Tibetic

Tibetic spread across the Tibetan Plateau in the last 1,500 years, absorbing many earlier branches such as West Himalayish and rGyalrongic. Its rapid spread is comparable to the expansion of Sinitic. Matisoff has noted that sometimes scholars with backgrounds in epigraphy place too much of an importance on Tibetic in reconstructing Proto-Tibeto-Burman. Tibetic also contains many innovations that are not characteristic of other Tibeto-Burman branches, such as 'blood' and 'seven.'

Zemp (2018) suggests that Tibetic may have a rGyalrongic substratum and West Himalayish superstratum. Hence, we may be able to posit these layers in Tibetic:

• 1. Eastern ST substratum

  2. Western ST superstratum

Sources

Zemp, Marius. 2018. On the origins of Tibetan. Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018). Kyoto: Kyoto University.

Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.