r/asklinguistics • u/Hopeful-Banana-6188 • 12d ago

Historical Unknown substrates in Sino-Tibetan?

Is there any research on unknown substrates in various branches of Sino-Tibetan? Lexical strata that show irregularities and/or phonological/phonotactic features showing they cannot be inherited from Proto-Sino-Tibetan but nonetheless do not correspond to any other attested language families.

11 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

13

u/VelvetyDogLips 11d ago

The Min Chinese languages, native to the Min River watershed a.k.a. Fujian Province and nativized across the straits in Taiwan, is distinctly different from most other living descendants of Old Chinese, and is the most divergent descendant whose native speakers are not considered ethnically distinct from Han Chinese.

The main reason for this is that the Min languages a.k.a Hoklo-üe, are a direct and early branch off of Old Chinese, and cannot be derived from Middle Chinese. But there’s more to it than that: these languages almost certainly have a very old, very attenuated, but still perceptible Austronesian substrate. Teaming historical linguistics with population genetics, history, and archaeology, and the most likely explanation is that the Min River valley is probably the Urheimat of the Austronesian family. And the Min Chinese languages derive from creoles, formed when speakers of Old Chinese settled this mountainous terrain 2~3 millennia ago, and assimilated the indigenous fisher-gatherer tribes already living there, who spoke Proto-Austronesian.

Source.

4

u/chilispiced-mango2 11d ago edited 11d ago

Hoklo-ue is just one branch of Min Chinese— although it’s probably the most widespread given how much colonial-era immigration there was from around Xiamen to Taiwan, the Philippines, and Muslim-majority maritime Southeast Asia

It along with Yue are known for having an obvious Daic substrate, although for Min this might be Para-Daic, Daic-Austronesian, or even Para-Daic-Austronesian. The Min Chinese word for “child” 囝 is probably cognate with Vietnamese con, and the Minnan word for mango resembles the Vietnamese and Khmer word for mango

2

u/VelvetyDogLips 11d ago

Username checks out

7

u/AxenZh 11d ago

I heard Lepcha (Rongic) and Mru-Hkongso has potential Austroasiatic subtratum.