Towards a more comprehensive understanding of Qiang dialectology

Taipei: Academia Sinica. Language and Linguistics, 2016, 7(3), 351–381 p.Dialectology in the Qiang languages is still an underdeveloped field of study. Previous accounts of Qiang varieties have over simplistically described all varieties as belonging to one of two groups, Northern Qiang and Southern Qiang, based on broad typological features. This article demonstrates that previous subgroupings are inadequate and cannot account for the diversity of Qiang varieties, such as the previously undescribed Yonghe variety. The implication of this finding is that an entirely new approach to subgrouping of Qiang varieties is required. This paper not only deconstructs the previous subgroupings, but also puts forward a new scheme for subgrouping based on shared innovations and individual-identifying evidence in order to show which groupings have been established and to show where further work is needed.