SINO-TIBETAN LANGUAGES

group of languages that includes both the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages. In terms of numbers of speakers, they comprise the world's second largest language family (after Indo-European), including more than 300 languages and major dialects. In a wider sense, Sino-Tibetan has been defined as also including the Tai (Daic), Karen, and Miao-Yao (Hmong-Mien) languages and even the Ket language in central Siberia (the latter affiliation seems untenable). Some linguists connect the Mon-Khmer family of the Austroasiatic stock or the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family, or both, with Sino-Tibetan; a suggested term for this most inclusive group, which seems to be based on premature speculations, is Sino-Austric. Other scholars see a relationship of Sino-Tibetan with the Athabascan and other languages of North America, but proof of this is beyond reach at the present state of knowledge. Sino-Tibetan languages were known for a long time by the name of Indochinese, which is now restricted to the languages of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They were also called Tibeto-Chinese until the now universally accepted designation Sino-Tibetan was adopted. The term Sinitic also has been used in the same sense, but also as below for the Chinese subfamily exclusively. (In the following discussion of language groups, the ending -ic, as in Sinitic, indicates a relatively large group of languages, and -ish denotes a smaller grouping.) Sren Christian Egerod group of more than 300 languages and major dialects, chief among them being Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. In numbers of speakers, Sino-Tibetan languages constitute the world's second largest language family (after Indo-European). Various Chinese languages (or dialects), grouped as Sinitic languages, are spoken in China and Taiwan and by Chinese immigrants in many nations. Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in Tibet, Burma, and throughout the Himalayan Mountain region. Sino-Tibetan languages have in common a number of features, many of which are typological in nature: monosyllabicity, tonality, affixation, initial consonant alternation, vowel alternation, indistinct word classes, use of noun classifiers, and strict word order. Phonological correspondences in shared vocabulary have been important pieces of evidence in the argument that all Sino-Tibetan languages are related and derive from a common source. Additional reading Overviews of the Sino-Tibetan languages are provided in Paul K. Benedict, Sino-Tibetan: A Conspectus (1972), a comprehensive and original study; G.A. Grierson (compiler and ed.), Linguistic Survey of India, vol. 3 in 3 parts, Tibeto-Burman Family (190309, reprinted 1967), a wealth of material but of uneven quality; Frank M. LeBar, Gerald C. Hickey, and John K. Musgrave, Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia (1964), an excellent reference work; Henri Maspero, Langues de l'Asie du Sud-Est, in A. Meillet and Marcel Cohen (eds.), Les Langues du monde, new ed. (1952, reprinted 1981), pp. 525644, the most authoritative concise treatment of Sino-Tibetan; C.F. Voegelin and F.M. Voegelin, Languages of the World: Sino-Tibetan, Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 6, no. 3 (March 1964) and vol. 7, nos. 36, all part 1 (MarchJune 1965), much information of a semitechnical nature; Robert Shafer, Introduction to Sino-Tibetan , 5 vol. (196674), a comprehensive and extensive, but technical, series; Robert Shafer (ed.), Bibliography of Sino-Tibetan Languages, 2 vol. (195763), indispensable for further research; and S. Robert Ramsey, The Languages of China (1987), comprehensive and not difficult to read. Weldon South Coblin, A Sinologist's Handlist of Sino-Tibetan Lexical Comparisons (1986), is a competent statement on comparative work; to some extent it builds on Nicholas C. Bodman, Proto-Chinese and Sino-Tibetan, in Frans van Coetsem and Linda R. Waugh, Contributions to Historical Linguistics (1980), pp. 34199. Sren Christian Egerod