Sino-Tibetan Languages - External Classification

External Classification

Beyond the traditionally recognized families of Southeast Asia, a number of possible broader relationships have been suggested. One of these is the "Sino-Caucasian" hypothesis of Sergei Starostin, which posits that the Yeniseian languages and North Caucasian languages form a clade with Sino-Tibetan. The Sino-Caucasian hypothesis has been expanded by others to "Dené–Caucasian" to include the Na-Dené languages of North America, Burushaski, Basque and, occasionally, Etruscan. Edward Sapir had commented on a connection between Na-Dené and Sino-Tibetan. (A narrower binary Dené–Yeniseian family has recently been well-received, but is not yet conclusively demonstrated.) In contrast, Laurent Sagart (2005) proposes a Sino-Austronesian family relating Sino-Tibetan to the Austronesian languages.