Sino-Tibetan languages

E24959

language family macrofamily

The Sino-Tibetan languages are a major language family of East, Southeast, and South Asia that includes Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese, and numerous related languages spoken by over a billion people.

Aliases (4)

Statements (70)

Predicate	Object
instanceOf	language family → macrofamily →
alternativeName	Trans-Himalayan languages →
approximateNumberOfSpeakers	>1000000000 →
classificationIssue	relationship between Sinitic and Tibeto-Burman is debated →
commonWordOrder	SOV → SVO →
continent	Asia →
glottologCode	sino1245 →
hasCharacteristic	analytic morphology in many branches → complex verbal morphology in some branches → use of classifiers →
hasISOFamilyCode	sit →
hasSubfamily	Sinitic languages → Tibeto-Burman languages →
hasSubgroupingDebate	true →
includesLanguage	Bodo language → Burmese language → Cantonese → Chinese language → Dzongkha → Jingpo language → Karen languages → Kiranti languages → Kuki-Chin languages → Lepcha language → Lhasa Tibetan → Loloish languages → Mandarin Chinese → Meitei language → Myanmar language → Naxi language → Newar language → Qiangic languages → Sherpa language → Standard Tibetan → Tani languages → Tibetan language →
linguisticTypology	mostly tonal →
majorCenter	Bangladesh → Bhutan → China → India → Myanmar → Nepal → Thailand →
neighboringFamily	Austroasiatic languages → Austronesian languages → Hmong-Mien languages → Indo-European languages → Turkic languages →
protoLanguage	Proto-Sino-Tibetan →
reconstructionStatus	partially reconstructed →
region	East Asia → South Asia → Southeast Asia →
secondLargestLanguageFamilyBySpeakers	true →
spokenBy	Bamar people → Bodo people → Han Chinese → Karen people → Meitei people → Naga peoples → Tibetan people →
studiedBy	comparative linguistics →
writingSystemUsed	Burmese script → Chinese characters → Devanagari → Latin script → Tibetan script →

Referenced by (27)

Subject (surface form when different)	Predicate
Bamar → Bodo language ("Sino-Tibetan") → Burmese ("Sino-Tibetan") → Dimasa people → Dzongkha ("Sino-Tibetan") → Hakka → Han Chinese → Huayu → Indians → Jianghuai Mandarin → Kachin → Karen people → Karen people → Northern Mandarin → Southwestern Mandarin → Teochew → Wu Chinese ("Sino-Tibetan") → Wu dialects ("Sino-Tibetan") →	languageFamily
East Asia → Northeast India ("Tibeto-Burman languages") →	hasLanguageFamily
Chinese language → Wu Chinese →	subclassOf
Sino-Tibetan languages ("Trans-Himalayan languages") →	alternativeName
Cantonese →	family
Sino-Tibetan languages ("Tibeto-Burman languages") →	hasSubfamily
Southeast Asia →	majorLanguageFamily
Balti ("Sino-Tibetan language family") →	partOf