Sinosphere (linguistics)

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The Sinosphere is the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area. The linguist James Matisoff coined the term "Sinosphere" in 1990, contrasting with the Indosphere, "I refer to the Chinese and Indian areas of linguistic/cultural influence in Southeast Asia as the 'Sinosphere' and the 'Indosphere'." [1]

For Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) the term has been glossed as "Sinosphere: a socio-political sphere of MSEA, subsuming those countries, cultures, and languages that have historically come under influence from the politics, culture, religion, and languages of China ." [2]

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Mainland Southeast Asia The continental portion of Southeast Asia

Mainland Southeast Asia is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It includes the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Cultural area

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In linguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted to genealogically determined similarity within the same language family. Features may diffuse from one dominant language to neighbouring languages.

Tani, is a branch of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken mostly in Arunachal Pradesh, India and neighboring regions.

Thai people Tai ethnic group of Thailand

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James Alan Matisoff is a professor emeritus of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley and noted authority on Tibeto-Burman languages and other languages of mainland Southeast Asia.

East Asian cultural sphere Grouping of countries and regions that were historically influenced by the culture of China

The East Asian cultural sphere, Chinese cultural sphere or Sinosphere encompasses the countries within East and Southeast Asia that were historically influenced by Chinese culture. The region is not to be confused with Greater China, a region that encompasses countries with majority Han Chinese or Chinese-speaking populations.

Indosphere is a term coined by the linguist James Matisoff for areas of Indian linguistic and cultural influence in Southeast Asia. It is commonly used in areal linguistics in contrast with Sinosphere.

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Primarily in Austroasiatic languages, in a typical word a minor syllable is a reduced (minor) syllable followed by a full tonic or stressed syllable. The minor syllable may be of the form or, with a reduced vowel, as in colloquial Khmer, or of the form with no vowel at all, as in Mlabri "navel" and "underneath", and Khasi kyndon "rule", syrwet "sign", kylla "transform", symboh "seed" and tyngkai "conserve". This iambic pattern is sometimes called sesquisyllabic, a term coined by the American linguist James Matisoff in 1973.

Proto-Tibeto-Burman (PTB) 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.

Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area Geolinguistic region sharing areal features such as tonality

The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien, Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighbouring languages across these families, though presumed unrelated, often have similar typological features, which are believed to have spread by diffusion. James Matisoff referred to this area as the "Sinosphere", contrasted with the "Indosphere", but viewed it as a zone of mutual influence in the ancient period.

Michel Ferlus French linguist

Michel Ferlus is a French linguist whose special study is in the historical phonology of languages of Southeast Asia. In addition to phonological systems, he also studies writing systems, in particular the evolution of Indic scripts in Southeast Asia.

Sinosphere traditionally refers to the East Asian cultural sphere, nations that have historically been influenced by China in terms of literary traditions, culture and religions.

The East Asian languages are a language family proposed by Stanley Starosta in 2001. The proposal has since been adopted by George van Driem.

The Proto-Karenic or Proto-Karen language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Karenic languages.

References

  1. Matisoff, James A. (1990). On Megalocomparison. Language 66.1, p. 113.
  2. N.J. Areal Linguistics and Mainland Southeast Asia, Annual Review of Anthropology 2005. 34:181–206