Inspect FEL Endangered Language Communities

Key	001
Generic name of the language	(Western) Yugur
Location of the community	Sunan Yugur Autonomous County, Gansu Province, China
Number of speakers (estimate)	2000
Variants (if any) and number of speakers	The Yugur are one of the smallest ethnic minorities in north-western China, Gansu Province. They speak distinct languages: Western Yugur (a Turkic language), Eastern Yugur (a Mongolic language), and the local Mandarin Chinese dialect. Both Western and Eastern Yugur are critically endangered with about 2,000 speakers each.
How is the community organised	The Yugur constitute one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised in China. Yugur speakers mainly live in Sunan Yugur Autonomous County which consists of eight regions. The local county government is located in Hongwansi Town, and the other seven regions are Huángchéng Town, Kangle Township, Dahe Township, Minghua Township, Mati Tibetan Township, Qifeng Tibetan Township and Baiyin Mongolian Township. Minghua Township is situated in the plains of the northwest - the only plains area among all the regions - and Huangcheng Township is situated in the mountains of the southeast, which is separated from the central part of the county.
Where can more information be found (website, publications, other documents)	I am working on a comprehensive ethnographic online multimedia Western Yugur-Chinese-English trilingual dictionary https://yugurdict.com/. My PhD thesis is available online upon request https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/173110.
Willingness to contribute to FEL website or newsletter	yes
Name of contact person	Yarjis Xueqing Zhong
Email of contact person	xueqing.zhong@anu.edu.au
Role of contact person in community	Distinguished academic consulting expert specially appointed by Yugur Education Academy; Research consultant at the Yugur Cultural Research Office
FEL membership ID of contact person	1522
Updated	2023-01-05 16:46:35