Chinese Chinese Language

Sino-Tibetan languages Wikipedia

Sino-Tibetan languages form a language family of about 250 languages of East Asia, in number of speakers worldwide second only to Indo-European. Many of them are tonal language|tonal.

• Chinese languages: many of which are 'monosyllabic', analytic languages

• Tibeto-Burman languages: (Refer to http://stedt.berkeley.edu/html/STfamily.html#TBlg Tibeto-Burman languages and their subgrouping for more details)

• * Kamarupan

• * Himalayish

• * Qiangic

• * Kachinic

• * Lolo-Burmese

• * Karenic

Some linguists believe the Tai-Kadai languages or Hmong-Mien languages deserve a place within an expanded version of this family, though this view is falling out of favor. Several recent classifications have demoted Chinese to a sub-branch of Tibeto-Burman. The following classification from George van Driem is one:

Tibeto-Burman

• Brahmaputran

• *Dhimal

• *Bodo-Koch (includes Tripuri, Garo)

• *Konyak

• *Kachinic (includes Jingpaw)

• Southern Tibeto-Burman

• *Lolo-Burmese

• *Karenic

• Sino-Bodic

• *Sinitic (Chinese)

• *Bodish-Himalayish (includes Tibetan)

• *Kirantic

• *Tamangic

• *(several isolates)

In addition, van Driem's Tibeto-Burman includes a number of small families and isolates, such as Newari, Qiang, Nung, and Magar, as primary branches. 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 the "Kamarupan" hypothesis is not supported.

Last Modified:   2005-04-13