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.

Classification Guillaume Jacques & Alexis Michaud (2011)Jacques, Guillaume, and Alexis Michaud. 2011. "Approaching the historical phonology of three highly eroded Sino-Tibetan languages." Diachronica 28:468–498. argue for a Burmo-Qiangic branch of Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) with two primary subbranches, Qiangic and Lolo-Burmese. Similarly, David Bradley (2008)Bradley, David. 2008. The Position of Namuyi in Tibeto-Burman. Paper presented at Workshop on Namuyi, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 2008. proposes an Eastern Tibeto-Burman branch that includes Burmic ( 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.

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.

However, Chirkova (2012)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. 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).

Lee & Sagart (2008)Lee, Y.-J., & Sagart, L. (2008). No limits to borrowing: The case of Bai and Chinese. Diachronica, 25(3), 357–385. argue that Bai is a Tibeto-Burman language that has borrowed very heavily from Old Chinese. Lee & Sagart (2008) note that words 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)Yu, Dominic. 2012. Proto-Ersuic. Ph.D. dissertation. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Department of Linguistics. 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.

(Baima) [possible Burmo-Qiangic substratum]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> Qiang rGyalrong Lavrung Ergong Choyo nDrapa Guiqiong Minyak Ersuic Namuyi Shixing Naish Prinmi Lolo-Burmese (Bai) [possible Burmo-Qiangic substratum]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.

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

Yu (2012:215–218) 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: Proto-Rma (Sims 2017)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. Proto-Prinmi (Sims 2017) Proto-Ersuic (Yu 2012) Proto-Naish (Jacques & Michaud 2011) Proto-Lolo-Burmese (Matisoff 2003) Proto-Bai (Wang 2006)*

Lexical evidence Jacques & Michaud (2011)Jacques & Michaud (2011), appendix p.7 list the following lexical items as likely Burmo-Qiangic lexical innovations. Gloss rGyalrong Tangut Na Proto-Naish Burmese Achang Hani copula ŋu ŋwu2 ŋi˩˧ ? hnang2 – ŋɯ˧˩ star ʑŋgri gjịj1 kɯ˥ *kri kray2 khʐə˥ a˧˩gɯ˥ forget jmɯt mjɨ̣2 mv̩.phæL+MH *mi me1 ɲi˧˥ ɲi˥ be ill ngo < *ngaŋ ŋo2 gu˩ *go flint ʁdɯrtsa – tse.miH *tsa to hide nɤtsɯ – tsɯ˥ (Naxi) *tsu to swallow mqlaʁ – ʁv̩˥ *NqU < *Nqak dry spɯ - pv̩˧ *Spu thick jaʁ laa1 lo˧˥ *laC2 jump mtsaʁ – tsho˧ *tshaC2 winter qartsɯ tsur1 tshi˥ *tshu choŋ3 tɕhɔŋ˧˩ tshɔ˧˩ga̱˧ knee tə-mŋɑ (Situ) ŋwer2 ŋwɤ.koH *ŋwa sun ʁmbɣi be2 bi˧ (Naxi) *bi

Burmo-Qiangic languages

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