Sinitic languages

Sinitic languages
Sinitic
Geographic
distribution:
China
Linguistic classification: Sino-Tibetan
  • Sinitic
Subdivisions:
Bai (disputed)[1]
ISO 639-5: zhx

The Sinitic languages,[2] often called the Chinese languages or (in the singular) the Chinese language, are a language family frequently postulated as one of two primary branches of Sino-Tibetan.[3][4] The Bai language may be Sinitic (classification is difficult);[5] otherwise Sinitic is equivalent to the Chinese languages, and often used in opposition to "Chinese dialects" to convey the idea that these are distinct languages rather than dialects of a single language.[6][7]

Languages

Assuming Bai is Sinitic, it diverged at approximately the time of Old Chinese, perhaps before. By the time of Middle Chinese, the Min (i.e. the Hokkien group) languages had also split off.[8] Languages traceable to Middle Chinese include Mandarin, Wu, Hakka, and Yue (i.e. Cantonese). As more comparative work is done, additional "dialects" are found to be mutually unintelligible with their parent language; the latest to be separated out as languages were Huizhou, Jin, Pinghua, and Qiongwen, though the remaining Wu and Yue varieties are not all mutually intelligible, or have very limited intelligibility. Some varieties remain unclassified within Chinese.

Sinitic 
 Old Chinese 

Ba-Shu


 Middle Chinese 
 Min 

Minbei languages



Mindong



Minzhong



Puxian



Minnan languages




Guan languages



Wu languages



Gan languages



?Tuhua



Xiang



Yue languages






? Bai language




Unclassified Chinese
Excluding those exclusive to ethnic minorities, the principal unclassified varieties of Chinese are:

Notes

  1. ^ Merritt Ruhlen (1991) A Guide to the World's Languages, p. 145: "According to Benedict (1983), new material on the Bai language(s) indicates that Greenberg was correct, and that Sinitic consists of two branches, Chinese and Bai."
  2. ^ "Sinitic" means relating to China or the Chinese. It is derived from the Greco-Latin word Sīnai "the Chinese", probably from Arabic Ṣīn "China", from the Chinese dynastic name Qín. (OED)
  3. ^ Anatole Lyovin (1997) An Introduction to the Languages of the World, Oxford University Press
  4. ^ George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill. pp. 329 ff.
  5. ^ Van Driem 2001:380 "Ba'i ... may form a constituent of Sinitic, albeit one heavily influenced by Lolo–Burmese."
  6. ^ N. J. Enfield (2003:69) Linguistics Epidemiology, Routledge.
  7. ^ See also, for example, W. Hannas (1997) Asia's Orthographic Dilemma, University of Hawaii Press.
  8. ^ Mei Tsu-lin (1970) "Tones and Prosody in Middle Chinese and The Origin of The Rising Tone," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 30:86–110



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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Sinitic — [sī nit′ik, sinit′ik] n. [see SINO , ITE1, & IC] a branch of the Sino Tibetan family of languages, including the languages of China adj. of China or its people, languages, or culture …   English World dictionary

  • Sinitic — I noun a group of Sino Tibetan languages • Syn: ↑Sinitic language • Hypernyms: ↑Sino Tibetan, ↑Sino Tibetan language • Hyponyms: ↑Chinese …   Useful english dictionary

  • Sinitic — /saɪˈnɪtɪk/ (say suy nitik) noun a branch of the Sino Tibetan family of languages, consisting of the various dialects of Chinese. Compare Tibeto Burman. –Sinitic, adjective …  

  • Sinitic language — noun a group of Sino Tibetan languages • Syn: ↑Sinitic • Hypernyms: ↑Sino Tibetan, ↑Sino Tibetan language • Hyponyms: ↑Chinese …   Useful english dictionary

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  • Sinitic — adj. Chinese, pertaining to China and its inhabitants n. family of languages and dialects spoken in China …   English contemporary dictionary

  • Sino-Tibetan languages — Superfamily of languages whose two branches are the Sinitic or Chinese languages and the Tibeto Burman family, an assemblage of several hundred very diverse languages spoken by about 65 million people from northern Pakistan east to Vietnam, and… …   Universalium

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  • Min languages —       group of Sinitic languages spoken in Fujian province and in parts of Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Taiwan. The Min languages are generally divided into Northern Min, with its centre at Fuzhou, and Southern Min, with its centre at Amoy… …   Universalium

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