The connection between Pyu and Nungish

[David Bradley]

Hi

Krech is completely off the planet about Pyu, he claims it is Shan.

Pyu could probably be classified better now that we have much more Luish data - Sak/Thet, Kadu and so on. I think that is the most likely fit.

d

Prof David Bradley FASSA FAHA
Linguistics
La Trobe University VIC 3086
Australia
________________________________________
From: The Tibeto-Burman Discussion List [tibeto-burman-linguistics at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] on behalf of Nathan Straub 曹內森 [nstraub at GMAIL.COM]
Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2014 1:40 AM
To: TIBETO-BURMAN-LINGUISTICS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: The connection between Pyu and Nungish

Dear all,

Would anyone know why Paul Benedict said that Pyu was closest to the Nung(ish) subgroup? (Sino-Tibetan Conspectus p.196 n.494, and pp.9-10 n.33.) He cites Robert Shafer's 1943 article in HJAS on the Pyu inscriptions, which compares them with Karen, but don't really mention Nungish. On p. 196, Benedict compares Pyu tones with Burmese and Nungish, but doesn't sound very conclusive there about which language is closer, although he says on p. 10 that Pyu is closer to Nungish than to Lolo-Burmese proper.

Uwe Krech has a chapter called "Reassessment of Myazedi Pyu" in Medieval Tibeto-Burman Languages IV, which gives a lot of helpful information, but doesn't specifically state why Benedict made the connection, either.

Benedict seems to hint that the answer is in his comparative sketch of Pyu in Sino-Tibetan Linguistics, vol. 12, Appendix VI, which as far as I know is still unpublished.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Nathan

--
We are sent into this world for some end.  It is our duty to discover by close study what this end is & when we once discover it to pursue it with unconquerable perseverance.
JQA at age 12 to his brother Charles (June 1778)