Back Sino-Tibettaanse tale Afrikaans Luengas sino-tibetanas AN لغات صينية تبتية Arabic চীনা-তিব্বতীয় ভাষা Assamese Llingües sino-tibetanes AST Çin-Tibet dilləri Azerbaijani چین-تبت دیللری AZB Kėnu-tėbetėitiu kalbas BAT-SMG Mga tataramon na Sino-Tibetano BCL Сіна-тыбецкія мовы Byelorussian
| Sino-Tibetan | |
|---|---|
| Trans-Himalayan | |
| Geographic distribution | |
Native speakers | (undated figure of 1.4 billion) |
| Linguistic classification | One of the world's primary language families |
| Proto-language | Proto-Sino-Tibetan |
| Subdivisions | Some 40 well-established subgroups, of which those with the most speakers are: |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 / 5 | sit |
| Linguasphere | 79- (phylozone) |
| Glottolog | sino1245 |
 Groupings of Sino-Tibetan languages | |
Sino–Tibetan (also referred to as Trans–Himalayan)[1][2] is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo–European in number of native speakers.[3] Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino–Tibetan language.[4] 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 (33 million) and the Tibetic languages (6 million). Four United Nations member states (China, Singapore, Myanmar, and Bhutan) have a Sino–Tibetan language as a 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.
Several low-level subgroups have been securely reconstructed, but reconstruction of a proto–language for the family as a whole is still at an early stage, so the higher-level structure of Sino–Tibetan remains unclear. Although the family is traditionally presented as divided into Sinitic (i.e. Chinese languages) and Tibeto–Burman branches, a common origin of the non-Sinitic languages has never been demonstrated. Early classifications placed the Kra–Dai and Hmong–Mien languages in the Sino–Tibetan language family, and this grouping is still accepted by many Chinese linguists.[5] However, the international community has rejected the idea that Kra–Dai and Hmong–Mien are related to Sino–Tibetan since the 1940s. Several links to other Southeast Asian language families have been proposed, but none have broad acceptance. The modern consensus is that the Sino–Tibetan languages are unrelated to the language families of Southeast Asia, but they share similarities due to sprachbund effects in the Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area.[6]
- ^ van Driem (2014), p. 16.
- ^ List, Lai & Starostin (2019), p. 1.
- ^ Handel (2008), p. 422.
- ^ "Sino Tibetan Languages". Retrieved December 30, 2023.
- ^ Luo, Yongxian. 2008. Sino-Tai and Tai-Kadai: Another look. In Anthony V. N. Diller and Jerold A. Edmondson and Yongxian Luo (eds.), The Tai-Kadai Languages, 9–28. London & New York: Routledge.
- ^ Handel (2008).