Nathaniel Sims (CRLAO-CNRS) - A roadmap to reconstructing proto-Rma
Channel: Nathan Hill
Date: 23/03/2023

This talk was given by Nate Sims at Trinity College Dublin on Wednesday 22 March, 4-5pm. Sorry about the poor audio, we had some IT problems, I did my best to improve it in post production. 

ABSTRACT: Rma is a language spoken along the upper reaches of the Min River in Northwestern Sichuan, China. Rma is a member of the Trans-Himalayan language family. Thus, it is related to Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. However, unlike these languages, Rma does not have a long tradition of writing, and the history of the language subgroup is not well understood.

The purpose of this talk is to discuss issues related to historical reconstruction of proto-Rma in light of recent advancements in the documentation of the language, and to discuss what this can tell us about the relationship between Rma and other languages of the family. To date, the most comprehensive treatment of Rma historical linguistics is Evans (2001). Evans etymologized over one thousand Rma forms and proposed reconstructions for certain southern varieties. Since Evans’ study, there have been many publications on previously undocumented varieties which broaden the empirical basis for studies of the history of the language: Ronghong (LaPolla & Huang 2003), Qugu (LaPolla & Poa 2003, Huang & Zhou 2006), Hongyan (Evans 2006), Puxi (Huang 2007), Yonghe (Sims 2014), Xiaoxing (Huang et al. 2019). Thus, the time is ripe for work on historical reconstruction of which incorporates these publications.

This talk will discuss the reconstruction of the segmental phonology, including consonants and vowels, syllable structure, as well as suprasegmental phonology such as tonal distinctions. It will also discuss the development of the verb-complex, and other larger constructions in Rma. This talk will present a ‘recipe’ for reconstructing a form in proto-Rma and discuss cover some of the insights that can be gained by internal reconstruction, loanwords from other languages, as well as loanwords from Rma into other languages, and some of the methodological issues in historical reconstruction of a language without a long written tradition.

SPEAKER BIO: Nathaniel Sims is a linguist whose work is focusses on languages of the eastern Himalayan region, including Rma (also called Qiang), Tibetan, and Rgyalrongic languages. He grew up in Sichuan and first became interested in the region’s minority languages, because he was friends with classmates who spoke these languages. Since 2006 he has been involved with collaborative, community-based documentation of Rma since 2006. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 2021 and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS-INALCO-CRLAO) in Paris.