Central Sino-Tibetan

Central Sino-Tibetan (Central Tibeto-Burman or Central Trans-Himalayan) was first proposed by Scott DeLancey (2015), based on unique shared morphological features that he found in some of those branches. All Central Sino-Tibetan branches have been influenced by Northern Austroasiatic languages. The Bronze Age of northern Myanmar began around 3,500 B.P. when Austroasiatic speakers migrated into the Irrawaddy Basin. Resident Sino-Tibetan speakers then mixed with the incoming Austroasiatic speakers, adopted their agriculture and technology, and then expanded rapidly.

Central Sino-Tibetan languages do not display as much lexical diversity as Eastern Sino-Tibetan branches do. This points to a rapid expansion of Central Sino-Tibetan during the Bronze Age (4,000 B.P. - 2,500 B.P.) instead of the during Neolithic (earlier than 4,000 B.P.). Central Sino-Tibetan expansions, which spread mostly along the Chindwin River and its tributaries, would have absorbed previous linguistic diversity. The former linguistic diversity found in northern Myanmar is now preserved in relic languages of the Eastern Himalayan foothills (Arunachal and Bhutan).

Lexicon

Due to the fact that the Central Sino-Tibetan linkage historically originated from the Western Sino-Tibetan linkage located further up to the north in the Eastern Himalayan foothills, Central Sino-Tibetan lexical items are often shared with Western Sino-Tibetan. This has led to confusion involving the classification of Dhimalish (Dhimal and Toto), which has been previously classified as closely related to Sal, but currently as closely related to Kiranti.

Maps

References

DeLancey, Scott. 2015. "Morphological Evidence for a Central Branch of Trans-Himalayan (Sino-Tibetan)." Cahiers de linguistique - Asie oriental 44(2):122-149. December 2015. doi:10.1163/19606028-00442p02