The Gyalrongic languages (also known as Rgyalrongic or Jiarongic) are a group of Sino-Tibetan languages typically classed as a branch of the Qiangic languages,Matisoff, James. 2004. "Brightening" and the place of Xixia (Tangut) in the Qiangic subgroup of Tibeto-Burman but some propose that it may be part of a larger Rung languages group and do not consider it to be particularly closely related to Qiangic but suggest that similarities between Gyalrongic and Qiangic may be from areal influence.LaPolla, Randy. 2003. "Overview of Sino-Tibetan Morphosyntax". In Graham Thurgood & Randy LaPolla (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan Languages., 30. London: Routledge. However, other work suggests that Qiangic as a whole may in fact be paraphyletic, with the only commonalities of the supposed "branch" being shared archaisms and areal features that were encouraged by language contact. Jacques & Michaud (2011) propose that Qiangic including Gyalrongic may belong to a larger Burmo-Qiangic group based on some lexical innovations.
Geographical distribution The Gyalrongic languages are spoken in Sichuan in China, mainly in the autonomous Tibetan and Qiang prefectures of Karmdzes and Rngaba. These languages are distinguished by their conservative morphology and their phonological archaisms, which make them valuable for historical linguistics.
Gyalrongic languages are spoken predominantly in the four counties of Ma'erkang, Li, Xiaojin, and Jinchuan in Aba Prefecture, western Sichuan.Nagano, Yasuhiko and Marielle Prins. 2013. rGyalrongic languages database. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku). Other Gyalrongic lects are spoken in neighboring Heishui, Rangtang, Baoxing, Danba, and Daofu counties.
Classification The Gyalrongic languages share several features, notably in verbal morphology. Classifications such as Lai et al. (2020) split Gyalrongic into West and East branches. Previous classifications operated a similar distinction between Ergong (~West Gyalrongic) and Gyalrong (~East Gyalrongic).Sun, Hongkai 孙宏开. 1988. 试论中国境内藏缅语的谱系分类 Shìlùn zhōngguó jìngnèi Zàng-Miǎnyǔ de pǔxì fēnlèi [A first attempt at classifying the Tibeto-Burman languages of China]. In Tatsuo Nishida & Paul Kazuhisa Eguchi (eds.), Languages and history in East Asia: Festschrift for Tatsuo Nishida on the occasion of his 60th birthday, 61–73. Kyoto: Shokado.
Gyalrongic West Gyalrongic (or Ergong) Khroskyabs (formerly known as Lavrung) Horpa (including Tangut) East Gyalrongic (or Gyalrong proper)
The Gyalrong languages in turn constitute four mutually unintelligible varieties: Eastern Gyalrong or Situ, Japhug, Tshobdun, and Zbu.
Khroskyabs and Horpa are classified by Lin (1993) as a "western dialect" of Gyalrong, along with Eastern Gyalrong and the "northwestern dialect" (Japhug, Tshobdun, and Zbu). Otherwise, the scholarly consensus deems the distance between Khroskyabs, Horpa, and the Gyalrong cluster is greater than that between the Gyalrong languages. For example, Ethnologue reports 75% lexical similarity between Situ and Japhug, 60% between Japhug and Tshobdun, but only 13% between Situ and Horpa.
Huang (2007:180)Huang Bufan. 2007. Lawurongyu yanjiu (拉坞戎语研究) [A study of the Lavrung language]. Beijing: Minzu Press (民族出版社). found that Horpa (Rta’u) and Gyalrong (Cogtse) share only 15.2% cognacy, with 242 cognates out of a total of 1,592 words.
The Khalong Tibetan language has a Gyalrongic substratum.Tournadre, Nicolas (2005). "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56.
The Chamdo languages (consisting of Lamo, Larong, and Drag-yab, a group of three closely related Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Chamdo, eastern Tibet) may or may not be Qiangic.Suzuki, Hiroyuki and Tashi Nyima. 2018. Historical relationship among three non-Tibetic languages in Chamdo, TAR. Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018). Kyoto: Kyoto University.Zhao, Haoliang. 2018. A brief introduction to Zlarong, a newly recognized language in Mdzo sgang, TAR. Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018). Kyoto: Kyoto University.Jacques, Guillaumes. 2016. Les journées d'études sur les langues du Sichuan.
Comparison with Tibetic Gyalrongic languages are surrounded by Tibetic languages and have thus been in intense contact with them. However, there are many major lexical and morphological differences between them. Gyalrongic tend to use prefixes such as *kə-, *tə-, etc., while Tibetic languages use suffixes such as -pa/-ba, -ma, -po/-bo, -mo, etc. Below is a table of comparing words in bTshanlha and Japhug that do not have cognates in Classical Tibetan.
Gloss bTshanlha Japhug Classical Tibetan year təpa lo brain tərnok tɯ-moʁ klad pa hail tərmok ser ba milk təlu ’o ma leg tame tɤmi rkang pa fish tʃhəɣjo qa-ɟy nya flower tapat me tog, men tog tongue teʃme lce red kəwərne kɯ-ɣɯmi dmar po yellow kɯ-qarŋe ser (po) sand kəwek bye ma sheep kə-jo qa-ʑo lug horse mboro mbro rta
References
Duo Erji [多尔吉]. 1984. A study of Geshezha of Daofu County [道孚语格什扎话研究]. China Tibetan Studies Press [中国藏学出版社出版]. Gates, Jesse P. 2012. Situ in situ: towards a dialectology of Jiāróng (rGyalrong). M.A. thesis, Trinity Western University. Gates, Jesse P. 2014. Situ in Situ: Towards a Dialectology of Jiarong (rGyalrong). LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 80. Munich: Lincom Europa.
External links rGyalrongic Languages Database (CLDF Dataset on Zenodo ) Proto-rGyalrong reconstruction (Sino-Tibetan Branches Project)
br:Djiarongeg