Geographic
distribution Arunachal Pradesh Glottolog tani1259 | Linguistic classification Sino-Tibetan
Tani | |
Subdivisions Eastern (Abor)
Western (Nishi) | ||
Tani (Tibetan: ཏནི), a.k.a. Miric, Adi–Galo–Mishing–Nishi (Bradley 1997), or Abor–Miri–Dafla (Matisoff 2003), is a compact family of Sino-Tibetan languages situated at the eastern end of the Himalayas, in an area skirted on four sides by Tibet, Assam, Bhutan, and Burma.
The Tani languages are spoken by about 600,000 people of Arunachal Pradesh, including the Adi, Apatani, Galo, Mising, Nyishi, Hill Miri, Tagin, and of the East Kameng, West Kameng, Papumpare, Lower Subansiri, Upper Subansiri, West Siang, East Siang, Upper Siang, Lower Dibang Valley and Lohit districts of Arunachal Pradesh and Dhemaji, North lakhimpur, etc. districts of Assam. In Arunachal Pradesh alone the Tani-speaking area covers some 40,000 square kilometers, or roughly half the size of the state. Scattered Tani communities spill over the Sino-Indian border into adjacent areas in Mêdog (Miguba people), Mainling (Bokar and Tagin peoples), and Lhünzê (Bangni, Na, Bayi, Dazu, and Mara peoples) counties of Tibet, where together with the non-Tani Idu and Taraõ they form the Lhoba nationality.
Classification
The Tani languages are conservatively classified as a distinct branch in Sino-Tibetan. Their closest relatives may be their eastern neighbors the Digaro languages, Taraon and Idu; this was first suggested by Sun (1993), but a relationship has not yet been systematically demonstrated. It is not clear which are distinct languages at this point since some are undocumented.
A provisional classification in Sun (1993), who argued that Tani is a primary branch of Tibeto-Burman (within Sino-Tibetan), is:
To Eastern Tani, van Driem (2008) adds the following possible languages:
Shimong, Tangam, Karko, Pasi, Panggi, AshingMilang has traditionally been classified as a divergent Tani language, but in 2011 was tentatively reclassified as Siangic (Post & Blench 2011).
Proto-Tani was partially reconstructed by Sun (1993). A large number of reconstructed roots have cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages. However, a great deal of Proto-Tani vocabulary have no cognates within Sino-Tibetan (Post 2011), and most Tani grammar seems to be secondary, without cognates in grammatically conservative Sino-Tibetan languages such as Jingpho or the Kiranti languages (Post 2006). This suggests that the Tani languages may have undergone an areal-substrate influence at an early stage in their development, most likely as a result of population expansion within their current range. These characteristics are especially pronounced in Apatani.
Mark Post (2013) proposes the following revised classification for the Tani languages.