1990s, it was estimated that out of the some 89,000 Salars, around 60,000 spoke the Salar language. Most Salar do not use any written script for the Salar language, instead they use Chinese characters for practical purposes. Salar serves as their spoken language, while Chinese serves as a both spoken and written language. Many of the current generation of Salars are fluent in Chinese and Tibetan. The Salar language spoken in Amdo Tibet (Qinghai), has heavy Chinese and Tibetan influence. Although of Turkic origin, it's a mixed language today. Around 20% of the vocabulary is of Chinese origin and 10% is also of Tibetan origin. Morphological and syntactic structures have been fully borrowed from these latter languages. Yet, according to author William Safran, linguistic works published in China treat Salar as if it has few loanwords from these languages, omitting most Chinese and Tibetan features. The Salar use the Chinese writing system, though they have their own written language which, however, is used by very few people. Salar language has taken loans and influence from neighboring Chinese varieties. It is neighboring variants of Chinese which have loaned words to the Salar language. In Qinghai, many Salar men speak both the Qinghai dialect of Chinese and Salar. Rural Salars can speak Salar fluently while urban Salars often assimilate into the Chinese speaking Hui population. In Ili Salar, the i and y high front vowels, when placed after an initial glides are spirantized with j transforming into ʝ. Qinghai and Ili Salar have mostly the same consonantal development. Religion Salars profess Sunni Islam (Hanafi Maturidites). In addition to their traditional places, they live in cities, mainly inhabited by other Muslims - Dungans. Islamic Education Received at Gaizi Mişit Madrasah in Jiezi Village. Many Salar adhere to the Naqshbandi Sufi order, which spread throughout the region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Genetics The Y-DNA haplogroups and therefore the paternal genetic lineages of the Salar people, exhibit a mix of West Eurasian and East Asian haplogroups. Their maternal lineages are overwhelmingly East Asian. About 24–30% Y chromosomes of Salar belong to the East Asian specific haplogroup O3-M122, while the Central Asian, South Asian and European prevalent Y chromosomal lineage R-M17 comprises only 17%. Other Y-DNA haplogroups among the Salars are D1 and C3. Another study showed that the haplogroup O1b1a1a1b2 was also present in Salars. An autosomal genetic study (Ma et al. 2021)