arabic-derived writing system is the most common and the only standard in China, although other writing systems are used for auxiliary and historical purposes. Unlike most Arabic-derived scripts, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet has mandatory marking of all due to modifications to the original Perso-Arabic script made in the 20th century. Two Latin and one Cyrillic alphabet are used, though to a much lesser extent. The Arabic and Latin alphabets both have 32 characters, the Middle Turkic languages are the direct ancestor of the Karluk languages, including Uyghur and the Uzbek language. Kagan Arik wrote that Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur, rather, according to Gerard Clauson, Western Yugur is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur, and is also called Neo-Uyghur. Modern Uyghur is not a descendant of Old Uyghur, but is descended from the Xākānī language described by Mahmud al-Kashgari in Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk, the Western Yugur language, although in geographic proximity, is more closely related to the Siberian Turkic languages in Siberia. Robert Dankoff wrote that the Turkic language spoken in Kashgar and used in Kara Khanid works was Karluk, robert Barkley Shaw wrote, In the Turkish of Káshghar and Yarkand. This would seem in many case to be a misnomer as applied to the language of Kashghar. Other Kara-Khanid writers wrote works in the Turki Karluk Khaqani language, yusuf Khass Hajib wrote the Kutadgu Bilig. Ahmad bin Mahmud Yukenaki wrote the Hibat al-ḥaqāyiq, after Chaghatai fell into extinction, the standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chagatai-speaking region, showing abundant Chaghatai influence. Uyghur language today shows considerable Persian influence as a result from Chagatai, Modern Uyghur religious literature includes the Taẕkirah, biographies of Islamic religious figures and saints. The Taẕkirah is a genre of literature written about Sufi Muslim saints in Altishahr, the shrines of Sufi Saints are revered in Altishahr as one of Islams essential components and the tazkirah literature reinforced the sacredness of the shrines. Anyone who does not believe in the stories of the saints is guaranteed hellfire by the tazkirahs and it is written, And those who doubt Their Holinesses the Imams will leave this world without faith, and on Judgement Day their faces will be black. In the Tazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams, Shaw translated extracts from the Tazkiratul-Bughra on the Muslim Turki war against the infidel Khotan. The Turki-language Tadhkirah i Khwajagan was written by M. Sadiq Kashghari, historical works like the Tārīkh-i amniyya and Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi were written by Musa Sayrami
3.
Kazakh language
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Kazakh belongs to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic languages. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz, and especially Karakalpak, Kazakh is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs through the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Germany. Like other Turkic languages, Kazakh is a language. The Kazakh language has its speakers spread over a vast territory from the Tian Shan to the shore of Caspian Sea. Kazakh is the state language of Kazakhstan, in which nearly 10 million speakers are reported to live. In China, more than one million ethnic Kazakhs and Kazakh speakers reside in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang. Today, Kazakh is written in Cyrillic in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, the oldest known written records of languages closely related to Kazakh were written in the Old Turkic alphabet. However, it is not believed any of these varieties were direct predecessors of Kazakh. Modern Kazakh has historically been written using versions of the Latin, in October 2006, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, brought up the topic of using the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet as the official script for Kazakh in Kazakhstan. A Kazakh government study released in September 2007 said that Kazakhstan could feasibly switch to a Latin script over a 10- to 12-year period, the transition was halted temporarily on December 13,2007, with President Nazarbayev declaring, “For 70 years the Kazakhstanis read and wrote in Cyrillic. More than 100 nationalities live in our state, thus we need stability and peace. We should be in no hurry in the issue of alphabet transformation”, Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony, with some words of recent foreign origin as exceptions. There is also a system of rounding harmony which resembles that of Kyrgyz, the following chart depicts the consonant inventory of standard Kazakh, many of the sounds, however, are allophones of other sounds or appear only in recent loan-words. The 18 consonant phonemes listed by Vajda are in bold—since these are phonemes, their place and manner of articulation are very general. The borrowed phonemes /f/, /v/, /ɕ/, /t͡ɕ/ and /x/, only occur in recent mostly Russian borrowings, in the table, the elements left of a divide are voiceless, while those to the right are voiced. Kazakh has a system of nine phonemic vowels, three of which are diphthongs, the rounding contrast and /æ/ generally only occur as phonemes in the first syllable of a word, but do occur later allophonically, see the section on harmony below for more information. According to Vajda, the quality of vowels is actually one of neutral versus retracted tongue root. Per convention, rounded vowels are presented to the right of their unrounded counterparts, phonetic values are paired with the corresponding character in Kazakhs Cyrillic alphabet
4.
County-level city
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A county-level municipality, county-level city, or county city is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions. Most county-level cities were created in the 1980s and 1990s by replacing counties, a county-level city is a city and county that have been merged into one unified jurisdiction. As such it is simultaneously a city, which is an entity. County-level cities are not cities in the strictest sense of the word, since they usually contain rural areas many times the size of their urban and this is because the counties that county-level cities have replaced are themselves large administrative units containing towns, villages, and farmland. To distinguish a city from its actual urban area, the term 市区 shìqū. In France, an equivalent of a city is an agglomeration community. For example, in New South Wales such a unit may often be called a city, city of Blue Mountains is made of a number of towns. Another example would be municipal government in the Canadian province of Ontario and this agglomeration includes all of the townships in the county of Kent, with cities and towns like Wallaceberg, Thamesville, Dresden, Wheatley. This amalgamation as it is referred to, was controversial when it was forced upon the constituents through provincial legislation. Today, instead of each city having its own mayor and city councillors, as of January 2017, there are 360 County-level city in total, A sub-prefecture-level city is a county-level city with powers approaching those of prefecture-level cities. Examples include, Xiantao, Qianjiang, Tianmen and Jiyuan, administrative divisions of China Counties of the Peoples Republic of China Prefecture-level city List of cities in China
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Autonomous regions of China
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An autonomous region is a first-level administrative subdivision of China. Like Chinese provinces, a region has its own local government. An autonomous region is a minority entity which has a population of a particular minority ethnic group. The Inner Mongolia autonomous region was established in 1947, Xinjiang was made autonomous in 1955, Guangxi and Ningxia in 1958, and Tibet in 1965. The designation of Guangxi and Ningxia as Zhuang and Hui autonomous areas, respectively, was protested by the local Han Chinese. Although Mongols made up less than a percentage of Inner Mongolia. Note, In the Third Largest Ethnic Group column is the group given in brackets, after the names of the autonomous regions. Administrative divisions of China Provinces of China Special administrative regions of China Autonomous prefectures of China
7.
Xinjiang
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Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a provincial-level autonomous region of China in the northwest of the country. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and the 8th largest country subdivision in the world and it contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin, which is administered by China. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiangs borders, as well as its western and southern regions. Xinjiang also borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu, the most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang and it is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Hui, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Russians. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang, older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range, only about 4. 3% of Xinjiangs land area is fit for human habitation. With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, the territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, which was later replaced by the Republic of China government. Since 1949, it has been part of the Peoples Republic of China following the Chinese Civil War, in 1954, Xinjiang Bingtuan was set up to strengthen the border defense against the Soviet Union, and also promote the local economy. In 1955, Xinjiang was turned into a region from a province. In the last decades, there have been tensions regarding Xinjiangs political status, amnesty International said that activists in Xinjiang have been arrested and tortured. Under the Han dynasty, which drove the Xiongnu empire out of the region in 60 BC, Xinjiang was previously known as Xiyu or Qurighar and this was in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road. Dzungaria was known as Zhunbu and the Tarim Basin was known as Huijiang during the Qing dynasty before both regions were merged and became the region of Gansu Xinjiang, later simplified as Xinjiang. The name Xinjiang, which literally means New Frontier or New Borderland, was given during the Qing dynasty, according to the Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtangs report to the Emperor of Qing, Xinjiang means an old land newly returned. For instance, present-day Jinchuan County was known as Jinchuan Xinjiang, in the same manner, present-day Xinjiang was known as Xiyu Xinjiang and Gansu Xinjiang. After 1821, the Qing changed the names of the other regained regions, the name East Turkestan was created by Russian sinologist Hyacinth to replace the term Chinese Turkestan in 1829. East Turkestan was used traditionally to only refer to the Tarim Basin, in 1955, Xinjiang province was renamed Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The name that was proposed was simply Xinjiang Autonomous Region
8.
Autonomous prefectures of China
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All autonomous prefectures are mostly dominated, in population, by the Han Chinese. The official name of an autonomous prefecture includes the most dominant minority in that region, for example, a Kazakh prefecture may be called Kazak Zizhizhou. Like all other prefectural level divisions, autonomous prefectures are divided into county level divisions, there is one exception, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture contains two prefectures of its own. Under the Constitution of the Peoples Republic of China, autonomous prefectures cannot be abolished
9.
Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
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Ili or Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in northernmost Xinjiang is the only Kazakh autonomous prefecture in China. Capital, Yining Geographic coordinates, 79º5030″ – 84º5650″ East, 42º1416″ – 44º5030″ North The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture is west of Mongolia, south of Russia and east of Kazakhstan. Its foreign boundary is 2,000 km, generally located between Altai Mountains and the range of Tian Shan, occupying most of the Dzungarian Basin in northern Xinjiang. The prefecture-level city of Karamay is completely surrounded and divided by the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture but is not part of it, the upper course of the Ili River and that of Irtysh River flow through the prefecture. The directly administrated region is coterminous with the historical area that in the past was often called by Russians. Before the advent of the Qin dynasty, Ili was occupied by the Ussuns, the Ussuns were driven away in the 6th century AD by the northern Xiongnu, who established the Turkic Khaganate in 552. Later this Khulja territory became a dependency of Dzungaria, during the Tang dynasty, the khanate became the Protectorate General to Pacify the West of the Tang Empire. The Uyghur Khaganate, and in the 12th century the Kara-Khitai, genghis Khan conquered Kulja in the 13th century, and the Mongol Khans resided in the valley of the Ili. It is supposed that the Oirats conquered it at the end of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th century. The Oirats, or more precisely Dzungars, controlled both Dzungaria and the Ili Basin until 1755 as the Dzungar Khanate, when it was annexed by the Manchu-run Qing dynasty under the Qianlong Emperor. Having defeated the Dzungars in the Dzungarian and Ili Basins, as well as the Afaqi Khojas in Kashgaria and it was provided with a large penal establishment and a strong garrison. This city was called New Kulja, Manhcu Kulja, Chinese Kulja, or Ili by the Russians and Westerners, to distinguish it from Nigyuan/Yining, the first General of Ili was Ming Rui. The Qing tradition, unbroken until the days of Zuo Zongtang in the 1870s, was to only appoint Manchus as officials in Xinjiang, during the insurrection of 1864 the Dungans and Taranchis of the area formed the Taranchi Sultanate. Huiyuan was the last Qing fortress in the Ili Valley to fall to the rebels, the insurgent Dungans massacred most of Manchu Kuljas inhabitants, Governor General Mingsioi assembled his family and staff in his mansion, and blew it up, dying under its ruins. The sultanate led to the occupation of the Ili basin by the Russians in 1871, ten years later the territory was restored to China, and its boundary with Russia was assigned in accordance to the Treaty of Saint Petersburg. After Chinese authority was restored, the Manchu Kuldja was rebuilt as the city of Suiding, on January 7,1912, Yang Cuanxu of Ili occupied Huiyuan Town and shot the last Qing General of Ili, Zhi Rui. In July 1945, Chingil, Bole and Quanxi of Ili were made into a new autonomous prefecture now not part of Ili, in 1949, Ili was made a special area of Xinjiang, with one city and nine counties, and was upgraded to a city in 1952. On November 27,1954, the Ili Autonomous Prefecture was established to include the prefectures of Ili, Altay, the Ili Prefecture was abolished in 1955
10.
Time in China
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The time in China follows a single standard time offset of UTC+08,00, despite China spanning five geographical time zones. The official national standard time is called Beijing Time domestically and China Standard Time internationally, daylight saving time has not been observed since 1991. The special administrative regions maintain their own authorities, with standards called Hong Kong Time. These have been equivalent to Beijing time since 1992, in addition, a second time standard is used in Xinjiang, two hours less than the Beijing Time, which is called Ürümqi Time or Xinjiang Time. In 1912, the Republic of China established five standard time zones, namely Kunlun, Sinkiang-Tibet, Kansu-Szechwan, Chungyuan, and Changpai. The unified time zone policy was adopted by the Communist Party of China or the Central People’s Government some time between 27 September 1949 and 6 October 1949, the date is unknown. However, recent research suggests that the policy was most likely adopted on 27 September 1949, daylight saving time was observed from 1986 to 1991. In 1997 and 1999, Hong Kong and Macau were transferred to China from the United Kingdom and Portugal, although the sovereignty of the SARs belongs to China, they retain their own policies regarding time zones for historical reasons. Due to their locations, both are within the UTC+08,00 time zone, which is the same as the national standard — Beijing time. Xinjiang Time, also known as Ürümqi Time, is set due to its location in the westernmost part of the country. The time offset is UTC+06,00, which is two hours behind Beijing, and is shared with neighbouring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time. Some local authorities are now using both time standard side by side, the coexistence of two timezones within the same region causes some confusion among the local population, especially when inter-racial communication occur. Some ethnic Han in Xinjiang might not be aware of the existence of the UTC+6 Xinjiang Time because of language barrier, regardless, Beijing Time users in Xinjiang usually schedule their daily activities two hours later than those who live in eastern China. As such, stores and offices in Xinjiang are commonly opening from 10am to 7pm Beijing Time and this is known as the work/rest time in Xinjiang. Hong Kong maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong Time is UTC+08,00 all year round, and daylight saving time has not been used since 1979. Greenwich Mean Time was adopted as the basis in 1904, before that, local time was determined by astronomical observations at Hong Kong Observatory using a 6-inch Lee Equatorial and a 3-inch Transit Circle. Macau maintains its own time authority after transfer of sovereignty in 1999, the Macau Standard Time is the time in Macau
11.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
12.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
13.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
14.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
15.
Mongolian script
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Derived from Sogdian, Mongolian is a true alphabet, with separate letters for consonants and vowels. The Mongolian script has adapted to write languages such as Oirat. Alphabets based on this classical vertical script are used in Inner Mongolia and other parts of China to this day to write Mongolian, Xibe and, experimentally, the Mongolian vertical script developed as an adaptation of the Sogdian to the Mongolian language. From the seventh and eighth to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in the western dialect, materials of the Arab-Mongolian and Persian-Mongolian dictionaries, Mongolian texts in Arabic transcription, etc. The development over this period explains why Mongolian script looks like a vertical Arabic script, zain was dropped as it was redundant for. Various schools of orthography, some using diacritics, were developed to avoid ambiguity, the Uyghur script and its descendants—Mongolian, Oirat Clear, Manchu, and Buryat—are the only vertical scripts written from left to right. Mongols learned their script as a syllabary, dividing the syllables into twelve different classes, based on the final phonemes of the syllables, all of which ended in vowels. The Manchus followed the same syllabic method when learning Manchu script, Manchus when learning, instead of saying l, a---la, l, o---lo, etc. were taught at once to say la, lo, etc. Many more syllables than are contained in their syllabary might have formed with their letters. Manchu children were taught the language via the syllabic method, some westerners learn the script in an alphabetic manner instead. Today, the opinion on whether it is alphabet or syllabic in nature is still split between different experts, in China, it is considered syllabic and Manchu is still taught in this manner. The alphabetic approach is used mainly by foreigners who want to learn the language, studying Manchu script as a syllabary takes a longer time. The Traditional Mongolian script is known by a variety of names. Due to its shape like Uighur script, it known as the Uighurjin Mongol script. The name Old Mongol script stuck, and it is known as such among the older generation. It does not distinguish several vowels and consonants that were not required for Uyghur, the result is somewhat comparable to the situation of English, which must represent ten or more vowels with only five letters and uses the digraph th for two distinct sounds. Ambiguity is sometimes prevented by context, as the requirements of vowel harmony, moreover, as there are few words with an exactly identical spelling, actual ambiguities are rare for a reader who knows the orthography. Letters have different forms depending on their position in a word, initial, medial, in some cases, additional graphic variants are selected for visual harmony with the subsequent character
16.
Uyghur Latin alphabet
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The Uyghur Latin alphabet is an auxiliary alphabet for the Uyghur language based on the Latin script. Uyghur is primarily written in an Arabic alphabet and sometimes in a Cyrillic alphabet, in January 2008, the ULY project was amended and identified by Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regional Working Committee of Minorities Language and Writing. The letters in the ULY are, in order, The creators of ULY strongly emphasized that “the proposed alphabet should not replace nor should its introduction represent a new reform of the writing system and it is to be used solely in computer-related fields as an ancillary writing system”. The importance of having one-to-one correspondence between both Latin and Arabic is noteworthy, the different orthographies are compared in the following table. Below follows an example of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Uyghur, Uyghur Ereb Yëziqi Uyghur alphabets An Introduction to LSU
17.
Huocheng County
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Huocheng County is situated within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and under the administration of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. It is located between Yining and the border of Kazakhstan, occupying an area of 5,466 km2 and has a population of 360,000, including the Han and Uyghur nationalities, there are twenty nine ethnic groups living in the county. North of Huocheng City is the Tianshan District, to the lies the Ili River. Its Western side is Chinas border with Kazakhstan, Yining lies about 45 km to the east, within Huocheng County lies the important ruined site of ancient Almaliq. The mausoleum of the first khan of Moghulistan Tughlugh Timur is within the county as well, the county includes five towns, three villages, and two ethnic-minority villages. The towns, Süydüng, Chingsixoza, Losigung, Küre, Sarbulaq Townships, Lengger, Sandixoza, IchigashenXibe ethnic village, Sengung Hui ethnic village, Dashigu. In agriculture, the local population cultivate wheat, corn and other crops including sugar beet, cotton, tobacco, apples, animal husbandry with cattle and sheep. The main minerals extracted in the area include coal, phosphorus, iron, gold, silver, copper, limestone, Iceland spar and marble, Huocheng is served by China National Highway 312 and the Jinghe-Yining-Khorgas Railway. There is a crossing into Kazakhstan at Khorgas, where the road continues to Zharkent in Panfilov District. The Jinghe–Yining–Khorgas Railway through Huocheng county was completed in 2010, reaching practically to the Kazakhstan border, there are plans to construct a connecting railway line on the Kazakh side, creating Chinas second railway link to Central Asia besides Alashankou. Full text available at Google Books, there is also a 2001 facsimile reprint of the 1885 edition, ISBN 1-4021-7762-3
18.
Ili River
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The Ili River is a river in northwestern China and southeastern Kazakhstan. It flows from the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to the Almaty Province in Kazakhstan and it is 1,439 kilometres long,815 kilometres of which is in Kazakhstan. It takes its beginning in eastern Tian Shan from the Tekes and Kunges rivers, the Ili River drains the basin between the Tian Shan and the Borohoro Mountains to the north. Flowing into Lake Balkhash, the Ili forms a delta with vast wetland regions of lakes, marshes. Earlier mentions of Ili river is in Mahmud al-Kashgaris dictionary of Turkic languages, in the book, author defines, Ili, name of a river. Turkic tribes of Yaghma, Tokhsi and Chiglig live on its banks, turkish countries regard the river as their Jayhoun. The name is originated from Uyghur word Il, means hook in English. The upper Ili Valley is separated from the Dzungarian Basin in the north by the Borohoro Mountains, presently, the region forms part of Xinjiangs Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. The main city of the region, Yining, is located on the side of the river some 100 kilometres upstream from the international border. Until the early 1900s, the city was known under the same name as the river. There are at least two dams on the Ilis right tributary, the Kash River in Nilka County, at 43°51′40″N 82°50′52″E, the region of Kazakhstan partially drained by the Ili and its tributaries is known in Kazakh as Zhetysu and in Russian as Semirechye. Tamgaly-Tas, some 20 kilometres downstream along Ili River is the site of rock drawings, the name Tamgaly in Kazakh means painted or marked place, Tas means stone. The Ili River discharges into the edge of Lake Balkhash. The delta is situated between the Saryesik-Atyrau Desert and the Taukum Desert, until 1948 the delta was a refuge of the extinct Turan tiger. A reintroduction project of the Siberian tiger to the delta has been proposed, since the Siberian tiger has turned out to be the closest relative, it has been proposed to introduce this subspecies instead. Large populations of wild boar, which were a main base of the Turan tiger. There are also some roe deer and in the steppes to the south of Lake Balkhash live saiga antelopes. A reintroduction of the Buchara deer, which was once an important prey item is under consideration, Buchara deer live in the forests at the Kapchagay Reservoir
19.
Chagatai Khanate
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The Chagatai Khanate was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan, second son of Genghis Khan, and his descendants and successors. Initially it was a part of the Mongol Empire, but it became a functionally separate khanate with the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259. The Chagatai Khanate recognized the supremacy of the Yuan dynasty in 1304. At its height in the late 13th century, the Khanate extended from the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea to the Altai Mountains in the border of modern-day Mongolia and China. The khanate lasted in one form or another from 1220s until the late 17th century, the eastern half remained under Chagatai khans, who were, at times, allied or at war with Timurs successors, the Timurid dynasty. Genghis Khans empire was inherited by his son, Ögedei Khan. Tolui, the youngest, the keeper of the hearth, was accorded the northern Mongolian homeland, Chagatai Khan, the second son, received Transoxiana, between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers and the area around Kashgar. He made his capital at Almaliq near what is now Yining City in northwestern China, the transition had to be ratified in a kurultai, which was duly celebrated, but without the presence of Batu Khan, the independent-minded khan of the Golden Horde. The Ögedite ulus was dismembered, only the Ögedites who did not immediately go into opposition were given minor fiefs, Chagatai died in 1242, shortly after his brother Ögedei. For nearly twenty years after this the Chagatai Khanate was little more than a dependency of the Mongol central government, the cities of Transoxiana, while located within the boundaries of the khanate, were administrated by officials who answered directly to the Great Khan. Most of the Chagatayids first supported Kublai but in 1269 they joined forces with the House of Ögedei, baraq was soon confined to Transoxiana and forced to become a vassal of Kaidu. At the same time, he was at odds with Abaqa Khan, the Ilkhan, baraq attacked first, but was defeated by the Ilkhanate army and forced to return to Transoxiana, where he died not long after. The next several Chagatayid khans were appointed by Kaidu, who maintained a hold upon the khanate until his death and he finally found a suitable khan in Baraqs son Duwa, who participated in Kaidus wars with Kublai khan and his successors of the Yuan dynasty. The two rulers also were active against the Ilkhanate, after Kaidus death in 1301, Duwa threw off his allegiance to his successor. He also made peace with the Yuan dynasty and paid tributes to the Yuan court, Duwa left behind numerous sons, many of whom became khans themselves. Included among these are Kebek, who instituted a standardization of the coinage and selected a sedentary capital, and Tarmashirin, Tarmashirin, however, was brought down by a rebellion of the tribes in the eastern provinces, and the khanate became increasingly unstable in the following years. In 1346 a tribal chief, Amir Qazaghan, killed the Chagatai khan Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur during a revolt, the Chagatai Khanate split into two parts in the 1340s. In Transoxiana in the west, the mostly Muslim tribes, led by the Qaraunas amirs, seized control
20.
Dzungar Khanate
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The Dzungar Khanate, also written as the Zunghar Khanate, was an Oirat khanate on the Eurasian Steppe. It covered the area called Dzungaria and stretched from the west end of the Great Wall of China to present-day Kazakhstan, most of this area today is part of the Xinjiang autonomous region in China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. The Dzungar Khanate was the last major nomadic empire left from the Mongol Empire, in 1678, Galdan received from the Dalai Lama the title of Boshogtu Khan, thus confirming the Dzungars as the leading tribe within the Oirats. However, the Dzungar rulers bore the title of Khong Tayiji, Dzungar is a compound of the Mongolian word jegün, meaning left or east and γar meaning hand or wing. The region of Dzungaria derives its name from this confederation, although the Dzungars were located west of the Eastern Mongols, the derivation of their name has been attributed to the fact that they represented the left wing of the Oirats. In the early 17th century, the head of the Oirat confederation was the leader of the Khoshut, Gushi Khan. When Gushi Khan decided to invade Tibet to replace the local Tsangpa Khan in favor of the Tibetan Geluk Sect, the Dzungar Khanate is memorable because it was the last of the steppe nomadic empires and because of its influence on the westward expansion of the Chinese state. About 1620 the Oirats or western Mongols became united in Dzungaria, by about 1680 they had conquered the Tarim Basin to the south. In 1688 Galdan defeated the Khalkhas or eastern Mongols, many of whom fled southeast to Inner Mongolia where they became, in 1696, the Manchu defeated Galdan near Ulan Bator, chased him westward and gained control over Outer Mongolia. In 1717 Tsewang Rabtan sent an army to Tibet, the Manchu drove the Dzungars out and established a protectorate over Tibet. In 1750-57, the Manchu took advantage of a Dzungar civil war to conquer Dzungaria, the Manchu turned south and annexed the Tarim Basin by 1759, thus completing the current western border of China. The chiefs of the Dzungars were of the Choros lineage and reckoned their descent from the Oirat taishis Toghoon, Early in his reign, Khara Kula united the Choros, Dorbod and Khoid tribes, thus forming the Dzungar nation. In the 1620s wars against the Khalkha, he could gain decisive victory over the Eastern Mongols, the Oirats homeland was under the dominion of Jasaghtu Khan of the Khalkha. In 1623 the Oirat confederation killed Ubashi Khong Tayiji, and secured their independence, at the time, only Torobaikhu, a leader of the Khoshud tribe could claim the title of Khan while Baatur Dalai Taishi of the Dorbods was considered the most powerful Oirat chief. Even so, Khara Khulas son Baatur Khung Taiji joined the 1636-42 expedition to Tibet led by Güshi Khan Torobaikhu, after Baatur returned to Dzungaria with the title Erdeni and much booty, he made three expeditions against the Kazakhs. With the migrations of the Torghuds, the Khoshuds and the Dorbods from 1630 to 1677, the conflicts by the Dzungars are remembered in a Kazakh ballad Elim-ai. The Dzungars went to war against the Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Uzbeks, in 1653 Sengge succeeded his father Baatur Khung Taiji as Dzungarian chief, but an internal strife with his half brother Chechen Tayiji involved the Khoshuud. From 1657 on, Amin-Daras sons Sengge and Galdan faced disafection from their half-brothers, with the support of Ochirtu Khan of the Khoshuud, this strife ended with Sengges victory in 1661
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Taranchi
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The same name – which simply means a farmer in Chagatai – can be extended to agrarian populations of the Ferghana Valley and oases of the entire Central Asian Turkestan. Although the Tarim Basin is the agrarian Taranchis traditional homeland, they have during the Qing period on China, migrated to regions that are now Urumqi and Ili. Many Taranchis were encouraged to settle in the Ili valley alongside sedentary Xibe garrisons, in the multiethnic Muslim culture of Xinjiang, the term Taranchi is considered contradistinctive to Sart, which denotes towns dwelling traders and craftsmen. It of course excluded the ruling classes of the oases Muslim states, in the early 20th century, the geopolitical Great Game between Russia and Great Britain resulted in the division of Central Asia among modern nation-states. All oases farmers native to Xinjiang became part of Uyghur nationality by 1934 and it is interesting to note that while most Sarts of oases or Ili Valley towns became part of the Uyghur nationality, those with particularly strong ties to regions west of Xinjiang became Uzbeks. Sometimes such divisions are arbitrary, because Kashgaris can be as distinctive from Turpanliks as they are from Andijanliks. The Turkic Muslim sedentary people of the Tarim Basin were originally ruled by the Chagatai Khanate while the nomadic Buddhist Oirat Mongol in Dzungaria ruled over the Dzungar Khanate. The Naqshbandi Sufi Khojas, descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, had replaced the Chagatayid Khans as the authority of the Tarim Basin in the early 17th century. There was a struggle between two factions of Khojas, the Afaqi faction and the Ishaqi faction, the Ishaqi defeated the Afaqi, which resulted in the Afaqi Khoja inviting the 5th Dalai Lama, the leader of the Tibetan Buddhists, to intervene on his behalf in 1677. The 5th Dalai Lama then called upon his Dzungar Buddhist followers in the Zunghar Khanate to act on this invitation, the Dzungar Khanate then conquered the Tarim Basin in 1680, setting up the Afaqi Khoja as their puppet ruler. Khoja Afaq asked the 5th Dalai Lama when he fled to Lhasa to help his Afaqi faction take control of the Tarim Basin, the Dzungar leader Galdan was then asked by the Dalai Lama to restore Khoja Afaq as ruler of Kashgararia. Khoja Afaq collaborated with Galdans Dzungars when the Dzungars conquered the Tarim Basin from 1678-1680, the Dalai Lama blessed Galdans conquest of the Tarim Basin and Turfan Basin. 67,000 patman of grain 48,000 silver ounces were forced to be paid yearly by Kashgar to the Dzungars, Trade, milling, and distilling taxes, corvée labor, saffron, cotton, and grain were also extracted by the Dzungars from the Tarim Basin. Every harvest season, women and food had to be provided to Dzungars when they came to extract the taxes from them, when the Dzungars levied the traditional nomadic Alban poll tax upon the Muslims of Altishahr, the Muslims viewed it as the payment of jizyah. The Turkic Muslims of the Turfan and Kumul Oases then submitted to the Qing dynasty of China, the Qing accepted the rulers of Turfan and Kumul as Qing vassals. The Qing then freed the Afaqi Khoja leader Burhan-ud-din and his brother Khoja Jihan from their imprisonment by the Dzungars, the Khoja brothers decided to renege on this deal and declare themselves as independent leaders of the Tarim Basin. The Qing and the Turfan leader Emin Khoja crushed their revolt, the Qing dynasty conquered the Zunghar Khanate in 1759 and thereafter perpetrated wholesale massacres and the Zunghar Genocide on the native Dzungar Oirat Mongol population. The dynasty consolidated their authority by settling Han Chinese, Hui, the Han, Hui, and Taranchi worked as farmers on state farms in the region to supply the Manchu garrison with food
22.
Shuiding
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Shuiding, formerly Suiding is a town in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China and the county seat of Huocheng County. It is located some 40 kilometres to the northwest of Yining, the city of the prefecture. As of the 200 census, Shuiding had a population of 29,277, the origins of Shuiding are tied to a site on the northern bank of the Ili River, some 8 kilometres to the south of the towns current location. It was the seat of the Governor General of the region, Huiyuan suffered severe damage during the Dungan Revolt of 1862-77 when the besieged General of Ili, Mingsioi, blew himself up in his palace rather than surrender to the rebels. The fort fell into disuse during the Russian occupation that followed between 1871-81, the towns then name, Suiding, was commonly transcribed in the West as Suidun. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica described Suidun as a town, with provision stores, an arsenal. Its walls are armed with steel guns, until 1898, Suiding remained the residence of the General of Ili, during the later days of the Qing Empire, he remained only in charge of the local banner troops and the nomadic tribes in the area. After the Xinhai Revolution, the post was abolished and it was known to the Russians as the New Kuldja, Chinese Kuldja, or Manchu Kuldja, to distinguish it from Yining. This usage is no longer current, in 1965, the name Suiding was replaced with more politically correct Shuiding, with shui replacing sui. The next year, Shuiding County was merged into Huocheng County, the original Huiyuan site is now a separate town of Huiyuan within the same Huocheng County as Shuiding. Huiyuans population was reported as 20,564 by the Year 2000 Census, some of the Qing period buildings, including a bell tower and a Governor Generals Pavilion, have been rebuilt at the Huiyuan site as a tourist attraction, often referred to as the Huiyuan Old Town. Full text available at Google Books, there is also a 2001 facsimile reprint of the 1885 edition and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. article name needed
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Manchu people
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The Manchu are an ethnic minority in China and the people from whom Manchuria derives its name. They are sometimes called red-tasseled Manchus, a reference to the ornamentation on traditional Manchu hats, the Later Jin, and Qing dynasty are established by Manchus, who are descended from the Jurchen people who earlier established the Jin dynasty in China. Manchus form the largest branch of the Tungusic peoples and are distributed throughout China and they can be found in 31 Chinese provincial regions. They also form the largest minority group in China without an autonomous region, among them, Liaoning has the largest population and Hebei, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Inner Mongolia and Beijing have over 100,000 Manchu residents. About half of the live in Liaoning and one-fifth in Hebei. The Sushen used flint-headed wooden arrows, farmed, hunted and fished, the cognates Sushen or Jichen again appear in the Shan Hai Jing and Book of Wei during the dynastic era referring to the Tungusic Mohe tribes of the far northeast. The Mohe practiced pig farming extensively and were sedentary. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybeans, wheat, millet and rice, in the 10th century CE, the term Jurchen first appeared in documents of the late Tang dynasty in reference to the state of Balhae in present-day northeastern China. Following the fall of Balhae, the Jurchens became vassals of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty, in the year 1114, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen tribes and established the Jin dynasty. His brother and successor, Wanyan Wuqimai defeated the Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Jurchens went to war with the Northern Song dynasty, and captured most of northern China in the Jin–Song wars. During the Jin dynasty, the first Jurchen script came into use in the 1120s and it was mainly derived from the Khitan script. The Jurchens were sedentary, settled farmers with advanced agriculture and they farmed grain and millet as their cereal crops, grew flax, and raised oxen, pigs, sheep and horses. Their farming way of life was different from the pastoral nomadism of the Mongols. In 1206, the Mongols, vassals to the Jurchens, rose in Mongolia and their leader, Genghis Khan, led Mongol troops against the Jurchens, who were finally defeated by Ögedei Khan in 1234. From that time, the Jurchens of North China increasingly merged with the Han Chinese while those living in their homeland started to be Mongolized and they adopted Mongolian customs, names and the Mongolian language. As time went on, fewer and fewer Jurchens could recognize their own script, the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty was replaced by the Ming dynasty in 1368. In 1387, Ming forces defeated the Mongol commander Naghachus resisting forces who settled in the Haixi area, at the time, some Jurchen clans were vassals to the Joseon dynasty of Korea such as Odoli and Huligai. Their elites served in the Korean royal bodyguard, the Joseon Koreans tried to deal with the military threat posed by the Jurchen by using both forceful means and incentives, and by launching military attacks
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Xinjing
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Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin Province, and is located in the northeast of China. Lying in the center of the Songliao Plain, Changchun is administered as a sub-provincial city, according to the 2010 census of China, Changchun had a total population of 7,674,439 under its jurisdiction. The citys urbanized area, comprising 5 districts and 4 development areas, had a population of 3,815,270 in 2010 as the Shuangyang, the name of the city means long spring in Chinese. Between 1932 and 1945, Changchun was renamed Hsinking by the Japanese as it became the capital of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo, after the foundation of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, Changchun was established as the provincial capital of Jilin in 1954. Known locally as Chinas City of Automobiles, Changchun is an important industrial base with a focus on the automotive sector. Because of its key role in the automobile industry, Changchun was sometimes referred to as the Detroit of China. Apart from this aspect, Changchun is also one of four National Garden Cities awarded by the Ministry of Construction of P. R. China in 2001 due to its high urban greening rate, Changchun was initially established on imperial decree as a small trading post and frontier village during the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor in the Qing dynasty. Trading activities mainly involved furs and other products during this period. In 1800, the Jiaqing Emperor selected a small village on the east bank of the Yitong River, at the end of 18th century peasants from overpopulated provinces such as Shandong and Hebei began to settle in the region. In 1889, the village was promoted into a city known as Changchun Fu, in May 1898, Changchun got its first railway station, located in Kuancheng, part of the railway from Harbin to Lüshun, constructed by the Russian Empire. After Russias loss of the southernmost section of this branch as a result of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, an epidemic of pneumonic plague occurred in surrounding Manchuria from 1910 to 1911. It was the worst-ever recorded outbreak of plague which was spread through the Trans-Manchurian railway from the border trade port of Manzhouli. This turned out to be the beginning of the pneumonic plague pandemic of Manchuria and Mongolia which ultimately claimed 60,000 victims. The Treaty of Portsmouth formally ended the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05 and saw the transfer, the guiding ideology of the overall design was to build a high standard colonial city with sophisticated facilities, multiple functions and large scale. Accordingly, nearly 7 million Yen on average was allocated on a basis for urban planning. The two helped forming two intersections with the prototypes, which led to two circles of South and West. The two sub-civic centres served as axis on which eight radial roads were blazed that took the shape of a sectoral structure and this kind of radial circles and the design concept of urban roads were at that time quite advanced and scientific
25.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
26.
Yaqub Beg
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Muhammad Yaqub Bek was a Tajik adventurer who was master of the Tarim Basin from 1865 to 1877. He held the title of Atalik Ghazi, in English-language literature, the name of Yaqub Beg has also been spelt as Yakub Beg, Yakoob Beg, or Yaqūb Beg. Authors using Russian sources have used the spelling Yakub-bek. A few publications in English written by Chinese authors spell his name Agubo, the first name, Muhammad, is subject to the usual variations in spelling as well. Beg, is a Turkic noble title, early life, Yakub Beg was born in the town of Pskente, in the Khanate of Kokand. He rose rapidly through the ranks in the service of the Khanate of Kokand, by the year 1847 he was commander of the fort at Ak-Mechet until its capture by the Russians in 1853. He seems to have left the fort before its fall, later that year he led an unsuccessful attempt to re-take it. He was involved in the complex factional shifts of the Khanate of Kokand, in 1864 he helped defend Tashkent during the first Russian attack. Establishment, As a result of the Dungan Revolt, by 1864 the Chinese held only the citadels of Kashgar, the Kyrgyz or Kazakh Sadic Beg entered Kashgar, was unable to take the citadel and sent to Tashkent for a Khoja to become ruler. Sadic Beg revolted, was defeated by Yakub Beg and driven beyond the mountains, Yakub went southeast to Yarkand, the largest town in the region, and was driven out by an army from Kucha. He next besieged the Chinese at Yangi Hissar for 40 days, Sadic Beg reappeared, was defeated and talked into becoming an ally. Invaders from Badakshan were also talked into alliance, a Dungan force from Kucha and eastward arrived at Maralbeshi, was defeated and 1000 of the Dungans joined Yakub Beg. Yarkand now decided to submit to Burzug Khan and his great vizier, the Chinese in the Kashgar citadel now had no hope. In September 1865 the second in command and 3000 men surrendered, converted to Islam, the actual commander refused and blew himself up along with his family. An army of rebels from Kokand arrived and joined Yakub, late in the year Burzug Khan and Yakub went to Yarkand to deal with a disturbance. The Dungan faction suborned Yakub’s Dungans and he was reduced to a few hundred men, Burzug drew off to a separate camp, Yakub defeated the Dungans, Burzug Khan fled to Kashgar and declared Yakub a traitor. The religious leaders supported Yakub and Burzug was seized in his palace and he was confined for 18 months, was exiled to Tibet and later found his way to Kokand. In a little more than a year Yakub had become master of Kashgar, Yarkand and Maralbashi, expansion eastward, Around 1866 he moved southeast from Yarkand and took Khoten by treachery and some slaughter
27.
Kashgar
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Kashgar is an oasis city in Xinjiang and is the westernmost Chinese city, located near the border with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Located historically at the point of widely varying cultures and empires, Kashgar has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol. The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes. The city itself has a population of 506,640, and its area covers 15 km2. The city was made into a Special Economic Zone in 2010, Kashgar also forms a terminus of the Karakoram Highway, whose reconstruction is considered a major part of the multi-billion dollar China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. The modern Chinese name is 喀什, a form of the longer. Ptolemy, in his Geography, Chapter 15. 3A, refers to Kashgar as “Kasi” and its western and probably indigenous name is the Kāš, to which the East Iranian -γar, cf. Pashto and Middle Persian gar/ġar, from Old Persian/Pahlavi girīwa was attached. Alternative historical Romanizations for Kashgar include Cascar and Cashgar, non-native names for the city, such as the old Chinese name Shule 疏勒 and Tibetan Śu-lig may have originated as an attempts to transcribe the Sanskrit name for Kashgar, Śrīkrīrāti. - The postal romanization was 疏附 Shufu 1900s/50s, bilingual postmarks readingSHUFU /date/疏附 were used in this period, 疏附 Shufu was also used on contemporary bilingual maps. The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy traveled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west, ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a “Kasia Regio”, probably exhibiting the name from which Kashgar and Kashgaria are formed. The country’s people practised Zoroastrianism and Buddhism before the coming of Islam. In the Book of Han, which covers the period between 125 BC and 23 AD, it is recorded there were 1,510 households,18,647 people and 2,000 persons able to bear arms. By the time covered by the Book of the Later Han, the Book of the Later Han provides a wealth of detail on developments in the region, In the period of Emperor Wu, the Western Regions1 were under the control of the Interior. The Imperial Government established a Colonel Envoys there to direct and protect these countries, Emperor Xuan changed this title to Protector-General. Emperor Yuan installed two Wuji Colonels to take charge of the garrisons on the frontiers of the king of Nearer Jushi. During the time of Emperor Ai and Emperor Ping, the principalities of the Western Regions split up, wang Mang, after he usurped the Throne, demoted and changed their kings and marquises. Following this, the Western Regions became resentful, and rebelled and they, therefore, broke off all relations with the Interior and, all together, submitted to the Xiongnu again. The Xiongnu collected oppressively heavy taxes and the kingdoms were not able to support their demands, in the middle of the Jianwu period, they each, sent envoys to ask if they could submit to the Interior, and to express their desire for a Protector-General
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Hui people
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According to a 2011 census, China is home to approximately 10.5 million Hui people, the majority of whom are Chinese-speaking practitioners of Islam, though some may practice other religions. Hui people are ethnically and linguistically similar to Han Chinese with the exception that most of them practice Islam, engendering distinctive cultural characteristics. For example, as Muslims, they follow Islamic dietary laws and reject the consumption of pork, the most common meat consumed in China, the Hui people are one of 56 ethnic groups recognized by China. The government defines the Hui people to include all historically Muslim communities not included in Chinas other ethnic groups, the Hui predominantly speak Chinese, while maintaining some Persian and Arabic phrases. In fact, the Hui ethnic group is unique among Chinese ethnic minorities in that it associates with non-Sinitic languages. The Hui people are concentrated in Northwestern China, but communities exist across the country, e. g. Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Hainan. After the establishment of the Peoples Republic, the term Hui applied to one of Chinas ten historically Islamic minorities, earlier the term referred to Chinese-speaking groups with Muslim ancestry. Practising Islam was not a criterion, use of the Hui category to describe foreign Muslims moving into China dates back to the Song dynasty. Hui people are of varied ancestry, many directly descending from Silk Road travelers and their ancestors include Central Asians, Arabs and Persians who married Hans. West Eurasian DNA is prevalent—6. 7% of Hui peoples maternal genetics have a West Eurasian origin, in subsequent centuries, they gradually mixed with Mongols and Hans, eventually forming the Hui. Nonetheless, included among Huis in Chinese census statistics are members of a few small non-Chinese speaking communities, a small Muslim minority among Yunnans Bai people are classified as Hui as well, as are some groups of Tibetan Muslims. Huihui was the generic term for Chinas Muslims during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Is thought to have its origin in the earlier Huihe or Huihu, although the ancient Uyghurs were not Muslims the name Huihui came to refer to foreigners, regardless of language or origin, by the time of the Yuan. and Ming Dynasties. By the aid of heaven we have pacified you, you are our slaves, yet you do not eat our food or drink. If you slaughter sheep, you will be considered guilty of a crime and he issued a regulation to that effect. All the Muslims say, if someone else slaughters we do not eat, the Chinese called Muslims, Jews and Christians in ancient times by the same name, Hui Hui. Christians were called Hui who abstain from animals without the foot, Muslims were called Hui who abstain from pork. Hui Hui is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan mao Hui Hui which means Blue cap Hui Hui
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Uyghurs
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The Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China and they primarily practice Islam, and are a physically diverse ethnic group ranging from Western Eurasian to a more East Asian appearance. An estimated 80% of Xinjiangs Uyghurs live in the portion of the region. Outside Xinjiang, the largest community of Uyghurs in China is in Taoyuan County, outside of China, significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and in Turkey. Smaller communities are found in Afghanistan, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, and the United States. Uyghur is often pronounced /ˈwiːɡər/ by English speakers, though an acceptable English pronunciation closer to the Uyghur peoples pronunciation of it is /uː. iˈɡʊər/, several alternate romanizations also appear, Uighur, Uygur, and Uigur. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region provincial government recommends that the ethnonym, adopted in the early 20th century. The meaning of the term Uyghur is unclear, the Old Turkic inscriptions record a word uyɣur which was transcribed into Chinese as * > Huíhé in Tang dynasty annals. Later, in response to an Uyghur request, this was changed to > Huíhú in 788 or 809 as mentioned in the Old History of the Five Dynasties, the earliest record of an Uyghur tribe is from the Northern Wei. At that time the ethnonym * > Gaoche was used, and later, the first use of Uyghur as a reference to a political nation occurred during the interim period between the First and Second Göktürk Khaganates. The term Uyghur disappeared from records in the 15th century. Throughout its history, the term Uyghur has taken on an expansive definition. Initially signifying only a small coalition of Tiele tribes in Northern China, Mongolia, finally it was expanded into an ethnicity whose ancestry originates with the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 842, which caused Uyghur migration from Mongolia into the Tarim Basin. This fluid definition of Uyghur and the ancestry of modern Uyghurs create confusion about what constitutes true Uyghur ethnography. DNA analyses indicate that the peoples of central Asia such as the Uyghurs are all mixed Caucasian, the Uighurs are the people whom old Russian travellers called Sart, while Western travellers called them Turki, in recognition of their language. The Chinese used to call them Chan-tou but this term has dropped, being considered derogatory. As a matter of fact there was for centuries no national name for them, people identified themselves with the oasis they came from, the term Uyghur was not used to refer to any existing ethnic group in the 19th century, but to an ancient people. The inhabitants of Xinjiang were not called Uyghur before 1921/1934, westerners called the Turkic-speaking Muslims of the oases Turki, and the Turkic Muslims in Ili were known as Taranchi
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Dzungaria
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Dzungaria is a geographical region in northwest China corresponding to the northern half of Xinjiang, also known as Beijiang. Bounded by the Tian Shan mountain range to the south and the Altai Mountains to the north, it covers approximately 777,000 km2, extending into western Mongolia and eastern Kazakhstan. Formerly the term could cover an area, conterminous with the Dzungar Khanate. In comparison to southern Xinjiang, Dzungaria is relatively well-integrated with the rest of China by rail, the name Dzungaria or Zungharia is a corruption of the Mongolian term Zűn Gar or Jüün Gar depending on the dialect of Mongolian used. Zűn/Jüün means left and Gar means hand, the name originates from the notion that the Western Mongols are on the left hand side when the Mongol Empire began its division into East and West Mongols. After this fragmentation, the western Mongolian nation was called Zuun Gar, however, Qing people began to think of both areas as part of one distinct region called Xinjiang. It is bounded by the Tian Shan to the south, the Altai Mountains to the northeast, the three corners are relatively open. The northern corner is the valley of the upper Irtysh River, the eastern corner of the basin leads to Gansu and the rest of China. In the south an easy pass leads from Ürümqi to the Turfan Depression, in the southwest the tall Borohoro Mountains branch of the Tian Shan separates the basin from the upper Ili River. The basin is similar to the larger Tarim Basin on the side of the Tian Shan Range. This is enough to sustain populations of wild camels, jerboas, the Dzungarian Basin is a structural basin with thick sequences of Paleozoic-Pleistocene rocks with large estimated oil reserves. The Gurbantunggut Desert, China’s second largest, is in the center of the basin, the Dzungarian basin does not have a single catchment center. The northernmost section of Dzungaria is part of the basin of the Irtysh River, the rest of the region is split into a number of endorheic basins. In particular, south of the Irtysh, the Ulungur River ends up in the endorheic Lake Ulungur, the Southwestern part of the Dzungarian basin drains into the Aibi Lake. In the west-central part of the region, streams flow into a group of lakes that include Lake Manas. Runoff from the mountains into the basin supplies several lakes. The ecologically rich habitats traditionally included meadows, marshlands, and rivers, however most of the land is now used for agriculture. It is a steppe and semi-desert basin surrounded by high mountains, the Tian Shan in the south
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Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
