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Chinese linguistics and typology: The state of the art

  • Hilary Chappell EMAIL logo , Li Ming EMAIL logo and Alain Peyraube EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 31, 2007
Linguistic Typology
From the journal Volume 11 Issue 1

Abstract

1. Introduction

China possesses rich linguistic resources which remain relatively untapped: the ten main Sinitic languages or dialect groups account for roughly 93% of the population (Mandarin, Jin, Xiang, Gan, Hui, Wu, Min, Kejia, Yue, and Pinghua); the remaining 7% comprise the many different “minority” languages in long term contact with Sinitic such as Tibeto-Burman, Mongolian, Hmong, and Tai. In an almost unprecedented state of affairs, written records for Chinese extend without a break 3,000 years into the past, furnishing a rich documentation for any kind of historical study.


1Correspondence address:Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS-CNRS), 54 Bd Raspail, 75270 Paris Cédex 06, France
2Correspondence address:Institute of Linguistics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 5, Jiannei Dajie, 100732, Beijing, China
3Correspondence address:Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie Orientale, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS-CNRS), 54 Bd Raspail, 75270 Paris Cédex 06, France

Received: 2007-03-07
Published Online: 2007-07-31
Published in Print: 2007-07-20

© Walter de Gruyter

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