Sinitic topolects

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Tweet by Chenchen Zhang:

For Hmong-Mien and Tai-Kadai languages, follow the thread.

Chenchen Zhang must be a reader of Language Log or is familiar with the works of Language Log readers.

The linguistic diversity within the Sinitic group / family of languages and their classification is a conundrum of large proportions that we have often grappled with on Language Log, e.g., "Is Cantonese a language, or a personification of the devil? (with links to other posts and resources; see especially herehere, and here  and this chapter on the classification of Sinitic in the Festschrift for Alain Peyraube).

 

Selected readings

[Thanks to Vito Acosta]



2 Comments

  1. AntC said,

    September 2, 2020 @ 5:45 pm

    China is a big enough place and has a large/dense enough population to count as a continent all on its own. How does this map compare to a linguistic map of (say) Europe — especially mid-C19th before its consolidation into linguistic blocks.

    Then comparatively, the surprise is that this diversity is within a single country[**], and that CCP wants to make such a big issue out of suppressing linguistic diversity. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, for example, tolerated linguistic diversity within a common administrative language.

    [**] Not that I'm saying it should be a single country.

  2. Stephen L said,

    September 6, 2020 @ 12:45 pm

    > The Austro-Hungarian Empire, for example, tolerated linguistic diversity within a common administrative language.

    The British Empire seemed to have varying approaches to language policy – I was reading some writings of Jonathan Swift recently and IIRC he was saying that at that point the Empire's language policy for Ireland was one of enlightened toleration (which he disapproved of, and thought it would be better if the empire got rid of the Irish language, which it could easily do in a generation if it put its mind to it). I've been meaning to read more about the B.E.'s historical language policy – it seems it was more nuanced than what I had thought.

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