Gyalrongic languages


The Gyalrongic languages constitute a branch of the Qiangic languages of Sino-Tibetan, although Randy LaPolla proposes that it may be part of a larger Rung languages group, and does not consider it to be particularly closely related to Qiangic. LaPolla suggests that similarities between Gyalrongic and Qiangic may be due to areal influence.

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. 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, and are classified into three groups:
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 as a "western dialect" of Gyalrong, along with Eastern Gyalrong and the "northwestern dialect". 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 found that Horpa and Gyalrong share only 15.2% cognacy, with 242 cognates out of a total of 1,592 words.
The Khalong Tibetan language has a Gyalrongic substratum.
The Chamdo languages may or may not be Qiangic.