Sino-Austronesian or Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian is a proposed language family suggested by

Laurent Sagart Laurent Sagart (; born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO – UMR 8563) unit of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Biography Born in Paris in 1951, he earned ...

in 1990. Using reconstructions of

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

, Sagart argued that the

Austronesian languages The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken ...

are related to the

Sinitic languages The Sinitic languages (), often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a language group, 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 p ...

phonologically, lexically and morphologically. Sagart later accepted the

Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

as a valid group and extended his proposal to include the rest of Sino-Tibetan. He also placed the Tai–Kadai languages within the Austronesian family as a sister branch of

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...

. The proposal has been largely rejected by other linguists who argue that the similarities between Austronesian and Sino-Tibetan more likely arose from contact rather than being genetic.

Classification

Sagart (2004)

The classification below follows Sagart (2004). *Sino-Austronesian (Sino-Tibetan–Austronesian) **

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

***

Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak ...

*** Sinitic ** Austronesian *** Luilang, Pazeh, Saisiat ***Pituish **** Atayalic, Thao, Favorlang, Taokas, Papora, Hoanya ****Enemish ***** Siraya *****Walu-Siwaish ****** Tsouic, Paiwan, Rukai, Puyuma, Amis, Bunun ******Muish *******Northeastern Formosan ( Kavalan, etc.) ******* Tai–Kadai (Daic or Kra–Dai) *******

Sagart suggests that monosyllabic

words correspond to the second syllables of disyllabic

Proto-Austronesian Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify in ...

roots. However, the type A/B distinction in OC, corresponding to non-palatalized or palatalized syllables in

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese language, Chinese recorded in the ''Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expande ...

, is considered to correspond to a voiceless/voiced initial in PAN.

Starosta (2005)

Stanley Starosta (2005) expands Sagart's Sino-Austronesian tree with a "Yangzian" branch, consisting of

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

and Hmong–Mien, to form an East Asian superphylum.

Criticism

Weera Ostapirat (2005) supports the link between Austronesian and Kra–Dai (Sagart built upon Ostapirat's findings), though as sister groups. However, he rejects a link to Sino-Tibetan, noting that the apparent cognates are rarely found in all branches of Kra–Dai, and almost none are in core vocabulary. Austronesian linguists Paul Jen-kuei Li and Robert Blust have criticized Sagart's comparisons, on the grounds of loose semantic matches, inconsistent correspondences, and that basic vocabulary is hardly represented. They also note that comparing with the second syllable of disyllabic Austronesian roots vastly increases the odds of chance resemblance. Blust has been particularly critical of Sagart's use of the

comparative method In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards ...

(2016) responds to some of the criticisms by Blust (2009).

Alexander Vovin Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. He wa ...

(1997) does not accept Sino-Austronesian as a valid grouping, but instead suggests that some of the Sino-Austronesian parallels proposed by Sagart may in fact be due to an Austronesian

substratum Substrata, plural of substratum, may refer to: *Earth's substrata, the geologic layering of the Earth *''Hypokeimenon'', sometimes translated as ''substratum'', a concept in metaphysics *Substrata (album), a 1997 ambient music album by Biosphere * ...

. This view is also espoused by

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...

, who suggests that Austronesian and Sinitic had come into contact with each other during the fourth and third millennia BC in the Longshan interaction sphere.van Driem, George. 2016. ‘’, pp. 467-524, Vol. II in Elena Nikolaevna Kolpačkova, ed., Проблемы китайского и общего языкознания — Problems in Chinese and General Linguistics. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Studija « NP-Print ».

Distributions

References

External links

Laurent Sagart's list of Old Chinese words at the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database
{{Eurasian languages Proposed language families