The Baima Tibetans and the Di People of Chinese Historical Records: Challenging the Link

Abstract

This paper addresses a long-standing controversy surrounding the ethnicity of the Baima Tibetans, a Tibeto-Burman people in Western Sichuan Province whose ethnic and linguistic origins are yet to be satisfactorily ascertained. It focuses on one popular view, which attempts to link the present-day Baima Tibetans with the Di, an ancient Tibeto-Burman group documented in the Chinese historical records who inhabited roughly the same area until their gradual assimilation into the Han and the Tibetans during the Tang Dynasty. The paper examines and refutes all three types of evidence proffered in the literature in support of making such a link: geographical distribution, cultures and customs, and language. Focusing on the linguistic evidence, including autonyms and certain names of the Di contained in the historical texts, and two alleged Di loan words recorded in the ancient Chinese character dictionary 《說文解字》 , the paper makes use of first-hand fieldwork material to bear on the issue. It concludes that it is immature to say anything definite about the identity of the mysterious Di language or languages, let alone to directly link them with the speech of the modern Baima people, which is predominantly a Bodic language.