Sino-Tibetan languages
language family native to Asia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sino-Tibetan or Trans-Himalayan languages are a language family spoken in Asia. This includes Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages and some 250 other languages of East Asia. Kra-Dai languages and Hmong–Mien languages are also sometimes included.
Quick Facts Geographic distribution:, Linguistic classification: ...
Sino-Tibetan | |
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Trans-Himalayan | |
Geographic distribution: | South Asia, East Asia, North Asia, Southeast Asia |
Linguistic classification: | One of the world's primary language families |
Proto-language: | Proto-Sino-Tibetan |
Subdivisions: | Some 40 well-known subgroups, of which those with the most speakers are:
Lolo-Burmese
Tibetic
Karenic
Bodo–Garo
Kuki-Chin
Tamangic
Bai
Jingpho–Luish
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ISO 639-2 and 639-5: | sit |
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The largest language group within this family are the Chinese languages by far with over 1.3 billion native speakers. It is also the one with the oldest writing (hanzi) going back to the Jiahu symbols in 6600 BC.[source?]
All these languages descend from a single proto-language. People are still working on what it sounded like.