Sinitic languages

Not to be confused with Semitic languages.
For the sociolinguistic treatment of Chinese, see Varieties of Chinese. For other languages spoken in China, see Languages of China.
Sinitic
Chinese
Geographic
distribution		East Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, North Asia
EthnicitySinitic peoples
Linguistic classificationSino-Tibetan
  • Sinitic
Proto-languageProto-Sinitic
Subdivisions
Language codes
ISO 639-5zhx
Glottologsini1245  (Sinitic)
macr1275  (Macro-Bai)
Map of Sinitic languages in China

The Sinitic languages[a] (simplified Chinese: 汉语族; traditional Chinese: 漢語族; pinyin: Hànyǔ zú), often synonymous with the Chinese languages, are a 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 primary split between the Sinitic languages and the rest of the family (the Tibeto-Burman languages). This view is rejected by some researchers[4] but has found phylogenetic support among others.[5][6] The Macro-Bai languages, whose classification is difficult, may be an offshoot of Old Chinese and thus Sinitic;[7] otherwise, Sinitic is defined only by the many varieties of Chinese unified by a shared historical background, and usage of the term "Sinitic" may reflect the linguistic view that Chinese constitutes a family of distinct languages, rather than variants of a single language.[b]

  1. ^ Wang (2005), p. 107.
  2. ^ Wang (2005), p. 122.
  3. ^ Mair (1991), p. 3.
  4. ^ van Driem (2001), p. 351.
  5. ^ Zhang, Menghan; Yan, Shi; Pan, Wuyun; Jin, Li (2019). "Phylogenetic evidence for Sino-Tibetan origin in northern China in the Late Neolithic". Nature. 569 (7754): 112–115. Bibcode:2019Natur.569..112Z. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1153-z. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 31019300. S2CID 129946000.
  6. ^ Sagart et al. (2019).
  7. ^ van Driem (2001:403) states "Bái ... may form a constituent of Sinitic, albeit one heavily influenced by Lolo–Burmese."
  8. ^ Bradley (2012), p. 1.


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