sinotibetiläinen

Sino-Tibetan is a large language family spoken in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of South Asia. It is the second-largest language family in the world in terms of the number of native speakers, surpassed only by Indo-European. The most widely spoken Sino-Tibetan language is Mandarin Chinese, which has over a billion native speakers. Other major languages in the family include Tibetan, Burmese, and Cantonese.

The classification of Sino-Tibetan languages is a subject of ongoing debate among linguists. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that the family originated in the Himalayas and spread outwards. The major branches of Sino-Tibetan are generally considered to be Sinitic (Chinese languages), Tibeto-Burman, and Karenic. However, the internal structure of the Tibeto-Burman branch is particularly complex and diverse, with numerous subgroups and individual languages that may not be easily grouped.

The historical development of Sino-Tibetan languages is poorly understood due to limited written records for many branches. However, comparative linguistics has allowed for the reconstruction of some proto-Sino-Tibetan phonemes and vocabulary. Many Sino-Tibetan languages share certain typological features, such as subject-object-verb (SOV) word order, the use of classifiers, and tonal systems (though not all languages in the family are tonal). The cultural and historical interactions between speakers of Sino-Tibetan languages have been extensive, leading to significant borrowing of vocabulary and grammatical features between them, as well as with neighboring language families.