Burmo-Qiangic languages

The Burmo-Qiangic or Eastern Tibeto-Burman languages are a proposed family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Southwest China and Myanmar. It consists of the Lolo-Burmese and Qiangic branches, including the extinct Tangut language.

Burmo-Qiangic
Eastern Tibeto-Burman
Geographic
distribution		China, Burma
Linguistic classificationSino-Tibetan
  • Burmo-Qiangic
Subdivisions
Glottologburm1265

Classification

Guillaume Jacques & Alexis Michaud (2011)[1] argue for a Burmo-Qiangic branch of Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) with two primary subbranches, Qiangic and Lolo-Burmese. Similarly, David Bradley (2008)[2] proposes an Eastern Tibeto-Burman branch that includes Burmic (AKA Lolo-Burmese) and Qiangic. Bradley notes that Lolo-Burmese and Qiangic share some unique lexical items, even though they are morphologically quite different; whereas all Lolo-Burmese languages are tonal and analytical, Qiangic languages are often non-tonal and possess agglutinative morphology. However, the position of Naic is unclear, as it has been grouped as Lolo-Burmese by Lama (2012), but as Qiangic by Jacques & Michaud (2011) and Bradley (2008).

Sun (1988) also proposed a similar classification that grouped Qiangic and Lolo-Burmese together.

Jacques' & Michaud's (2011) proposed tree is as follows.

Burmo‑Qiangic 
 Lolo-Burmese 
 

Burmish

 
 

Loloish

 
 
 Na‑Qiangic
 

Naic

 
 

Qiangic

 
 

Ersuic

 
 
 

Bradley's (2008) proposal is as follows. Note that Bradley calls Lolo-Burmese Burmic, which is not to be confused with Burmish, and calls Loloish Ngwi.

Eastern Tibeto‑Burman 
 Lolo-Burmese 
 

Burmish

 
 

Loloish

 
 
 

Qiangic

 
 

However, Chirkova (2012)[3] doubts that Qiangic is a valid genetic unit, and considers Ersu, Shixing, Namuyi, and Pumi all as separate Tibeto-Burman branches that are part of a Qiangic Sprachbund, rather than as part of a coherent Qiangic phylogenetic branch. This issue has also been further discussed by Yu (2012).[4]

Lee & Sagart (2008)[5] argue that Bai is a Tibeto-Burman language that has borrowed very heavily from Old Chinese. Lee & Sagart (2008) note that word relating to rice and pig agriculture tend to be non-Chinese, and that the genetic non-Chinese layer of Bai shows similarities with Proto-Loloish.

Branches

Yu (2012:206-207)[4] lists the following well-established coherent branches (including individual languages, in italics below) that could likely all fit into a wider Burmo-Qiangic group, in geographical order from north to south.

  1. (Baima) [possible Burmo-Qiangic substratum][6]
  2. Qiang
  3. rGyalrong
  4. Lavrung
  5. Ergong
  6. Choyo
  7. nDrapa
  8. Guiqiong
  9. Minyak
  10. Ersuic
  11. Namuyi
  12. Shixing
  13. Naish
  14. Prinmi
  15. Lolo-Burmese
  16. (Bai) [possible Burmo-Qiangic substratum][7]

Additionally, Tangut, now extinct, is generally classified as a Qiangic language.

Yu (2012:215-218)[4] notes that Ersuic and Naic languages could possibly group together, since they share many features with each other that are not found in Lolo-Burmese or other Qiangic groups.

Proto-language reconstructions for some of these branches include:

Lexical evidence

Jacques & Michaud (2011)[1][11] list the following lexical items as likely Burmo-Qiangic lexical innovations.

GlossrGyalrongTangutNaProto-NaishBurmeseAchangHani
copula ŋuŋwu²ŋi˩˧?hnang²-ŋɯ˧˩
star ʑŋgrigjịj¹kɯ˥*krikray²kʰʐə˥a˧˩gɯ˥
forget jmɯtmjɨ̣²mv̩.pʰæᴸ⁺ᴹᴴ*mime¹ɲi˧˥ɲi˥
be ill ngo < *ngaŋŋo²gu˩*go
flint ʁdɯrtsa-tse.miᴴ*tsa
to hide nɤtsɯ-tsɯ˥ (Naxi)*tsu
to swallow mqlaʁ-ʁv̩˥*NqU < *Nqak
dry spɯ-pv̩˧*Spu
thick jaʁlaa¹lo˧˥*laC₂
jump mtsaʁ-tsʰo˧*tsʰaC₂
winter qartsɯtsur¹tsʰi˥*tsʰucʰoŋ³tɕʰɔŋ˧˩tsʰɔ˧˩ga̱˧
knee tə-mŋɑ (Situ)ŋwer²ŋwɤ.koᴴ*ŋwa
sun ʁmbɣibe²bi˧ (Naxi)*bi

See also

References
  1. Jacques, Guillaume, and Alexis Michaud. 2011. "Approaching the historical phonology of three highly eroded Sino-Tibetan languages." Diachronica 28:468–498.
  2. Bradley, David. 2008. The Position of Namuyi in Tibeto-Burman. Paper presented at Workshop on Namuyi, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 2008.
  3. Chirkova, Katia (2012). "The Qiangic Subgroup from an Areal Perspective: A Case Study of Languages of Muli." In Languages and Linguistics 13(1):133-170. Taipei: Academia Sinica.
  4. Yu, Dominic. 2012. Proto-Ersuic. Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Linguistics.
  5. Lee, Y.-J., & Sagart, L. (2008). No limits to borrowing: The case of Bai and Chinese. Diachronica, 25(3), 357–385.
  6. Chirkova, Ekaterina. 2008. On the Position of Baima within Tibetan: A Look from Basic Vocabulary. Alexander Lubotsky, Jos Schaeken and Jeroen Wiedenhof. Rodopi, pp.23, 2008, Evidence and counter-evidence: Festschrift F. Kortlandt. <halshs-00104311>
  7. Gong Xun (2015). How Old is the Chinese in Bái? Reexamining Sino-Bái under the Baxter-Sagart reconstruction. Paper presented at the Recent Advances in Old Chinese Historical Phonology workshop, SOAS, London.
  8. Sims, Nathaniel. 2017. The suprasegmental phonology of proto-Rma (Qiang) in comparative perspective. Presented at the 50th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, Beijing, China.
  9. Matisoff, James A. (2003), Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-09843-5.
  11. Jacques & Michaud (2011), appendix p.7
  • Bradley, David. 1997. "Tibeto-Burman languages and classification". In D. Bradley (Ed.), Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas (Papers in South East Asian linguistics No. 14) pp. 1–71, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-85883-456-9.
  • Bradley, David. 2008. The Position of Namuyi in Tibeto-Burman. Paper presented at Workshop on Namuyi, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 2008.
  • Jacques, Guillaume, and Alexis Michaud. 2011. "Approaching the historical phonology of three highly eroded Sino-Tibetan languages." Diachronica 28:468-498.
  • Lama, Ziwo Qiu-Fuyuan (2012), Subgrouping of Nisoic (Yi) Languages, thesis, University of Texas at Arlington (archived)
  • Sūn, Hóngkāi 孙宏开. 1988. Shilun woguo jingnei Zang-Mianyude puxi fenlei 试论我国境内藏缅语的谱系分类. (A classification of Tibeto-Burman languages in China). In: Tatsuo Nishida and Paul Kazuhisa Eguchi (eds.), Languages and history in East Asia: festschrift for Tatsuo Nishida on the occasion of his 60th birthday 61-73. Kyoto: Shokado.
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