Re: A new Indo-European subfamily in China
| From: | Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, December 4, 2000, 1:07 |
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Nik Taylor wrote:
>E-Ching Ng tleiei :
-----<snip>-----
>> And out of curiosity, do most of the minority languages in
>> China have tone?
>
>As far as I know. It's an areal feature covering much of East Asia.
Yeah... even the Chamic (Austronesian) languages in Hainan Island are
tonal and monosyllabic. Austronesian languages are otherwise known for
being polysyllabic and non-tonal. E-Ching Ng might want to check the
Chamic languages out for his project. As far as I recall, the Chamic
languages become monosyllabic (with complex onset clusters) and developed
tones from there. Roger Mills certainly knows more on this. I believe he
is our resident Austronesian expert.
-kristian- 8)