The Paoan Alphabet

Paoan ^[2] is an older Western romanization of the name 保安, referring to the same language as Bonan (ISO 639-3: peh), a Southern Mongolic minority language of the Bonan ethnic group (保安族) of Jishishan County, Gansu province, China. The name Paoan appears in older Western linguistic and ethnographic literature, while modern scholarship uses Bonan following contemporary pinyin romanization conventions.

Yes — Paoan and Bonan ^[1] are two romanizations of the same Chinese name 保安, referring to the same Southern Mongolic language (ISO 639-3: peh). Northwest Minzu University now uses Bonan in its publications, following modern pinyin conventions. Older Western reference works use Paoan. Both names describe the same language of the Bonan people of Jishishan County, Gansu, China.

Paoan (Bonan) ^[2] is spoken in Jishishan Bonan–Dongxiang–Salar Autonomous County in southern Gansu province, China. The Bonan people (保安族) — for whose language both the Paoan and Bonan names are used — live in villages in this mountainous county near the Yellow River tributary region of northwest China. The Endangered Languages Project documents an estimated 9,000 speakers in this area.

Paoan (Bonan) belongs to the Southern Mongolic subgroup ^[1] of the Mongolic branch. Its closest relatives are Dongxiang (Santa, sce) and Tu (Monguor, mjg), both also spoken in Gansu and Qinghai, China. Northwest Minzu University places all three languages in the Southern Mongolic group, distinguishing them from the northern Mongolian varieties of Mongolia and Buryatia.

Yes — Paoan (Bonan) ^[2] is a vulnerable minority language. The Endangered Languages Project documents progressive shift toward Mandarin Chinese among younger Bonan people, weakening intergenerational transmission. ELAR ^[3] preserves recordings of the spoken language as part of global endangered language documentation efforts, ensuring that the language is preserved even as speaker numbers decline.

Paoan (Bonan) ^[3] has no standardised writing system. The community uses Mandarin Chinese for written communication. Academic linguists use a Latin romanization with diacritic characters to represent the phonology of the spoken language. This romanization system — shown on this page — appears under both the Paoan and Bonan names in academic publications and archival materials held by ELAR at SOAS University of London.

Paoan and Dongxiang ^[1] are closely related Southern Mongolic languages, but they are distinct. Both are spoken in Gansu province by different ethnic groups — Bonan people in Jishishan County, Dongxiang people in Dongxiang Autonomous County. Northwest Minzu University researches both languages and treats them as separate languages within the Southern Mongolic subgroup, despite their shared genetic heritage and geographical proximity in the Gansu highlands.

The two names Paoan and Bonan ^[1] both romanize the same Chinese characters 保安, which is the name of the ethnic group and language. The difference is purely a matter of romanization convention. "Paoan" uses older pre-pinyin romanization methods common in 20th-century Western publications. "Bonan" uses modern Chinese pinyin romanization. The Endangered Languages Project ^[2] recognises both names as valid and uses the ISO 639-3 code peh for this single language.