| Macro-Bai | |
|---|---|
| (tentative) | |
| Geographic distribution | Guizhou,China |
| Linguistic classification | Sino-Tibetan
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | macr1275 |
TheMacro-Bai or simplyBai languages (Chinese:白语支) are a putative group ofSino-Tibetan languages proposed in 2010 by the linguistZhengzhang, who argued thatBai andCaijia aresister languages.[1] In contrast,Sagart argues that Caijia and theWaxiang language of northwesternHunan constitute an early split off fromOld Chinese.[2] Additionally,Longjia andLuren are two extinct languages of westernGuizhou closely related to Caijia.[3][4][5][6]
The languages are:
Andreas Hölzl shows thatCaijia,Longjia, andLuren are all closely related to each other as part of a linguistic group that he callsTa–Li orCai–Long. He also states that Longjia and Luren have a higher percentage of lexical parallels to each other than to Caijia, though emphasizes that past studies have not established regular sound laws between all three languages or clearly distinguished between inherited and borrowed lexical items.[7]
Bai has over a million speakers, but Longjia and Luren may both be extinct, while Caijia is highly endangered with approximately 1,000 speakers. TheQixingmin people ofWeining County, Guizhou may have also spoken a Macro-Bai language, but currently speakLuoji.
Similarities amongOld Chinese,Waxiang, Caijia, and Bai have been pointed out by Wu Yunji and Shen Ruiqing.[8] Gong Xun noted that Bai has both a Sino-Bai vocabulary layer and a non-Sinitic vocabulary layer, which may beQiangic.[9] Gong also suggested that theOld Chinese layer in Bai is more similar to early3rd-century central varieties of Old Chinese inJi,Yan, Si, andYu that display the phonological innovation fromOld Chinese *l̥ˤ- > *xˤ-, than to the eastern Old Chinese varieties (i.e.Qingzhou andXuzhou, etc.) that later impactedMiddle Chinese, which showOC *l̥ˤ- > *tʰˤ- >MC th-. This east-west dialectal division in Old Chinese have also been noted by William H. Baxter and Laurent Sagart.[10]
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||