Brahmaputran languages
| Sal | |
|---|---|
| Jingpho–Konyak–Bodo | |
| Geographic distribution |
India, Bangladesh, Burma |
| Linguistic classification |
Sino-Tibetan
|
| Subdivisions |
|
| Glottolog | brah1260 |
The Sal languages are a family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in eastern India, parts of Bangladesh, and Burma.
Benedict (1972:7) noted that the Bodo–Garo, Konyak, and Jingpho (Kachin) languages, as well as the extinct Chairel language, shared distinctive roots for "sun" and "fire". Burling (1983) proposed a grouping of the Bodo–Garo, Koch, Konyak (Northern Naga) and Jingpho languages, characterized by several shared lexical innovations, including:
He called the proposed group Sal, after the words sal, san and jan for "sun" in various of these languages.
The family is generally presented with three branches (Burling 2003:175, Thurgood 2003:11):
Shafer had grouped the first two as his Baric division, and Bradley (1997:20) also combines them as a subbranch. Bradley considers Pyu and Kuki-Chin–Naga to be possibly related to Sal, but is uncertain about this.
Ethnologue calls the family simply "Jingpho–Konyak–Bodo".
The Brahmaputran branch of van Driem has three variants:
The smallest is his most recent, and the one he considers a well-established low-level group of Sino-Tibetan.
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