The Dungan language came from Mandarin Chinese, and it is most like the dialects in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces in China. The Dungan call their language the Hui language. Like Chinese, it is a tonal language. However, it is different from Chinese because it uses some words that are no longer used in Chinese dialects today. There are also many Arabic and Persian loanwords. Unlike Chinese, it is written using Cyrillic instead of Chinese characters.