The Bonan Alphabet

Bonan ^[1] (保安语, Bao'an, ISO 639-3: peh) is a Southern Mongolic minority language of the Bonan ethnic group (保安族) of Jishishan Bonan–Dongxiang–Salar Autonomous County, Gansu province, China. It belongs to the same Southern Mongolic subgroup as Dongxiang (Santa) and Tu (Monguor), all of which are Mongolic minority languages of the Gansu–Qinghai corridor. Northwest Minzu University in Lanzhou documents and researches the language.

Bonan ^[2] is spoken in Jishishan Bonan–Dongxiang–Salar Autonomous County in southern Gansu province, China, near the Yellow River tributary region. The Bonan people (保安族) live in villages in this county alongside other ethnic groups. The Endangered Languages Project records an estimated speaker population of around 9,000 people in this area of northwest China.

Bonan belongs to the Southern Mongolic subgroup ^[1] of the Mongolic branch of the Altaic-related language group. Its closest relatives are Dongxiang (Santa, ISO 639-3: sce) and Tu (Monguor, ISO 639-3: mjg), both also spoken in Gansu and Qinghai province, China. These three languages form a geographically and genetically cohesive group that descended from a Mongolic ancestor language in central Asia, diverging from the northern varieties of Mongolian over many centuries.

Yes — Bonan ^[2] is classified as a vulnerable minority language by the Endangered Languages Project. With approximately 9,000 speakers among a Bonan ethnic population of around 20,000, the language faces pressure from Mandarin Chinese in education, media and official contexts. The Endangered Languages Archive ^[3] at SOAS University of London preserves recordings and transcriptions of Bonan as part of a global effort to document endangered languages.

Bonan and Paoan ^[1] are two romanizations of the same language name. "Bonan" is the modern pinyin-based romanization of the Chinese name 保安, while "Paoan" is an older romanization of the same characters. Both names refer to the same Southern Mongolic language (ISO 639-3: peh) of the Bonan people of Jishishan County, Gansu, China. Academic publications use both spellings — "Paoan" appears in older Western linguistic literature, while "Bonan" appears in more recent scholarship.

Bonan and Dongxiang (Santa) ^[1] are the two closest relatives in the Southern Mongolic subgroup, but they are distinct languages. Bonan is spoken in Jishishan County, while Dongxiang is spoken in Dongxiang Autonomous County to the northwest. Despite their geographic proximity and shared Mongolic ancestry, the two languages are not mutually intelligible. Northwest Minzu University treats them as separate languages with distinct phonological and lexical systems, though both share the front rounded vowels Ö and Ü and other Mongolic features.

The primary academic institution researching Bonan ^[1] is Northwest Minzu University (西北民族大学, NWMU) in Lanzhou, Gansu, China. NWMU conducts systematic research on the minority nationalities of the Chinese northwest, including Bonan phonology, grammar and vocabulary. The Endangered Languages Project ^[2] and ELAR ^[3] contribute to international documentation of the language through recordings and archival materials.

Bonan ^[3] has no standardised writing system of its own. The Bonan ethnic community uses Mandarin Chinese for official, educational and written purposes. Academic researchers use a Latin romanization system to record the phonology of the spoken language in grammars, dictionaries and field documentation. This romanization — the alphabet presented on this page — uses diacritic characters such as Č, Š, Ž and Ŋ to represent sounds not found in standard Latin. ELAR archives romanized transcriptions alongside audio recordings of Bonan.