Sal languages

The Brahmaputran or Sal languages are a family of Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in eastern India, parts of Bangladesh, and Burma.

Classification

Burling (1983)

Burling (1983) proposed a grouping of the Bodo–Garo, Konyak (Northern Naga) and Jingpho (Kachin) languages, calling the proposed group Sal, after the words sal, san and jan for "sun" in various of these languages. The classification of Bradley (1997) also includes the Kuki-Chin languages:

However, Thurgood & La Polla (2003) treat Kuki-Chin as a separate group.

Burling (2003)

Burling (2003) proposed a revised classification which he calls "Bodo-Konyak-Jinghpaw" in which Kukish removed, and the remaining languages form three primary branches:

Bodo-Konyak-Jinghpaw

• Bodo-Koch
  • Koch
  • Bodo–Garo
• Konyak
• Jinghpaw-Luish
  • Jinghpaw
  • Luish

Bradley (1997)

Bradley considers Pyu and Kuki-Chin-Naga to be possible members of Sal, but is uncertain about this.

Van Driem (2001)

In the classification of Van Driem (2001), the Brahmaputran branch of Tibeto-Burman includes the following families:

The inclusion of Dhimal is new to Van Driem. Ethnologue calls the pre-Dhimal (Sal) family simply "Jingpho–Konyak–Bodo".

Innovations

The Sal languages are characterized by the following innovations (Burling 1983).

• *sal 'sun' (for which the branch is named)
• *war 'fire'
• *s-raŋ 'sky'
• *wa 'father'
• *nu 'mother'

Chairel shares the innovations for 'sun' and 'fire', but is too poorly attested to classify further.

References

• Bradley, David (1997). "Tibeto-Burman languages and classification". In D. Bradley (Ed.), Tibeto-Burman languages of the Himalayas (Papers in South East Asian linguistics No. 14) pp. 1–71, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. ISBN 978-0-85883-456-9.
• Burling, Robbins (1983). "The Sal Languages". Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 7 (2): 1–32.
• Burling, Robbins (2003), "The Tibeto-Burman languages of northeast India", in Thurgood, Graham; LaPolla, Randy J., Sino-Tibetan Languages, London: Routledge, pp. 169–191, ISBN 978-0-7007-1129-1. 
• van Driem, George (2001). Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region, Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-12062-4.
• Thurgood, Graham and Randy J. LaPolla (eds) (2003). Sino-Tibetan Languages, London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-1129-1.