Laurent Sagart

• National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations

Ho Dah-an's 2016 review of our book Old Chinese : A New Reconstruction (2014) contains little discussion of the book's main themes or proposals: he focuses instead on "errors" which, according to him, "reflect the outdated concepts of the authors and the insufficiency of their basic training." In this response to Ho's review, we consider his discus...

Background Cultivation of rice (Oryza sativa) started in Taiwan about 5000 years ago. Here we studied changes in the rice population during this period by using archaeological, morphological, genetic and genomic strategies. We studied the grain size changes of carbonized rice from excavated sites. We also revealed the variations in landraces collec...

This chapter briefly describes the state of the art of linguistic research on the main language families represented in Southeast Asia: Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, and Sino-Tibetan. It reviews the vocabulary of agriculture, and more generally of subsistence, that can be reconstructed to each family’s proto-language. It attem...

Southeast Asia is one of the most significant regions in the world for tracing human prehistory over a period of 2 million years. Migrations from the African homeland saw settlement by Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis. Anatomically Modern Humans reached Southeast Asia at least 60,000 years ago to establish a hunter-gatherer tradition, adapting as...

A 250-concept list was established for the purposes of an ongoing lexically-based study of Sino-Tibetan. This paper supplies the Old Chinese version of the list, in the Old Chinese reconstruction of Baxter and Sagart 2014. Chinese words attested in pre-Han times were selected based on their meaning as given in major lexica such as the Hànyǔ Dà Zìdi...

This paper finds origins for the three Kra-Dai tones in the segmental endings of Proto-Southern Austronesian, the parent language of Kra-Dai and Malayo-Polynesian. The Kra-Dai A category originates in sonorant endings (vowels, semi-vowels, nasals, liquids) and in Proto-Austronesian *-H 2 , reconstructed by Tsuchida (1976); the B category in *-R and...

Significance Given its size and geographical extension, Sino-Tibetan is of the highest importance for understanding the prehistory of East Asia, and of neighboring language families. Based on a dataset of 50 Sino-Tibetan languages, we infer phylogenies that date the origin of the language family to around 7200 B.P., linking the origin of the langua...

Background Genetic data for traditional Taiwanese (Formosan) agriculture is essential for tracing the origins on the East Asian mainland of the Austronesian language family, whose homeland is generally placed in Taiwan. Three main models for the origins of the Taiwanese Neolithic have been proposed: origins in coastal north China (Shandong); in coa...

Why do some languages wither and die, while others prosper and spread? Around the turn of the millennium a number of archaeologists such as Colin Renfrew and Peter Bellwood made the controversial claim that many of the world’s major language families owe their dispersal to the adoption of agriculture by their early speakers. In this volume, their p...

Based on a survey of 21 languages chosen to represent the diversity of Sino-Tibetan, this paper proposes that all Sino-Tibetan languages except Chinese have lost a phonological distinction between two Proto-Sino-Tibetan codas,∗-q (Old Chinese∗-?, dialectally∗-k) and∗-k (Old Chinese∗-k): the two codas merged as∗-k in Proto-Tibeto-Burman. It is shown...

After reviewing recent evidence from related disciplines arguing for an origin of the Austronesian peoples in northeastern China, this paper discusses the Proto-Austronesian and Old Chinese names of the millets, Setaria italica and Panicum miliaceum. Partly based on linguistic data collected in Taiwan by the authors, proposed Proto-Austronesian cog...

It is proposed that oc pharyngealized onset consonants—that is, ‘type-A’ onset consonants—arose out of Proto-Sino-Tibetan plain consonants followed by geminate vowels separated by a pharyngeal fricative. When the first copy of the geminate vowel fell, the initial consonants formed clusters with the pharyngeal fricative, evolving into the oc pharyng...

This paper responds to all of Malcolm Ross’s criticisms, published in Language and Linguistics 13.6 (2012), of Sagart’s numeral-based model of Austronesian phylogeny (Sagart 2004). It shows that a part of these criticisms is addressed to an invented version of Sagart’s model, while another appeals to questionable principles. It points out various e...

Of the 25 or so indigenous languages of Taiwan, those of the west coast, probably among the earliest to separate from Proto-Austronesian (PAn ), have largely died out in the past couple of centuries under the impact of Chinese penetration. Siraya, once spoken in southwest Taiwan in the region of present-day Tainan and Kaohsiung, became extinct— Ade...

This paper is a response to criticism by Winter in an earlier issue of this journal of Sagart’s discussion of the higher phylogeny of Austronesian. I give examples outside of Austronesian of compound numerals being affected by several apparently irregular changes; argue that the number of changes proposed in my Austronesian model is realistic; expl...

The process of moving from collecting plants in the wild to cultivating and gradually domesticating them has as its linguistic corollary the formation of a specific vocabulary to designate the plants and their parts, the fields in which they are cultivated, the tools and activities required to cultivate them and the food preparations in which they...

This paper presents the treatment of the Old Chinese *s- prefix in the Baxter-Sagart system of Old Chinese reconstruction. The main functions of the prefix are to increase the valency of verbs and to derive oblique deverbal nouns. The phonetic evolutions to Middle Chinese of *s- with different kinds of OC root initials are discussed. Two salient fe...

Malcom Ross's new theory of early Austronesian phylogeny is examined. I describe evidence that *-en served to mark verbs in undergoer voice, patient subject, in a language ancestral to Puyuma, as well as evidence that * occurs in some verbs in undergoer voice, patient subject perfective, in one sociolect of Nanwang Puyuma. This evidence falsifies t...

This paper discusses the reconstruction of uvular and labio-uvular stops in Old Chinese, originally proposed by Pan Wuyun. The following two improvements are proposed: (1) the Old Chinese non labialized voiced uvular stop evolved to Middle Chinese y- (???) rather than hj- (???) in Pan's theory (which implies that Middle Chinese y- has two sources i...

Based on the large amount of Chinese-related basic vocabulary in Bai, scholars like Benedict, Starostin and Zhengzhang have claimed a special phylogenetic proximity between Bai and Chinese. In this paper we show that the Chinese vocabulary in Bai is stratified, forming successive layers of borrowings. We identify three such layers, describing the s...

The author discusses alternations of voiced and voiceless stop initials in intransitive/transitive pairs in Tibeto-Burman languages in the light of Chinese facts. He suggests that it is not necessary to suppose two distinct processes in proto-Tibeto-Bunnan to account for the facts, as Benedict’s “alternation of root initial”, assigned by him to the...

Cet article défend l'idée que l'écriture chinoise est fondamentalement une écriture phonétique de type syllabaire imparfait, les éléments sémantiques étant dans la plupart des cas historiquement secondaires. Les théories selon lesquelles les éléments phonétiques pourraient avoir simultanément une fonction sémantique sont critiquées.

The author discusses alternations of voiced and voiceless stop initials in intransitive/transitive pairs in Tibeto-Burman languages in the light of Chinese facts. He suggests that it is not necessary to suppose two distinct processes in proto-Tibeto-Burman to account for the facts, as Benedict's "alternation of root initial", assigned by him to the...

Discusses the observed HLA-DRB1 genetic diversity in each East Asian linguistic phylum in relation to several models of human differentiation based on the variation of two genetic diversity indexes, the diversity among and within populations, respectively. A main difference is observed between continental East Asians and the insular populations rep...

Compares the RH and GM variation in East Asia against three competing linguistic phylogenies, i.e. Sagart's hypothesis of a main East-Asian macrophylum, a combination of the greater Austric and Sino-Caucasian hypotheses, and a null hypothesis, assuming no genetic relationships between the main East Asian phyla. The authors conclude that the data do...

Presents a new theory of the origin of Tai-Kadai. Instead of being co-ordinate with Austronesian as Benedict argues, it is viewed as an offshoot of Proto-Austronesian, belonging to the clade which includes several of the languages of the Formosan East coast and Malayo-Polynesian. Evidence comes from lexical and morphological features in the vocabul...

Presents an updated and improved argument for Sino-tibetan-austronesian, including lexical, morphological and phonological evidence.

This paper presents a new higher phylogeny for the Austronesian family, based on three independent lines of evidence: the observation of a hierarchy of implications among the numerals from 5 to 10 in the languages of Formosa and in PMP; the finding that the numerals *pitu '7', *walu '8', and *Siwa '9' can be derived from longer additive expressions...

It is shown that the Old Chinese terms for the four directions form two etymological pairs, one of which (north-south) relates to the notions of front and back (of the house: houses faced south in early China ) and the other (east-west) to notions of beginning vs. ceasing movement, applied to the sun. The relevant word families are adumbrated, the...

It has been suggested by Paul F. M. Yang (1977-8) that the pre-syllables found in some disyllabic words in north and south Chinese dialects are remnants of Archaic Chinese prefixes. Yet nowhere, until recently, had Sinitic languages been found in which affixes such as those isolated by Yang still played a clear derivational role, with a discernible...

The author argues that in addition to the three series of stops commonly reconstructed (voiceless unaspirated; voiceless aspirated; voiced), Old Chinese possessed three prenasalized series, in which the prenasal element was a prefix N-. This prefix changed transitive verbs to intransitives, voicing a voiceless unaspirated obstruent root initial in...

This study investigates some important terms of cereal agriculture in the five language families of East Asia, in an attempt to gain some insights into processes of cereal domestication, demographic expansions and the formation of language families. The principal findings are: • There is some evidence that the proto-Austronesians cultivated wet ric...

the author argues that Hakka and southern Gan are sister dialects, as they share several innovations not found elsewhere; that they arose out of the Chinese dialect spoken in central Jiangxi in Song times, a stratified dialect which included a non-Chinese substratum, probably Miao-Yao; an archaic layer; and a more recent layer with an important Lat...

The stratification of Chinese loanwords into Dazhai Hani, a Tibeto-Burman language, has been studied. The basic principles (principle of coherence; extended principle of coherence) guiding analysis are presented in a methodological section. Two main strata of borrowings from SW Mandarin, a modern layer reflecting the phonology of Lüchun Mandarin, a...

à paraître dans un dictionnaire des langues aux PUF.

the stratification of Chinese loanwords into Dazhai Hani, a Tibeto-Burman language, has been studied. The basic principles (principle of coherence; extended principle of coherence) guiding analysis are presented in a methodological section. Two main strata of borrowings from SW Mandarin, a modern layer reflecting the phonology of Luchun Mandarin, a...

Cinq textes en dialecte de nanchang avec notes grammaticales.

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 28th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, October 6-10, 1995, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

It is shown that five Hakka dialects for which adequate data exist do not conform to Prof. Norman∗ s criterion, which relates to the split treatment o{ cizhuo shangsheng words; while the Yue dialect of Taishan on the contrary approximates what Prof. Norman regards as the true Hakka treatment of these words. It is further shown that several southern...

Les changement analogiques dans les systemes lexicaux fermes (pronoms, numeraux), bien connus des indo-europeanistes, sont repandus dans toutes les langues du monde. En chinois, le changement de ton analogique dans le systeme des pronoms a ete etudie par Mantaro J. Hashimoto (1973). L'A. examine ce systeme dans le dialecte de Pingxiang (dialecte ga...

It is argued that the reconstructed Tibeto-Burman vocabulary includes an important layer of Chinese loanwords. Some examples are presented.

The proposal that a genetic relationship exists between the Chinese and Austronesian (An) languages was first made by A. Conrady (1916, 1923) and K. Wulff (1942) on the basis of lexical evidence and typological observations of a fragmentary nature. Sagart (1990, 1993a), which are based on modern reconstructions of Old Chinese (OC) and Proto-Austron...

Etymologies of four Chinese words, and an explanation of the graphic shape of the character writing a fifth word are presented It is proposed that 'eye', 'the lung cavities' and 'filial piety' are r-infixed derivatives of 'protuberance', 'hollow' and 'to love'. It is also proposed that the word 'poison' was derived euphemistically from an Old Chine...

Matisoff rejoinder in the next issue of LTBA

Il est montre a l'aide de paires minimales que la mediane -r- presente dans plus de 20% des mots du chinois archaique, etait un infixe servant a former des derives pluriels et collectifs (nom), iteratifs, duratifs ou a valeurs d'effort (verbes d'action) et intensifs (verbes d'etat et adjectifs)

Findings accumulated since before the publication of Li Fang-kui’s (1971, 1976) reconstruction System for Old Chinese (OC), which for the past 20 years or so has been a kind of de facto standard in OC reconstruction in replacement of Karlgren’s now outdated System, hâve made a new synthesis necessary. Baxter’s voluminous book is such a synthesis. I...

This article is the result of collaboration between a linguist and an anthropologist. In La Troisième planète. Structures familiales et systèmes idéologiques (The Third Planet: Family Structures and Ideologies) (Todd, 1983), anthropologist Emmanuel Todd provided a world map of family types, which he used to explain the distribution of major politic...

This article is a study of some of the sound changes which have affected the initial consonants in the Gan dialects. The changes are studied from the points of view of conditioning, geography, motivation and relative chronology. A distinction between northern and southern Gan is proposed.

This article is a study of some of the sound changes which have affected the initial consonants in the Gan dialects. The changes are studied from the points of view of conditioning, geography, motivation and relative chronology. A distinction between northern and southern Gan is proposed.

The dialect of Wuning city is spoken in the Xiu river valley in northwestern Jiangxi. In it, the voiced obstruent initials of Middle Chinese have undergone an unusual type of devoicing: aspirated in a subset of tone B, unaspirated elsewhere, with a difference in tonal treatment between the aspirated and unaspirated sets of reflexes in tone B. The d...

The synchronie and historical phonology, and, to some extent, the lexicon of Shanggao, a Chinese dialect spoken in the western part of the Poyang plain in Jiangxi, are presented and discussed.

A cross-cultural investigation of the influence of target-language in babbling was carried out. 1047 vowels produced by twenty 10-month-old infants from Parisian French, London English, Hong Kong Cantonese and Algiers Arabic language backgrounds were recorded in the cities of origin and spectrally analysed. F1-F2 plots of these vowels were obtained...