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Sinitic languages

Sinitic
Chinese
Geographic
distribution
East Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, North Asia
EthnicitySinitic peoples
Linguistic classificationSino-Tibetan
  • Sinitic
Proto-languageProto-Sinitic
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-5zhx
ISO 639-3
Glottologsini1245  (Sinitic)
macr1275  (Macro-Bai)
Map of Sinitic languages in China

The Sinitic languages[a] (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. It is frequently proposed that there is a primary split between the Sinitic languages and the rest of the family (the Tibeto-Burman languages). This view is rejected by some researchers[4] but has found phylogenetic support among others.[5][6] The Macro-Bai languages, whose classification is difficult, may be an offshoot of Old Chinese and thus Sinitic;[7] otherwise, Sinitic is defined only by the many varieties of Chinese unified by a shared historical background, and usage of the term "Sinitic" may reflect the linguistic view that Chinese constitutes a family of distinct languages, rather than variants of a single language.[b]

  1. ^ Wang (2005), p. 107.
  2. ^ Wang (2005), p. 122.
  3. ^ Mair (1991), p. 3.
  4. ^ van Driem (2001), p. 351.
  5. ^ Zhang, Menghan; Yan, Shi; Pan, Wuyun; Jin, Li (2019). "Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the Late Neolithic". Nature. 569 (7754): 112–115. Bibcode:2019Natur.569..112Z. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1153-z. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 31019300. S2CID 129946000.
  6. ^ Sagart et al. (2019).
  7. ^ van Driem (2001:403) states "Bái ... may form a constituent of Sinitic, albeit one heavily influenced by Lolo–Burmese."
  8. ^ Bradley (2012), p. 1.


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