Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family of about 250 languages of East Asia, second only to Indo-European in terms of the number of speakers. Many of the languages are tonal, which however is usually considered to be an areal feature rather than evidence of a genealogical relationship. (Chinese and Tibetan, for example, were not tonal in their earlier stages.)
A few scholars such as Christopher I. Beckwith, Roy A. Miller, and W. S. Coblin question whether the Sinitic languages are related to Tibeto-Burman. No regular sound laws relating the Sino-Tibetan (or Tibeto-Burman) languages have been found. Thus, although the Sino-Tibetan hypothesis enjoys widespread support, it is not as well demonstrated as the Indo-European family. Other linguists, especially in China, believe the Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien languages belong in Sino-Tibetan, though this view has fallen out of favor in the West, with the similarities being credited to borrowings and areal features.
James Matisoff's widely accepted classification is as follows:
Sino-Tibetan
- Chinese (more or less monosyllabic and analytic)
- Tibeto-Burman
Several recent classifications have demoted Chinese to a sub-branch of Tibeto-Burman, rather as the Semitic component of Hamito-Semitic was demoted to a sub-branch of Afro-Asiatic. The following classification from George van Driem is one:
Tibeto-Burman
- Brahmaputran
- Southern Tibeto-Burman
- Sino-Bodic
- A number of other small families and isolates (Newari, Qiang, Nung, Magar, etc.)
The relationships of the "Kuki-Naga" languages (Kuki, Mizo, Manipuri, etc.), both amongst each other and to the other Tibeto-Burman languages, is unclear, so this classification does not support Matisoff's Kamarupan hypothesis (above).
External links
- Tibeto-Burman languages and their subgrouping - James Matisoff
- Sino-Bodic - George van Driem