International audienceShaoju is the language spoken by residents in Xuejiawan, District Yongdeng of Gansu, China. It is a kind of argot or jargon, but not a non-Han language. The previous literature treats it as a mysterious non-Han language, even a language of Gypsy who migrated to China. Our article shows with abundant proofs that many words have been derived from different gang languages. The earliest are dated from the Song Dynasty. Only a few words have come from Turkic languages. Many of the Shaoju words have been innovations based on existing words of different periods. Their phonology, morphology and syntax have to be classified into the Chinese language system
