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57-427: Unlike most Tibeto-Burman languages , Burmese has a phonological system with two-way aspiration: preaspiration (e.g. မှ hma. vs. မ ma. ) and postaspiration (e.g. ခ kha. vs. က ka. ). In Burmese, this distinction serves to differentiate causative and non-causative verbs of Sino-Tibetan etymology. In Old Burmese, postaspiration can be reconstructed to the proto-Burmese language, whereas preaspiration

114-610: A Central branch of Tibeto-Burman based on morphological evidence. Roger Blench and Mark Post (2011) list a number of divergent languages of Arunachal Pradesh , in northeastern India, that might have non-Tibeto-Burman substrates, or could even be non-Tibeto-Burman language isolates : Blench and Post believe the remaining languages with these substratal characteristics are more clearly Sino-Tibetan: Notes Bibliography Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages ( simplified Chinese : 汉语族 ; traditional Chinese : 漢語族 ; pinyin : Hànyǔ zú ), often synonymous with

171-713: A null initial (apart from open zhǐ rime series ( 止攝開口 ) finals), unlike the /ʐ/ of Northern and Beijing Mandarin. Based on, for example, the pronunciation of the palatalized jiàn initial ( 見母 ), Jiaoliao Mandarin can be divided into Qingzhou, Denglian and Gaihuan areas. Central Plains Mandarin is spoken in the Central Plains of Henan , southwestern Shanxi , southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu , as well as most of Shaanxi , southern Ningxia and Gansu and southern Xinjiang , in famous cities such as Kaifeng , Zhengzhou , Luoyang , Xuzhou , Xi'an , Xining and Lanzhou . Central Plains Mandarin lects merge

228-486: A departing tone. Subdivision of Central Plains Mandarin is not fully agreed upon, though one possible subdivision sees 13 divisions, namely Xuhuai, Zhengkai, Luosong, Nanlu, Yanhe, Shangfu, Xinbeng, Luoxiang, Fenhe, Guanzhong, Qinlong, Longzhong and Nanjiang. Lanyin Mandarin, on the other hand, is divided as Jincheng, Yinwu, Hexi, and Beijiang. The Dungan language is a collection of Central Plains Mandarin varieties spoken in

285-449: A fourth written medial /-l-/ , which was typically written as a stacked consonant ္လ underneath the letter being modified. Old Burmese orthography treated the preaspirated consonant as a separate segment, since a special diacritic ( ha hto , ှ ) had not yet been innovated. As such, the letter ha ( ဟ ) was stacked above the consonant being modified (e.g. ဟ္မ where Modern Burmese uses မှ ). Examples of such differences include

342-566: A long period, leaving their affiliations difficult to determine. The grouping of the Bai language , with one million speakers in Yunnan, is particularly controversial, with some workers suggesting that it is a sister language to Chinese. The Naxi language of northern Yunnan is usually included in Lolo-Burmese, though other scholars prefer to leave it unclassified. The hills of northwestern Sichuan are home to

399-460: A national prestige during the Ming and Qing periods, though not all linguists support this viewpoint. The Language Atlas divides Huai into Tongtai, Huangxiao, and Hongchao areas, with the latter further split into Ninglu and Huaiyang. Tongtai, being geographically located furthest west, has the most significant Wu influence, such as in its distribution of historical voiced plosive series. Yue Chinese

456-580: A valid subgroup in its own right. Most of the Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in remote mountain areas, which has hampered their study. Many lack a written standard. It is generally easier to identify a language as Tibeto-Burman than to determine its precise relationship with other languages of the group. The subgroupings that have been established with certainty number several dozen, ranging from well-studied groups of dozens of languages with millions of speakers to several isolates , some only discovered in

513-625: Is Burmese , the national language of Myanmar, with over 32 million speakers and a literary tradition dating from the early 12th century. It is one of the Lolo-Burmese languages , an intensively studied and well-defined group comprising approximately 100 languages spoken in Myanmar and the highlands of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and southwest China . Major languages include the Loloish languages , with two million speakers in western Sichuan and northern Yunnan ,

570-643: Is an extensive literature in Classical Tibetan dating from the 8th century. The Tibetic languages are usually grouped with the smaller East Bodish languages of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh as the Bodish group. Many diverse Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Sizable groups that have been identified are the West Himalayish languages of Himachal Pradesh and western Nepal,

627-494: Is central to the family in that it contains features of many of the other branches, and is also located around the center of the Tibeto-Burman-speaking area. Since Benedict (1972), many languages previously inadequately documented have received more attention with the publication of new grammars, dictionaries, and wordlists. This new research has greatly benefited comparative work, and Bradley (2002) incorporates much of

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684-438: Is comparatively newer, having derived from proto-prefixes. The merging of proto-prefixes (i.e., ဟ as an independent consonant used as a prefix) to preaspirated consonants was nearly complete by the 12th century. Old Burmese maintains a number of distinctions which are no longer present in the orthography of standard Burmese. Whereas Modern Standard Burmese uses 3 written medials ( /-y-/ , /-w-/ , and /-r-/ ), Old Burmese had

741-513: Is difficult, may be an offshoot of Old Chinese and thus Sinitic; otherwise, Sinitic is defined only by the many varieties of Chinese unified by a shared historical background, and usage of the term "Sinitic" may reflect the linguistic view that Chinese constitutes a family of distinct languages, rather than variants of a single language. Over 91% of the Chinese population speaks a Sinitic language. Approximately 1.52 billion people are speakers of

798-630: Is known from inscriptions using a variant of the Gupta script . The Tangut language of the 12th century Western Xia of northern China is preserved in numerous texts written in the Chinese-inspired Tangut script . Over eight million people in the Tibetan Plateau and neighbouring areas in Baltistan , Ladakh , Nepal , Sikkim and Bhutan speak one of several related Tibetic languages . There

855-448: Is now accepted by most linguists, with a few exceptions such as Roy Andrew Miller and Christopher Beckwith . More recent controversy has centred on the proposed primary branching of Sino-Tibetan into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman subgroups. In spite of the popularity of this classification, first proposed by Kuhn and Conrady, and also promoted by Paul Benedict (1972) and later James Matisoff , Tibeto-Burman has not been demonstrated to be

912-410: Is sometimes separated as a remnant of Old Shu. Huai is spoken in central Anhui , northern Jiangxi , far western and eastern Hubei and most of Jiangsu . Due to its preservation of a checked tone, some linguists believe that Huai ought to be treated as a top-level group, like Jin. Representative lects tend to be Nanjingnese , Hefeinese and Yangzhounese . The Huai of Nanjing has likely served as

969-571: Is spoken by around 84 million people, in western Guangdong , eastern Guangxi , Hong Kong , Macau and parts of Hainan , as well as overseas communities such as Kuala Lumpur and Vancouver . Famous lects such as Cantonese and Taishanese belong to this family. Yue Chinese lects generally possess long-short distinctions in their vowels, which is reflected in their almost universally split dark-checked and often split light-checked tones. They generally also tend to preserve all three checked plosive finals and three nasal finals. The status of Pinghua

1026-495: Is spoken in an area from eastern Nepal to western Bhutan. Most of the languages of Bhutan are Bodish, but it also has three small isolates, 'Ole ("Black Mountain Monpa"), Lhokpu and Gongduk and a larger community of speakers of Tshangla . The Tani languages include most of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Arunachal Pradesh and adjacent areas of Tibet. The remaining languages of Arunachal Pradesh are much more diverse, belonging to

1083-511: Is spoken in the Jiaodong and Liaodong Peninsulae , which includes the cities of Dalian and Qingdao , as well as several prefectures along the China-Korea border. Like Jilu Mandarin, its light checked tone is merged into light level or departing based on the manner of articulation of the initial, though its dark checked is merged into the rising. Its rì initial ( 日母 ) terms are pronounced with

1140-460: Is then divided into several branches, some of them geographic conveniences rather than linguistic proposals: Matisoff makes no claim that the families in the Kamarupan or Himalayish branches have a special relationship to one another other than a geographic one. They are intended rather as categories of convenience pending more detailed comparative work. Matisoff also notes that Jingpho–Nungish–Luish

1197-628: The Akha language and Hani languages , with two million speakers in southern Yunnan, eastern Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and Lisu and Lahu in Yunnan, northern Myanmar and northern Thailand. All languages of the Loloish subgroup show significant Austroasiatic influence. The Pai-lang songs, transcribed in Chinese characters in the 1st century, appear to record words from a Lolo-Burmese language, but arranged in Chinese order. The Tibeto-Burman languages of south-west China have been heavily influenced by Chinese over

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1254-639: The Chinese languages , are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family . It is frequently proposed that there is a primary split between the Sinitic languages and the rest of the family (the Tibeto-Burman languages ). This view is rejected by some researchers but has found phylogenetic support among others. The Macro-Bai languages , whose classification

1311-649: The Jingpho–Luish languages , including Jingpho with nearly a million speakers. The Brahmaputran or Sal languages include at least the Boro–Garo and Konyak languages , spoken in an area stretching from northern Myanmar through the Indian states of Nagaland , Meghalaya , and Tripura , and are often considered to include the Jingpho–Luish group. The border highlands of Nagaland , Manipur and western Myanmar are home to

1368-911: The Republic of China , People's Republic of China , Singapore and United Nations . Re-population efforts, such as that of the Qing dynasty in the Southwest, tended to involve Mandarin speakers. Classification of Mandarin lects has undergone several significant changes, though nowadays it is commonly divided as such, based on the distribution of the historical checked tone: as well as other lects, which do not neatly fall into these categories, such as Mandarin Junhua varieties. Varieties of Mandarin can be defined by their universally lost -m final, low number of tones, and smaller inventory of classifiers , among other features. Mandarin lects also often have rhotic erhua rimes, though

1425-473: The Songlin and Chamdo languages , both of which were only described in the 2010s. New Tibeto-Burman languages continue to be recognized, some not closely related to other languages. Distinct languages only recognized in the 2010s include Koki Naga . Randy LaPolla (2003) proposed a Rung branch of Tibeto-Burman, based on morphological evidence, but this is not widely accepted. Scott DeLancey (2015) proposed

1482-591: The Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia . Around 60 million people speak Tibeto-Burman languages. The name derives from the most widely spoken of these languages, Burmese and the Tibetic languages , which also have extensive literary traditions, dating from the 12th and 7th centuries respectively. Most of the other languages are spoken by much smaller communities, and many of them have not been described in detail. Though

1539-584: The Southwest . The languages are: All other Sinitic languages henceforth would be considered Chinese. The Chinese branch of the family is classified into at least seven main families. These families are classified based on five main evolutionary criteria: The varieties within one family may not be mutually intelligible with each other. For instance, Wenzhounese and Ningbonese are not highly mutually intelligible. The Language Atlas of China identifies ten groups: with Jin, Hui, Pinghua, and Tuhua not part of

1596-659: The Tamangic languages of western Nepal, including Tamang with one million speakers, and the Kiranti languages of eastern Nepal. The remaining groups are small, with several isolates. The Newar language (Nepal Bhasa) of central Nepal has a million speakers and literature dating from the 12th century, and nearly a million people speak Magaric languages , but the rest have small speech communities. Other isolates and small groups in Nepal are Dura , Raji–Raute , Chepangic and Dhimalish . Lepcha

1653-662: The 15th century. The earliest evidence of Burmese script (inscription at the Mahabodhi Temple in India) is dated to 1035, while an 18th-century recast stone inscription points to 984. Perhaps the most well known inscription is the Old Burmese face of the Myazedi inscription . The most complete set of Old Burmese inscriptions, called She-haung Myanma Kyauksa Mya ( ရှေးဟောင်း မြန်မာ ကျောက်စာများ ; lit. "Ancient Stone Inscriptions of Myanmar")

1710-564: The 21st century but in danger of extinction. These subgroups are here surveyed on a geographical basis. The southernmost group is the Karen languages , spoken by three million people on both sides of the Burma–Thailand border. They differ from all other Tibeto-Burman languages (except Bai) in having a subject–verb–object word order, attributed to contact with Tai–Kadai and Austroasiatic languages . The most widely spoken Tibeto-Burman language

1767-566: The Chinese macrolanguage, of whom about three-quarters speak a Mandarin variety. Estimates of the number of global speakers of Sinitic branches as of 2018–2019, both native and non-native, are listed below: Dialectologist Jerry Norman estimated that there are hundreds of mutually unintelligible Sinitic languages. They form a dialect continuum in which differences generally become more pronounced as distances increase, though there are also some sharp boundaries. The Sinitic languages can be divided into Macro-Bai languages and Chinese languages, and

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1824-516: The amount of its use may vary between lects. Loss of checked tone is an often cited criterion for Mandarin languages, though lects such as Yangzhounese and Taiyuannese show otherwise. Northeastern Mandarin is spoken in Heilongjiang , Jilin , most of Liaoning and northeastern Inner Mongolia , whereas Beijing Mandarin is spoken in northern Hebei , most of Beijing , parts of Tianjin and Inner Mongolia . The two families' most notable features are

1881-572: The basis of vocabulary and typological features shared with Chinese. Jean Przyluski introduced the term sino-tibétain (Sino-Tibetan) as the title of his chapter on the group in Antoine Meillet and Marcel Cohen 's Les Langues du Monde in 1924. The Tai languages have not been included in most Western accounts of Sino-Tibetan since the Second World War, though many Chinese linguists still include them. The link between Tibeto-Burman and Chinese

1938-399: The classification of Sino-Tibetan and Tibeto-Burman languages, Shafer (1955) and Benedict (1972) , which were actually produced in the 1930s and 1940s respectively. Shafer's tentative classification took an agnostic position and did not recognize Tibeto-Burman, but placed Chinese (Sinitic) on the same level as the other branches of a Sino-Tibetan family. He retained Tai–Kadai (Daic) within

1995-689: The consonant yh- and the lateral clusters kl- and khl- . The earliest Old Burmese documents, in particular the Myazedi and Lokatheikpan inscriptions frequently have -o- where later Burmese has -wa . Old Burmese also had a final -at and -an distinct from -ac and -any as shown by Nishi (1974). Aside from Pali , the Mon language had significant influence on Old Burmese orthography and vocabulary, as Old Burmese borrowed many lexical items (especially relating to handicrafts, administration, flora and fauna, navigation and architecture), although grammatical influence

2052-405: The dark checked into the dark level tone, the light checked into light level or departing based on the manner of articulation of the initial , and vowel breaking in tong rime series' ( 通攝 ) checked-tone words, among other features. Jilu Mandarin can be classified into Baotang, Shiji, Canghui and Zhangli. Zhangli is of note due to its preservation of a separate checked tone. Jiaoliao Mandarin

2109-486: The division of Sino-Tibetan into Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman branches (e.g. Benedict, Matisoff) is widely used, some historical linguists criticize this classification, as the non-Sinitic Sino-Tibetan languages lack any shared innovations in phonology or morphology to show that they comprise a clade of the phylogenetic tree . During the 18th century, several scholars noticed parallels between Tibetan and Burmese, both languages with extensive literary traditions. In

2166-635: The extinct Taz language of Russia is also a Northeastern Mandarin language. Beijing is sometimes included in Northeastern Mandarin due to its distribution of the historical dark checked tone, though is listed as its own group by others, often due to its more regular light checked tones. Jilu Mandarin is spoken in southern Hebei and western Shandong , and is often represented with Jinannese . Notable cities that use Jilu Mandarin lects include Cangzhou , Shijiazhuang , Jinan and Baoding . Characteristically Jilu Mandarin features include merging

2223-924: The family as uniting the Gangetic and Lohitic branches of Max Müller 's Turanian , a huge family consisting of all the Eurasian languages except the Semitic , "Aryan" ( Indo-European ) and Chinese languages. The third volume of the Linguistic Survey of India was devoted to the Tibeto-Burman languages of British India . Julius Klaproth had noted in 1823 that Burmese, Tibetan and Chinese all shared common basic vocabulary , but that Thai , Mon and Vietnamese were quite different. Several authors, including Ernst Kuhn in 1883 and August Conrady in 1896, described an "Indo-Chinese" family consisting of two branches, Tibeto-Burman and Chinese-Siamese. The Tai languages were included on

2280-488: The family, allegedly at the insistence of colleagues, despite his personal belief that they were not related. A very influential, although also tentative, classification is that of Benedict (1972) , which was actually written around 1941. Like Shafer's work, this drew on the data assembled by the Sino-Tibetan Philology Project, which was directed by Shafer and Benedict in turn. Benedict envisaged Chinese as

2337-416: The first family to branch off, followed by Karen. The Tibeto-Burman family is then divided into seven primary branches: James Matisoff proposes a modification of Benedict that demoted Karen but kept the divergent position of Sinitic. Of the 7 branches within Tibeto-Burman, 2 branches (Baic and Karenic) have SVO -order languages, whereas all the other 5 branches have SOV -order languages. Tibeto-Burman

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2394-433: The following century, Brian Houghton Hodgson collected a wealth of data on the non-literary languages of the Himalayas and northeast India, noting that many of these were related to Tibetan and Burmese. Others identified related languages in the highlands of Southeast Asia and south-west China. The name "Tibeto-Burman" was first applied to this group in 1856 by James Logan , who added Karen in 1858. Charles Forbes viewed

2451-586: The following is one of many potential ways of subdividing these languages. Some varieties, such as Shaozhou Tuhua , are hard to classify and thus are not included in the following briefs. This is a language family first proposed by linguist Zhengzhang Shangfang , and was expanded to include Longjia and Luren. It likely split off from the rest of Sinitic during the Old Chinese period. The languages included are all considered minority languages in China and are spoken in

2508-482: The former Soviet Union . Jin is spoken in most of Shanxi , western Hebei , northern Shaanxi , northern Henan and central Inner Mongolia , often represented by Taiyuannese . It was first proposed as a lect separate from the rest of Mandarin by Li Rong , where it was proposed as lects in and around Shanxi with a checked tone, though this stance is not without disagreement. Jin varieties also often has disyllabic words derived from syllable splitting (分音詞), through

2565-534: The heavy use of rhotic erhua and seemingly random distribution of the dark checked tone, and generally having four tones with the contours of high flat, rising, dipping, and falling. Northeastern Mandarin, especially in Heilongjiang, contains many loanwords from Russian. Northeastern Mandarin lects can be divided into three main groups, namely Hafu (including Harbinnese and Changchunnese ), Jishen (including Jilinnese and Shenyangnese ), and Heisong. Notably,

2622-409: The historical checked tones with a lesser muddy ( 次濁 ) and clear ( 清 ) initial together with the rising tone, and those with a fully muddy ( 全濁 ) initial are merged with the light level tone. Lanyin Mandarin, spoken in northern Ningxia, parts of Gansu, and northern Xinjiang, is sometimes grouped with Central Plains Mandarin due to its merged lesser light and dark checked tones, though it is realised as

2679-742: The infixation of /(u)əʔ l/ . 笨 pəŋ꜄   → 薄 pəʔ꜇ 愣 ləŋ꜄ 笨 {} 薄 愣 pəŋ꜄ → pəʔ꜇ ləŋ꜄ 'stupid' 滾 ꜂kʊŋ   → 骨 kuəʔ꜆ 攏 ꜂lʊŋ 滾 {} 骨 攏 ꜂kʊŋ → kuəʔ꜆ ꜂lʊŋ 'to roll' As per the Language Atlas by Li, Jin is divided into Dabao, Zhanghu, Wutai, Lüliang, Bingzhou, Shangdang, Hanxin, and Zhiyan branches. Spoken in Yunnan , Guizhou , northern Guangxi , most of Sichuan , southern Gansu and Shaanxi , Chongqing , most of Hubei and bordering parts of Hunan , as well as Kokang of Myanmar and parts of northern Thailand , Southwestern Mandarin speakers take up

2736-596: The most area and population of all Mandarinic language groups, and would be the eighth most spoken language in the world if separated from the rest of Mandarin. Southwestern Mandarinic tends to not have retroflex consonants , and merges all checked tone categories together. Except for Minchi , which has a standalone checked category, the checked tone is merged with another category. Representative lects include Wuhannese and Sichuanese , and sometimes Kunmingnese . Southwestern Mandarin tends to be split into Chuanqian, Xishu, Chuanxi, Yunnan, Huguang and Guiliu branches. Minchi

2793-551: The newer data. George van Driem rejects the primary split of Sinitic, making Tibeto-Burman synonymous with Sino-Tibetan. The internal structure of Tibeto-Burman is tentatively classified as follows by Matisoff (2015: xxxii, 1123–1127) in the final release of the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT). The classification of Tujia is difficult due to extensive borrowing. Other unclassified Tibeto-Burman languages include Basum and

2850-624: The seven traditional groups. Varieties of Mandarin are used in the Western Regions , the Southwest , Huguang , Inner Mongolia , Central Plains and the Northeast , by around three-quarters of the Sinitic-speaking population. Historically, the prestige variety has always been Mandarin, which is still reflected today in Standard Chinese . Standard Chinese is now an official language of

2907-658: The small Ao , Angami–Pochuri , Tangkhulic , and Zeme groups of languages, as well as the Karbi language . Meithei , the main language of Manipur with 1.4 million speakers, is sometimes linked with the 50 or so Kuki-Chin languages are spoken in Mizoram and the Chin State of Myanmar. The Mru language is spoken by a small group in the Chittagong Hill Tracts between Bangladesh and Myanmar. There have been two milestones in

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2964-461: The small Qiangic and Rgyalrongic groups of languages, which preserve many archaic features. The most easterly Tibeto-Burman language is Tujia , spoken in the Wuling Mountains on the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou and Chongqing. Two historical languages are believed to be Tibeto-Burman, but their precise affiliation is uncertain. The Pyu language of central Myanmar in the first centuries

3021-481: The small Siangic , Kho-Bwa (or Kamengic), Hruso , Miju and Digaro languages (or Mishmic) groups. These groups have relatively little Tibeto-Burman vocabulary, and Bench and Post dispute their inclusion in Sino-Tibetan. The greatest variety of languages and subgroups is found in the highlands stretching from northern Myanmar to northeast India. Northern Myanmar is home to the small Nungish group, as well as

3078-506: Was a consequence of Pali grammar, which dictates that participles can be used in noun functions. Pali grammar also influenced negation in written Old Burmese, as many Old Burmese inscriptions adopt the Pali method of negation. In Burmese, negation is accomplished by prefixing a negative particle မ ( ma. ) to the verb being negated. In Pali, အ ( a. ) is used instead. Such grammatical influences from Pali on written Old Burmese had disappeared by

3135-543: Was minimal. Many Mon loan words are present in Old Burmese inscriptions, including words that were absent in the Burmese vocabulary and those that substituted original Burmese words. Examples include: Moreover, Mon influenced Old Burmese orthography, particularly with regard to preference for certain spelling conventions: Two grammatical markers presently found in Modern Burmese are extant to Old Burmese: In Old Burmese, ၍

3192-425: Was published by Yangon University 's Department of Archaeology in five volumes from 1972 to 1987. A digitized version of this collection and a corrected version of the same enhanced with metadata and transliteration are available at Zenodo. Tibeto-Burman languages The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family , over 400 of which are spoken throughout

3249-565: Was spelt ruy-e ( ရုယ် ), following the pattern in Pali , whose inflected verbs can express the main predicate. Pali also had an influence in the construction of written Old Burmese verbal modifiers . Whereas in Modern Burmese, the verb + သော ( sau: ) construction can only modify the succeeding noun (e.g. ချစ်သောလူ , "man who loves") and သူ ( su ) can only modify the preceding verb (e.g. ချစ်သူ , "lover"), in Old Burmese, both constructions, verb + သော and verb + သူ were interchangeable. This

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