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Sino-Tibetan is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Sinitic languages. Other Sino-Tibetan languages with large numbers of speakers include Burmese and the Tibetic languages. Four United Nations member states have a Sino-Tibetan language as their main native language. Other languages of the family are spoken in the Himalayas, the Southeast Asian Massif, and the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Most of these have small speech communities in remote mountain areas, and as such are poorly documented.
In linguistic typology, split ergativity is a feature of certain languages where some constructions use ergative syntax and morphology, but other constructions show another pattern, usually nominative–accusative. The conditions in which ergative constructions are used vary among different languages.
In linguistic typology, ergative–absolutive alignment is a type of morphosyntactic alignment in which the single argument ("subject") of an intransitive verb behaves like the object of a transitive verb, and differently from the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb. Examples include Basque, Georgian, Mayan, Tibetan, and certain Indo-European languages. It has also been attributed to the Semitic modern Aramaic languages. Ergative languages are classified into two groups: those that are morphologically ergative but syntactically behave as accusative and those that, on top of being ergative morphologically, also show ergativity in syntax. No language has been recorded in which both the morphological and syntactical ergative are present. Languages that belong to the former group are more numerous than those to the latter. Dyirbal is said to be the only representative of syntactic ergativity, yet it displays accusative alignment with certain pronouns.
Khams Tibetan is the Tibetic language used by the majority of the people in Kham. Khams is one of the three branches of the traditional classification of Tibetic languages. In terms of mutual intelligibility, Khams could communicate at a basic level with the Ü-Tsang branch.
Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Tibetan grammar describes the morphology, syntax and other grammatical features of Lhasa Tibetan, a Sino-Tibetan language. Lhasa Tibetan is typologically an ergative–absolutive language. Nouns are generally unmarked for grammatical number, but are marked for case. Adjectives are never marked and appear after the noun. Demonstratives also come after the noun but these are marked for number. Verbs are possibly the most complicated part of Tibetan grammar in terms of morphology. The dialect described here is the colloquial language of Central Tibet, especially Lhasa and the surrounding area, but the spelling used reflects classical Tibetan, not the colloquial pronunciation.
Akha is the language spoken by the Akha people of southern China, eastern Burma, northern Laos, and northern Thailand.
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout 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.
Gongduk or Gongdu is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 1,000 people in a few inaccessible villages located near the Kuri Chhu river in the Gongdue Gewog of Mongar District in eastern Bhutan. The names of the villages are Bala, Dagsa, Damkhar, Pam, Pangthang, and Yangbari (Ethnologue).
Yolmo (Hyolmo) or Helambu Sherpa, is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Hyolmo people of Nepal. Yolmo is spoken predominantly in the Helambu and Melamchi valleys in northern Nuwakot District and northwestern Sindhupalchowk District. Dialects are also spoken by smaller populations in Lamjung District and Ilam District and also in Ramecchap District. It is very similar to Kyirong Tibetan and less similar to Standard Tibetan and Sherpa. There are approximately 10,000 Yolmo speakers, although some dialects have larger populations than others.
Proto-Tibeto-Burman is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined by James Matisoff. Several other researchers argue that the Tibeto-Burman languages sans Chinese do not constitute a monophyletic group within Sino-Tibetan, and therefore that Proto-Tibeto-Burman was the same language as Proto-Sino-Tibetan.
A secundative language is a language in which the recipients of ditransitive verbs are treated like the patients (targets) of monotransitive verbs, and the themes get distinct marking. Secundative languages contrast with indirective languages, where the recipient is treated in a special way.
Scott DeLancey is an American linguist from the University of Oregon. His work focuses on typology and historical linguistics of Tibeto-Burman languages as well as North American indigenous languages such as the Penutian family, particularly the Klamath. His research is known for its diversity of its thematic and theoretical reach.
Japhug is a Gyalrong language spoken in Barkam County, Rngaba, Sichuan, China, in the three townships of Gdong-brgyad, Gsar-rdzong and Da-tshang.
Mruic or Mru–Hkongso is a small group of Sino-Tibetan languages consisting of two languages, Mru and Anu-Hkongso. Their relationship within Sino-Tibetan is unclear.
Shobhana Chelliah is an Indian-American linguist who specializes in Sino-Tibetan languages. As of 2023, she is a professor of linguistics at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research focuses on the documentation of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Northeast India.
Taman is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in Htamanthi village in Homalin Township, Sagaing Region, northern Myanmar. It was documented in a list of 75 words in Brown (1911). Keisuke Huziwara (2016) discovered an elderly rememberer of Taman in Htamanthi who could remember some Taman phrases as well as a short song, but was not fluent in the Taman language. However, no fluent speakers of Taman remained in the area.
In linguistics, differential argument marking (DAM) is the phenomenon of a language's encoding a single grammatical function (e.g. subject or object) in different ways. It includes non-uniform encoding of arguments in terms of case marking, but also in terms of the presence or absence of agreement on the verb. The term differential marking – specifically differential object marking or DOM – was coined by Georg Bossong in relation to his work on Sardinian and New Iranian languages. However, in recent years there has been a growing interest in the great variety of differential marking patterns across the world's languages in both formal and functional linguistics.
Barman Thar, where “thar” means language, is a highly endangered language. It is a Tibeto-Burman language that belongs to the Boro–Garo sub-group. The population of the Barman Kachari community is 24,237, according to a 2017 census. However, only a small part of this population speaks the language.
Lhowa (ल्होवा), also known as Loke Tibetan, Mustang Tibetan and Lhopa is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by approximately 3,000 Tibetan people of Mustang District in central Nepal.
References
- 1 2 San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, p. 2.
- ↑ Hargreaves 2005, p. 31.
- ↑ Widmer & Zúñiga 2017, p. 419.
- 1 2 Rumsey 2020.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, pp. 5–6.
- 1 2 San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, p. 7.
- ↑ Tournadre 1991.
- 1 2 Tournadre 2017, p. 110.
- ↑ Hagège 1982.
- 1 2 DeLancey 1990, p. 295.
- ↑ DeLancey 2018, p. 583.
- ↑ Hale 1980.
- ↑ Hill & Gawne 2017, pp. 8–9.
- ↑ Widmer & Zúñiga 2017, p. 420.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, pp. 4–5.
- ↑ Hale 1980, p. 91.
- ↑ Hargreaves 2005, p. 12.
- ↑ Hale 1980, p. 96.
- ↑ Hale 1980, p. 95.
- ↑ DeLancey 2018, p. 587.
- ↑ Hill & Gawne 2017, pp. 11–12.
- ↑ DeLancey 1990, p. 300.
- 1 2 Hill & Gawne 2017, p. 12.
- ↑ DeLancey 1990, pp. 295–296.
- ↑ Hill & Gawne 2017, pp. 15–16.
- ↑ Widmer 2020.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, p. 61.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, p. 39.
- ↑ Jacques 2019.
- 1 2 San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, pp. 36–37.
- ↑ Egerod 1985, pp. 102–104.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, p. 12.
- ↑ Sandman 2018, pp. 173–174.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, p. 38.
- ↑ San Roque, Floyd & Norcliffe 2018, pp. 39–40.
- ↑ Tournadre & LaPolla 2014, p. 244.
- ↑ Shimotori 2008, p. 141.
