Search results
The Sinitic languages (simplified Chinese: 汉语族; traditional Chinese: 漢語族; pinyin: Hànyǔ zú), often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a group of East Asian analytic languages that constitute a major branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family.
Sino-Tibetan is structurally one of the most diverse language families in the world, including all of the gradation of morphological complexity from isolating (Lolo-Burmese, Tujia) to polysynthetic (Gyalrongic, Kiranti) languages. While Sinitic languages are normally taken to be a prototypical example of the isolating morphological type ...
- Features
- Phonology
- Sound Changes
- Further Reading
Reconstructed features include prefixes such as the causative s-, the intransitive m-, the miscellaneous b-, d-, g-, and r-, suffixes -s, -t, and -n, and a set of conditioning factors that resulted in the development of tone in most languages of the family. The existence of such elaborate system of inflectional changes in Proto-Sino-Tibetan makes t...
Benedict
The table below shows consonant phonemes reconstructed by Benedict.[page needed]
Peiros & Starostin
The reconstruction by Peiros & Starostin suggests a much more complex consonant inventory.The phonemes in brackets are reconstructions that are considered dubious.
Hill
The following tables show the reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan phonemes by Nathan Hill (2019). The consonants /ptkqʔmnŋlrj/ can take coda position, as well as the cluster /rl/. While Hill does not reconstruct /j/ as an initial consonant due to Baxter and Sagart's Old Chinese reconstruction lacking such a phoneme, he mentions that Jacques and Schuessler suggest a /j/initial for some Old Chinese words due to potential Tibetan or Rgyalrongic cognates. Hill also claims that his reconstruction...
Final consonant changes
In Gong Huangcheng's reconstruction of the Proto-Sino-Tibetan language, the finals *-p, *-t, *-k, *-m, *-n, and *-ŋ in Proto-Sino-Tibetan remained in Proto-Sinitic and Proto-Tibeto-Burman. However, in Old Chinese, the finals *-k and *-ŋ that came after the close vowel *-i- underwent an irregular change of *-k＞*-t and *-ŋ ＞*-n. In Proto-Tibeto-Burman, *-kw and *-ŋw underwent a sound change to become *-k and *-ŋ respectively, while in Old Chinese those finals remained until Middle Chinese, wher...
Hill, Nathan W. (2019). The Historical Phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316550939.Matisoff, James A. (2003), Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction, Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-09843-5.These varieties form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family (with Bai sometimes being included in this grouping). Because speakers share a standard written form , and have a common cultural heritage with long periods of political unity, the varieties are popularly perceived among native speakers as variants of a single Chinese ...
Abstract. This chapter provides a historical and typological overview of Sinitic languages. It first discusses the terminology related to Chinese, clarifying the meaning of ‘language’, ‘dialect’, and ‘standard’ in this context. It then proposes a concise overview of the diachronic development of Sinitic languages, with a focus on ...
Sinitic languages, commonly known as the Chinese dialects, are spoken in China and on the island of Taiwan and by important minorities in all the countries of Southeast Asia (by a majority only in Singapore ).
