The Ancestry of Tibetan

Title
The Ancestry of Tibetan
Publication Date
2013
Author(s)
van Driem, George
Editor
Editor(s): Gray Tuttle, Kunsang Gya, Karma Dare and Johnathan Wilber
Type of document
Conference Publication
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Trace Foundation
Place of publication
New York, United States of America
UNE publication id
une:16873
Abstract
The Tibeto-Burman linguistic phylum was identified in 1823. However, the term "Tibeto-Burman" was later used with two different meanings, one by scholars following Klaproth's polyphyletic framework and another by scholars operating within the Indo-Chinese paradigm. Yet the enduring failure of Sino-Tibetanists to produce any evidence for the Indo-Chinese phylogenetic model compels us to conclude that there is no such language family as Sino-Tibetan. Instead, Tibetan forms part of the Trans-Himalayan linguistic phylum, or Tibeto-Burman in Klaproth's sense. Robert Shafer coined the terms "Bodic" and "Bodish" for subgroups including Tibetan and languages with varying degrees of linguistic propinquity to Tibetan, and Nicolas Tournadre has also recently coined the term "Tibetic." What are Tibetic, Bodish, and Bodic? Which languages are the closest relatives of Tibetan? What do we know about the structure of the Trans-Himalayan linguistic phylum as a whole? Based on the phylogeny of the language family, which inferences can be made about the ethnolinguistic prehistory of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding regions?
Link
Citation
The Third International Conference on Tibetan Language Proceedings, v.1: Proceedings of the Panels on Domains of Use and Linguistic Interactions, p. 363-397
Start page
363
End page
397

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