Tangut as a West Gyalrongic language

Abstract

Abstract This paper proposes that Tangut should be classified as a West Gyalrongic language in the Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan family. We examine lexical commonalities, case marking, partial reduplication, and verbal morphology in Tangut and in modern West Gyalrongic languages, and point out nontrivial shared innovations between Tangut and modern West Gyalrongic languages. The analysis suggests a closer genetic relationship between Tangut and Modern West Gyalrongic than between Tangut and Modern East Gyalrongic. This paper is the first study that tackles the exact linguistic affiliation of the Tangut language based on the comparative method.