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Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman

Description of Module

Subject Name Linguistics

Paper Name Historical and Comparative Linguistics

Module Title The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Module ID Lings_P7_M27

Quadrant 1 E-Text

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

THE TIBETO-BURMAN LANGUAGES

Sino-Tibetan family of languages includes the Sinitic branch and Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in almost the whole of , western and in the highlands of Northeast . This is the second largest family in terms of number of speakers after Indo-European family. The Sino-Tibetan family is mainly composed of two sub-branches, Sinitic (Chinese and related languages) and the rest, Tibeto-Burman. In this lecture attention is mainly focused on the Tibeto-Burman branch. In India Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken along the great Himalayan mountain ranges right from Ladakh in the north to the north-eastern states up to , Burma, . Sino-Tibetan languages were known for a long time by the name Indo-Chinese, which is now restricted to the languages of Indo-China. The Tibeto-Burman languages numbering more than 400 are spoken throughout the highlands of as well as certain parts of and . The name derives from the most widely spoken of these languages, namely Burmese (over 32 million speakers) and the Tibetan languages (over 8 million). These languages 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. During the 18th century, several scholars noticed parallels between Tibetan and Burmese, both languages with extensive literary traditions. In the following century, collected a wealth of data on the non-literary languages of the Himalayas and , noting that many of these were related to Tibetan and Burmese. Others identified related languages in the highlands of southeast Asia and . The name "Tibeto-Burman" was first applied to this group in 1856 by James Logan, who added Karen in 1858. Charles Forbes viewed the family as uniting the Gangetic and Lohitic branches of Max Müller's Turanian, a huge family consisting of all the Eurasian languages except the Semitic, "Aryan" (Indo-European) and Chinese languages. The third volume of Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India was devoted to the Tibeto-Burman languages of British India. Julius Klaproth had noted in 1823 that Burmese, Tibetan and Chinese all shared common basic , but that Thai, Mon and Vietnamese were quite different. Several authors, including Ernst Kuhn in 1883 and August Conrady in 1896, described an "Indo-Chinese" family consisting of two branches, Tibeto-Burman and Chinese-Siamese. Jean Przyluski introduced the term sino-tibétain (Sino-Tibetan). The link to Chinese is now accepted by most linguists, with a few exceptions such as Roy Miller and Christopher Beckwith. More recent controversy has centred on the proposed primary branching of Sino-Tibetan into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman subgroups. In spite of the popularity of this classification, first proposed by Kuhn and Conrady,

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

and also promoted by Paul Benedict (1972) and later , Tibeto-Burman has not been demonstrated to be a valid family in its own right. Overview The TB languages have evolved from the ancestral , Proto-Tibeto-Burman, in vastly different ways and at their own pace, in accordance with the geographical and social factors that have determined the fate of Central and South Asian people. Some tribes have been stationary; others have swept over huge areas. As a result, conservative or archaic features do not occur in only one contiguous part of the language area and innovations in another. The nearest genetic relations are often not identical with the closest typological ones. Most of the Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in inaccessible mountain areas and many are unwritten, which has greatly hampered their study. It is generally much easier to identify a language as Tibeto-Burman than to determine its precise relationship with other languages of the group. These subgroups are here surveyed on a geographical basis. The most widely spoken Tibeto-Burman language is Burmese, the of , with over 32 million speakers and a literary tradition dating from the early 12th century. It is one of the Lolo-Burmese languages, an intensively studied and well-defined group comprising approximately 100 languages spoken in Myanmar and the highlands of , Laos, Vietnam and Southwest China. Major languages include the , with two million speakers in western and northern , the and , with two million speakers in southern Yunnan, eastern Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and Lisu and Lahu in Yunnan, northern Myanmar and northern Thailand. All languages of the Loloish subgroup show significant Austroasiatic influence. The Pai-lang songs, transcribed in in the 1st century, appear to record from a Lolo-, but arranged in Chinese order. Modern Standard Burmese has undergone a set of radical changes. Initial ts- and tsh- have become s- and sh-; s has become th; y- and - have coalesced as y-, and ky- and kr- as a palatal . Furthermore, all final except nasals have coalesced as glottal stops, and all nasals have resulted in nasalization of the preceding . In addition, the quality of has been greatly altered. As was the case in Tibetan, in spite of great phonetic changes, grammatical categories are close to those scholars envisage for Proto-T-. Cases of nouns and aspects of are expressed through postposed particles. Study of the Burmese , in combination with comparative work, makes possible the reconstruction of Old Burmese. The language of the Myazedi inscription of 1113 is close in its sound system to written Burmese in its present form, which dates back to at least 15th century. The writing system was taken over from the Mon people, who had developed their writing from Pyu, a Sino-Tibetan language known in Burma from c.AD 500. It is alphabetic of an Indian type but represents a separate Southern line of development.

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Old Burmese is phonetically further from Proto-Tibeto-Burman than is Tibetan. Initial clusters are mostly lost but are felt in the development of initial consonants. Some clusters with –- and liquid sounds were retained. The tonal system of Burmese (unlike that of Tibetan) developed to compensate for the loss of final features. Over eight million people in the Tibetan Plateau and neighbouring areas in Baltistan, Ladakh, , and speak one of the several related . There is an extensive literature in dating from the 8th century. The Tibetic languages are usually grouped with the smaller East of Bhutan and as the Bodish group. Tibetan: Of the modern Tibetan languages and , the Western ones have preserved initial clusters and final stops most faithfully and have had the least compensational development of tones. Most Central languages and dialects, including , have lost all consonant clusters and final stops and in the process have acquired a larger inventory of single consonants and a system of tones. These changes and reductions are linked to a similar reshaping of certain grammatical processes of formation that now operate only through suprasegmental and syllabic elements. To a surprising degree, however, Modern possesses grammatical categories identical with or very similar in content, though not in form, to those of Classical Tibetan (a similar relationship as that of Modern St. Chinese to ). The relationship of nouns to the main is indicated through postposed particles, the agent of a transitive verb indicated as the one by whom the action is performed, and the subject of an intransitive verb expressed as the or goal of the action. Nominal modifiers precede the nouns, and verbal modifiers follow them. The main verb, always placed after all nouns, is followed by particles expressing aspect and tense. pronunciation can be reconstructed by comparison of modern dialects and through the very conservative alphabetic of Indian origin that goes back to the 7th century AD and found its present form in the 9th century. The orthography is far removed from present-day Standard Tibetan pronunciation. Old Tibetan is one of the most archaic of the T-B languages. It retained T-B final stops and final –r, -l, -s and also the initial voiced consonants. Many Old Tibetan consonant clusters maybe referred to Proto-T-B. The case particles and complicated verbal conjugation perhaps represent an elaboration on somewhat simpler tendencies in the protolanguage. Distribution of T-B languages: A wide variety of Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Sizable groups that have been identified are the West Himalayish languages of and western Nepal, the of western Nepal, including Tamang with one million speakers, and the of eastern Nepal. The remaining groups are small, with several isolates. The (Nepal Bhasa) of central Nepal has a million speakers and a literature dating from the 12th century, and nearly a million people speak Magaric languages, but the rest have small speech communities. Lepcha is spoken in an area from eastern

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Nepal to western Bhutan. Most of the are Bodish, Lhokpu and Gongduk and a larger community of speakers of Tshangla. The include most of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Arunachal Pradesh and adjacent areas of . The remaining languages of Arunachal Pradesh are much more diverse, belonging to the small Siangic, Kho-Bwa (or Kamengic), Hruso, Midzu and Digaro languages (or Mishmic) groups. These groups have relatively little Tibeto-Burman vocabulary, and Bench and Post dispute their inclusion in Sino-Tibetan. The greatest variety of languages and subgroups is found in the highlands stretching from northern Myanmar to northeast India. Northern Myanmar is home to the small Nungish group, as well as the Kachin–Luic languages, including Jingpho with nearly a million speakers. The Brahmaputran or include at least the Bodo–Koch and , spoken in an area stretching from northern Myanmar through the Indian states of , and Tripura, and are often considered to include the Kachin–Luic group. The border highlands of Nagaland, and western Myanmar are home to the small Ao, Angami–Pochuri, Tangkhul and Zeme groups of languages, as well as the . Meithei, the main language of Manipur with 1.4 million speakers, is sometimes linked with the 50 or so Kukish or Kuki-Chin languages spoken in and the of Myanmar. The is spoken by a small group in the between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Classification There have been many attempts at grouping these languages at the highest level, as well as at sub-branch levels as well. Here only a few are mentioned. First detailed grouping was by Grierson (1909). His classification was supposed to be geographical contiguity than linguistic; followed by Shafer’s classification. There have been two milestones in the classification of Sino-Tibetan and Tibeto-Burman languages, Shafer (1955) and Benedict (1972), which were actually produced in the 1930s and 1940s respectively. Grierson classified Tibeto-Chinese family into the Siamese-Chinese sub-family of which Khamti is a representative spoken in India; and the other branch is Tibeto-Burman. This sub-branch is sub-divided into the (a) Tibeto-Himalayan branch, (b) the North branch and (c) the Assam-Burmese branch. Tibeto-Himalayan branch is further divided into the Tibetan group, the pronominalized Himalayan group which is further divided into the western sub-group and the eastern sub-group, and the non-pronominalized Himalayan group. All the sub-groups have innumerable small and big languages under them. Shafer (1955) Shafer based his classification on specific data and divided the Sino-Tibetan family into six divisions: His tentative classification did not recognize Tibeto-Burman, but placed Chinese

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

(Sinitic) on the same level as the other branches of a Sino-Tibetan family. He retained Tai–Kadai (Daic) within the family, allegedly at the insistence of colleagues, despite his personal belief that they were not related. Sino-Tibetan I. Sinitic II. ?? Daic III. Bodic a. Bodish (Gurung, Tshangla, Gyarong, Tibetic) b. West Himalayish (incl. Thangmi, Baram, Raji–Raute) c. West Central Himalayish (Magar, Chepang, Hayu [misplaced]) d. East Himalayish e. Newarish f. Digarish . Midźuish h. Hruish i. Dhimalish . Miśingish k. Dzorgaish

IV. Burmic: a. Burmish b. Mruish c. Nungish d. Katśinish (Jingpho) e. Tśairelish f. Luish g. Taman h. Kukish . Baric: a. Barish b. Nagish VI. Karenic Benedict (1972) A very influential, although also tentative, classification is that of Benedict, which was actually written around 1941. Like Shafer's work, this drew on the data assembled by the Sino-Tibetan Philology Project, which was directed by Shafer and Benedict in turn. Benedict envisaged Chinese as the first family to branch off, followed by Karen. Sino-Tibetan

1. Chinese 2. Tibeto-Karen  Karen  Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman family is then divided into seven primary branches: I. Tibetan–Kanauri (AKA Bodish–Himalayish) A. Bodish (Tibetic, Gyarung, Takpa, Tsangla, Murmi & Gurung) B. Himalayish i. "major" Himalayish ii. "minor" Himalayish (Rangkas, Darmiya, Chaudangsi, Byangsi)

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

(perhaps also Dzorgai, Lepcha, Magari) II. –Vayu A. Bahing (Sunuwar, Khaling) B. Khambu (Sampang, Rungchenbung, Yakha, and Limbu) C. Vayu–Chepang (perhaps also Newar) III. Abor–Miri–Dafla (perhaps also Aka, Digaro, Miju, and ) IV. Kachin (perhaps including Luish)

V. Burmese–Lolo A. Burmese–Maru, B. Southern Lolo, C. Northern Lolo, D. Kanburi Lawa, E. Moso, F. Hsi-fan (Qiangic and Jiarongic languages apart from and Gyarung themselves) G. Tangut (perhaps also Nung) VI. Bodo-Garo languages A. Bodo, B. Garo (A·chik), C. Borok (Tripuri (Tøipra)), D. Dimasa, E. Mech, F. Rava (Koch), G. Kachari, H. Sutiya, I. Saraniya, J. Sonowal VII. (Perhaps also "Naked Naga" AKA Konyak) (perhaps also Karbi, Meithei, Mru)

The Proto-Tibeto-Burman language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages. Among other researchers Paul K. Benedict and James Matisoff have made proposals for the reconstruction of this language.

Phonology The of Proto-Tibeto-Burman here is from Matisoff's 2003 reconstruction, much of which is based on Benedict's earlier reconstructions.

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Consonants Proto-Tibeto–Burman has at least 23 consonants (Matisoff 2003:15). Some descendants of Proto- Tibeto–Burman, especially the , have developed dozens of and . Proto-Tibeto-Burman Consonants

Palatalized

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal

alveolar

Voiceless stop p t k

Voiced stop b d g

Nasal m n ŋ

Fricative s, ś, ź h

͡ ͡ ͡ ͡ ts, dz tś, dź

Lateral l

Tap or trill ɾ, r

Approximant w J

Proto-Tibeto-Burman also has many final nasals, stops, and liquids. Vowels Proto-Tibeto-Burman vowels can be split into primary and secondary sets. Modern-day Tibeto- Burman languages have anywhere from five vowels (Written Tibetan and Jingpho) to dozens of monophthongs and (Loloish and Qiangic languages) (Matisoff 2003:157). Matisoff (2003) also notes that languages which have greatly simplified or eliminated final consonants tend to have more vowels. The open front unrounded vowel *a is by far the most common and stable vowel in Tibeto-Burman languages.

Matisoff (2003) reinterprets diphthongs from Paul Benedict's reconstruction as long vowels. Proto-Tibeto-Burman Primary Vowels

Height Front Central Back

Close ī (iy, əy) ū (uw, əw)

Mid ē (ey) (-ə) ō (ow)

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Open a

ay aw

āy āw

Proto-Tibeto-Burman Secondary Vowels

Height Front Back

Close ī ū

Mid ē ō

Tones: The tones of Tibeto-Burman languages remain a controversy in terms of history and development. Most of the TB languages have tones at phonemic level and /or registers as well. It seems now that in various branches developed independently; however, the tones found in Chinese, Vietnamese and many other languages led many scholars in the past to include many groups and families into one family. But, now, Vietnamese out of it, as scholars have accepted that it is an Austroasiatic language.

Preservation of stops Sino-Tibetan languages go through a series of four stages in which final stops and nasals gradually decay (Matisoff 2003:238-239).

1. The six final stops and nasals, *-p, *-t, *-k, *-m, *-n, *-ŋ, are all intact. Written Tibetan, Lepcha, Kanauri, Garo, and are currently in this stage. 2. One or more final consonants have been reduced or dropped. In Jingpho and Nung, the velars (*-k) are replaced by glottal stops (-ʔ), while in other languages they are completely dropped. In Chinese, all final stops are dropped, and *-m has merged with *-n. 3. All finals stops become glottal stops or constrictions (such as creaky voices), and final nasals may be replaced by nasality in the preceding consonant. Languages currently in this stage include modern Burmese and Lahu. 4. There are no glottal or nasal traces of former final consonants left in the .

Syntax

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Proto-Tibeto-Burman was a verb-final (subject–object–verb or SOV) language, with postpositions; with agglutinative morphology. Proto Tibeto-Burman is now reconstructed with split-ergative case marking and verb agreement system (DeLancey 1987). Also, many of these languages, like Newari have numeral classifiers. Pronominalization is an unique feature of some of the Himalayan languages like Bantawa, Rai, Limbu, Chepang, Manchad, Bunan, Kanauri and a few others.

Morphology structure According to James Matisoff, Proto-Tibeto-Burman syllables typically consist of the following structure (Matisoff 2003:11-13).

(P2) — (P1) — Ci — (G) — V(:) — Cf — (s)

 P1: first prefix - optional  P2: second prefix - optional  Ci: initial consonant  G: glide - optional  V: vowel (optionally lengthened)  Cf: final consonant  s: suffix - optional The following types of changes in syllable structure have been attested in Tibeto-Burman languages (Matisoff 2003:155). (Note: "Sesquisyllable" is a word coined by James Matisoff meaning "one-and-a-half syllables.")

(a) disyllable

(i) disyllable => sesquisyllable (ii) disyllable => complex monosyllable (iii) disyllable => simple monosyllable

(b) sesquisyllable

(i) sesquisyllable => disyllable

(ii) sesquisyllable => complex monosyllable

(iii) sesquisyllable => simple monosyllable

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

(c) complex monosyllable

(i) complex monosyllable => sesquisyllable

(ii) complex monosyllable => simple monosyllable

(d) simple monosyllable

simple monosyllable => disyllable Below are the sources of the syllable changes (i.e., reversal of the list above).

(i) disyllable

(a) from sesquisyllable

(b) from simple monosyllable

(ii) sesquisyllable

(a) from disyllable

(b) from complex monosyllable

(iii) complex monosyllable

(a) from disyllable

(b) from sesquisyllable

(iv) simple monosyllable

(a) from disyllable

(b) from sesquisyllable

(c) from complex monosyllable Verbs

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Verbal agreement According to many authors such as James Bauman, and Scott DeLancey, a system of verbal agreement should be reconstructed for proto-Tibeto-Burman. Verbal agreement has disappeared in Chinese, Tibetan, Lolo-Burmese and most other branches, but was preserved in Kiranti languages in particular. This is a topic of scholarly debate, however, and the existence of a PTB verbal agreement system is disputed by such authors as Randy LaPolla. Prefixes Matisoff postulates the following derivational prefixes.

(i) *s- — This prefix is used for the directive, causative, or intensive. It also appears in words for animals and body parts.

(ii) *ʔa- / *(ʔ)ə / *ʔə̃ / *ʔaŋ / *ʔak — This glottal prefix is used for kinship functions and the third person .

(iii) *m- — Before verb roots, this prefix signifies inner-directed states or actions, such as stativity, intrasitivity, durativity, and reflexivity. Before noun roots, it is used as a third person possessive prefix.

(iv) *r- — Before verbs, this prefix is used as a "directive." It is also used before a wide variety of semantically unrelated noun roots.

(v) *b- — This prefix is often used before transitive verbs, and usually marks the past (with suffix *-s, creating a *b- -s circumfix) and future (with a null suffix).

(vi) *g- — This velar prefix has a third person pronominal function before noun roots. It is also used before a wide variety of semantically unrelated noun roots. Before verb roots, it is used for the present and future tenses. In Proto-Lolo–Burmese, the unvoiced velar prefix *k- is used commonly used before animal names. Other constructed prefixes include *l- and *d-. Circumfixes have also been reconstructed for Proto-Tibeto-Burman. In Written Tibetan, s- -n and s- -d are collective circumfixes used in kinship terms (Matisoff 2003:453). Suffixes Three Proto-Tibeto-Burman dental suffixes, *-n, *-t, and *-s, are highly widespread, but their semantics are difficult to reconstruct (Matisoff 2003:439). The suffixes *-s, *-h, and *-ʔ are often developed into tones in many Tibeto-Burman languages, and are thus highly "tonogenetically potent" (Matisoff 2003:474). Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

(i) *-n – This suffix has a variety of functions, including nominalizing, transitivizing, and collectivizing (or pluralizing). The nominalizing function is attested in Lepcha as -m or - n and in Written Tibetan as -n. The transitivizing form is rare, and has only been attested in Kanauri. Finally, the collectivizing/pluralizing function is found not only in many modern- day Tibeto-Burman languages, but also in Old Chinese as well.

(ii) *-t – This suffix is used as a nominalizer. It occurs in Jingpho as -t and Written Tibetan as -d. Other functions include verbalizing noun roots and making intransitive or stative verbs into transitive or causative ones (Matisoff 2003:457). In other cases, *-t appears to have no obvious function. The *-t suffix also occurs in Old Chinese, but its semantic function is unclear.

(iii) *-s – Not easily distinguishable from *-t, this proto-suffix is preserved in written Tibetan, West Himalayish languages, Chepang, Kukish languages (as -ʔ) and some Qiangic languages. It can serve as a nominalizer (Qiang and Tibetan), locative, subordinator (Kukish languages), a stative, inner-directed, or "middle" meaning (Himalayish languages such as Kanauri), and causative (Kiranti and Kukish languages).

(iv) *-k – This velar suffix occurs in the Kukish languages and also in Old Chinese. Its semantic function is still unknown. However, Pulleyblank assigns a distributive sense to the *-k suffix, but only in relation to pronominal forms (LaPolla 2003:26).

(v) *ʔay – This proto-morpheme means "to go", and can be attached to various roots as a palatal suffix to signify motion away from the deictic center. This fully syllabic proto- morpheme has now been grammaticalized and reduced to palatal offglides in modern-day Tibeto-Burman languages.

(vi) *ya / *za / *tsa / *dza – Meaning "child" or "little one", this proto-morpheme appears in Tibeto-Burman languages as a palatal suffix (-j), and has also been reconstructed in several ways. Its purpose is mainly diminutive. Matisoff (2003) also notes that high front vowels tend to be used for diminutive functions.

(vii) *-way / *-ray – This proto-copula can also appear as a palatal suffix (-j) and occurs in roots carrying abstract grammatical meanings, such as articles, , and deictics (Matisoff 2003:487).

Vocabulary

The TB languages possess rich and varied vocabulary. In the older stages of Sino-Tibetan the distinction of verbs and nouns appears unclear. Many TB or S-B languages have a numeral systems.

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages

Various researchers have proposed reconstructed vocabulary items. One resource for Matisoff's proposals for Proto-Tibeto-Burman vocabulary reconstruction is his Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus (STEDT) [2], based at the Department of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : The Tibeto-Burman Languages