(Fwd) Sino-Tibetan (was: Re: Arabic and IE)

[WB (in Frankfurt today)]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Dear subscribers to HISTLING:

Wolfgang Behr has forwarded to me a recent posting by S. DeLancey on your 
list, in which my ideas on Chinese and Tibeto-Burman (TB) are very seriously 
 misrepresented. Unfortunately DeLancey is completely unfamiliar with my 
work. Although I am not a member of your group, I hope you will not mind my 
responding. I am grateful to Wolfgang for  posting this for me. I will try 
to be as brief as possible.

Delancey wrote:

>As for Sagart, he is indeed convinced that the Chinese-TB link is
>a chimaera, but as far as I know he is the only working Sino-Tibetan
>linguist who takes that view, and I cannot for the life of me see
>what his argument is. 

That is not, and has never been, my view. I have never claimed that ST is a 
chimera, does not exist, is an invalid construct, etc. In fact, right from 
the beginning of my work on on Chinese and Austronesian, I have repeatedly 
cautioned readers against that interpretation of my views. In the conclusion 
of my first paper (titled “Chinese and Austronesian are genetically 
related”), presented in 1990 at a Sino-Tibetan conference in Texas, I wrote 
(p. 29):

“our claim (i.e., of a genetic unity between Chinese and Austronesian), it 
must be noted, should not be taken to imply that there exists no genetic 
relationship between Chinese and the TB languages (or, for that matter, 
between AN and Tai-Kadai, Austroasiatic, etc.), but simply that, if such a 
relationship exists, it is in any case less close than that between AN and 
Chinese (...).”

Statements to the same effect can be found in my later work, for instance in 
my paper “Proto-Austronesian and Old Chinese evidence for 
Sino-Austronesian”, published in Oceanic Linguitics 33, 2 (1994) p.300.

On p. 301-302 of the same paper (Oceanic Linguitics 33, 2, 1994), I 
discussed the evidence for Sino-Tibetan, concluding p. 302 that “the 
relationship, though not implausible, is less well demonstrated than is 
usually assumed”, due to evidence of long-term intimate contact, and poorly 
understood sound correspondences, this despite evidence of shared basic 
vocabulary and –limited– shared morphology.

In my subsequent work, I have documented several instances of lexical 
borrowings from Chinese into TB. I have argued that TB, which has been 
subjected to 3000 years of political and cultural pressure from Chinese, at 
times intimate, and with long-term bilingualism, cannot but include a thick 
layer of Chinese loanwords –this does not mean there is no genetic layer !–. 
I have argued that the loanwords include some basic vocabulary, and even the 
1st-person pronoun *nga and the numeral ‘3’. Borrowing of pers. pronouns and 
numerals is more common in East Asia than in Europe. Some Central Tai and 
Northern Tai dialects have likewise abandoned their own pers. pronouns and 
numerals for the Chinese pronouns and numerals. Incredible though it may 
seem, most accounts of Sino-Tibetan make no provision *at all* for contact 
between Chinese and TB.

The question of the Chinese-TB relationship being for  me in doubt, the next 
question was, of course, whether Tibeto-Burman too was related to 
Austronesian. In my 1990 paper, on p. 30, I wrote:

“A corollary of our claim is that if Chinese and the TB languages are 
genetically related, then the TB and AN groups must also be related. we have 
at this point no reason to regard the latter hypothesis as absurd or 
implausible”

In the revised version of this paper, published in Journal of Chinese 
Linguistics 21, 1 (1993), I remarked that “possible links between 
Tibeto-Burman and Austronesian have never been investigated” (p. 56).

Beginning in 1993, I  began investigating such links. In my paper of 1994 in 
Oceanic Linguistics, I presented on pages 302-303 lexical and morphological 
evidence relating Chinese, TB and Austronesian, or in some cases *directly* 
TB and Austronesian. I pointed out (p. 302) that this new evidence actually 
*strengthened* the case for Chinese-TB relationship: I cited in particular a 
stative/intransitive prefix (Proto-Austronesian ma-, Chinese N-, TB m-). 
That evidence was new, even for Chinese-TB. At a symposium held in Hongkong 
in December 1993 (proceedings still unpublished), I added more elements of 
shared morphology: in particular TB prefixed s-, OC prefixed s-, PAn 
prefixed Si- (directive/benefactive); TB suffixed -n, PAn suffixed -en 
(noun-deriving). 

These facts have led me to think that the hypothesis of a Chinese-TB-AN 
unity is valid. I now believe that the ancestor language for these three 
groups was spoken by the domesticators of millet in the Huang He valley in 
early neolithic north China. I have held that view since 1994. It is 
outlined at the end of my paper "Some remarks on the Ancestry of Chinese" 
published in William S.-Y. Wang (ed.) The Ancestry of the Chinese Language. 
Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series no. 8, pp. 195-223. A 
complete discussion is in preparation. 

Since 1994, then, my view has been that Chinese and TB *are* genetically 
related, but not as closely as most Sino-Tibetanists think (because the 
genetic layer in the lexicon is thinner than usually assumed), and within a 
family also including –at least– the Austronesian languages. Various 
statements to the effect can be found in three papers published in 1995:

Some remarks on the Ancestry of Chinese. In: William S.-Y. Wang (ed.) The 
Ancestry of the Chinese Language. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph 
series no. 8 (1995), pp. 195-223.
Comments from Sagart. In: William S.-Y. Wang (ed.) The Ancestry of the 
Chinese Language. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series no. 8 
(1995), pp. 337-372.
Questions of method in Chinese-Tibeto-Burman comparison. Cahiers de 
Linguistique Asie Orientale XXIV (1995), 2: 245-255.

I hope these precisions are useful. 

One more thing, DeLancey wrote:

>On the
>one hand, he (Sagart) has identified some significant Austronesian elements
>in the Chinese vocabulary, but this is hardly surprising (or new;
>Tsu-lin Mei and Jerry Norman pointed some of that out 30 years ago).

Actually, what Mei Tsu-lin and Jerry Norman pointed out were *Austroasiatic* 
elements in Chinese, not *Austronesian* elements.

Regards to all,

Laurent Sagart
<sagart at ehess.fr>
==================================================
Laurent Sagart
CRLAO
54 Bd Raspail
75270 Paris cedex 06
France

Tel.: +33 1 49 54 24 18
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