Tibeto-Burman Groups Research Articles

Roots and Routes: Funeral Practices and Land-based Identities in the Yunnan-Tibetan Borderlands

This article analyses Pumi (Premi) funeral practices and naming customs of social groupings to interpret their idiom of ru, an indigenous notion of ‘bone’ common among Tibeto-Burman groups. I argue that the Pumi ru name marks a land-based identity constituted by the deposition of bones collected from cremation remains and the soul-guiding ritual along the ancestral migration route at funerals. On the one hand, the notion of ru refers to a conception of kinship relations that emphasises a continual connection to the same places fulfilled from birth to death, in addition to the shared bodily substance of bone. On the other hand, this connection to the land articulates both experiences of settlement and movement. Although the local translation of ru is ‘root’ in Mandarin, this form of identity is not ‘rooted’ at the current settlement but embedded in a sense of landscape constituted by past migrations and repetitive ritual journeys of souls.

Distribution of mitochondrial MT-RNR1, MT-TL1, MT-TS1, MT-TK and MT-TE genes variants associated with hearing loss in Southwestern China

BackgroundMaternally inherited hearing loss has been associated with mitochondrial genes, including MT-RNR1, MT-TL1, MT-TS1, MT-TK and MT-TE. Among these genes, MT-RNR1 is known to be a hotspot for pathogenic variants related to aminoglycoside ototoxicity and nonsyndromic hearing loss. However, the frequency and spectrum of variants in these genes, particularly in multi-ethnic hearing loss patients from Southwestern China, are still not fully understood. MethodsIn this study, we enrolled 460 hearing loss patients from various ethnic backgrounds (Han, Yi, Dai, Hani, etc.) in Southwestern China. Next-generation sequencing was used to analyze the mitochondrial MT-RNR1, MT-TL1, MT-TS1, MT-TK and MT-TE genes. Subsequently, bioinformatical methods were employed to evaluate the identified variants. ResultsAmong the patients with hearing loss, we identified 70 variants in MT-RNR1 (78.6 %, 55/70), MT-TL1 (4.3 %, 3/70), MT-TS1 (4.3 %, 3/70), MT-TK (7.1 %, 5/70) and MT-TE (5.7 %, 4/70) genes. We found that 15 variants were associated with hearing loss, including m.1555 A > G and m.1095 T > C. Additionally, we discovered three reported mitochondrial variants (m.676 G > A, m.7465 insC, and m.7474 A > G) newly correlated with hearing loss. Notably, certain pathogenic variants, such as m.1555 A > G, displayed non-consistent distributions among the multi-ethnic patients with hearing loss. Furthermore, the number of variants associated with hearing loss was higher in the Sinitic group (n = 181) and Tibeto-Burman group (n = 215) compared to the Kra-Dai group (n = 38) and Hmong-Mien group (n = 26). ConclusionsThis present study revealed the distribution of mitochondrial variants linked to hearing loss across various ethnic groups in Southwestern China. These data suggest a potential correlation between the distribution of mitochondrial variants associated with hearing loss and ethnic genetic backgrounds.

Role of A•gate in Garo Society, Meghalaya

In the landlocked hill state of Meghalaya, one of the largest tribes is the Garos, a Tibeto Burman group. They adhere to a patriarchal and matrilineal structure. Matrilocal is the basis for the residence. After marriage, the groom live with the bride and start a family. Another important part of Garo society is the duty and responsibilities of the A•gate and Chawari towards the clan and family. Compared to the Heiress and her spouse, A•gate and Chawari have distinct roles and responsibilities. In order to establish a family, the Chawari and his spouse must move out of their in-laws' home and construct a new home on the land that has been provided to them. A Nokkrom, unlike a Chawari, will not have to leave the in-laws' home after getting married. In contrast to the Nokna, the A•gate would only receive a limited plot of land on which to construct a home, engage in agriculture, and survive. Sometimes the family does not give A•gate any movable or immovable property. It will first attempt to determine A•gate's and Chawari's roles within the Garo Society. Second, examines into how A•gate and Nokna's responsibilities to the families and clan differ. Lastly, if at all possible, provide any suggestive measures.

Genomic formation of Tibeto-Burman speaking populations in Guizhou, Southwest China

Sino-Tibetan is the most prominent language family in East Asia. Previous genetic studies mainly focused on the Tibetan and Han Chinese populations. However, due to the sparse sampling, the genetic structure and admixture history of Tibeto-Burman-speaking populations in the low-altitude region of Southwest China still need to be clarified. We collected DNA from 157 individuals from four Tibeto-Burman-speaking groups from the Guizhou province in Southwest China. We genotyped the samples at about 700,000 genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms. Our results indicate that the genetic variation of the four Tibeto-Burman-speaking groups in Guizhou is at the intermediate position in the modern Tibetan-Tai-Kadai/Austronesian genetic cline. This suggests that the formation of Tibetan-Burman groups involved a large-scale gene flow from lowland southern Chinese. The southern ancestry could be further modelled as deriving from Vietnam’s Late Neolithic-related inland Southeast Asia agricultural populations and Taiwan’s Iron Age-related coastal rice-farming populations. Compared to the Tibeto-Burman speakers in the Tibetan-Yi Corridor reported previously, the Tibeto-Burman groups in the Guizhou region received additional gene flow from the southeast coastal area of China. We show a difference between the genetic profiles of the Tibeto-Burman speakers of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor and the Guizhou province. Vast mountain ranges and rivers in Southwest China may have decelerated the westward expansion of the southeast coastal East Asians. Our results demonstrate the complex genetic profile in the Guizhou region in Southwest China and support the multiple waves of human migration in the southern area of East Asia.

Moved to distraction: the ritual theatre of the Fire Festival in Southwest China

ABSTRACT What does it mean to be ‘moved to distraction’ by ritual theatre? Each year the Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman group of Southwest China, may be moved by their Fire Festival competitions, pageantries, and ‘extravaganzas’, but not necessarily by the Chinese nationalist elements within them. Simulating the pageants of Chinese megacities, Fire Festival extravaganzas meld Nuosu myth-history, animistic imagery, and ‘minority culture’ with the Chinese Dream of prosperity, the party-state’s efforts at generating cohesion, and the soft power of stadium rock concerts. Many Nuosu are abducted into the mood of performances that evoke what is archetypically human for them, including their myth-historical relationships to Tibetans and Han Chinese. But while some Nuosu may experience frisson and the giddy sense of being moved to distraction by spectacles that celebrate China as a socialist superpower, many turn away from ritual theatre that challenges their cosmopolitics and their sense of what it means to be human.

Women's wellness in the mountains: An exploration of medicinal plants among tibeto-burman groups in Thailand

Ethnopharmacological relevanceThis study offers valuable insight into the traditional healing practices of women's healthcare within four Tibeto-Burman groups. By focusing on women's wellness, the research sheds light on the often-neglected yet significant contributions made by women in the field of traditional medicine. Aims of the studyThe study seeks to address the gap of studies on the ethnobotany of women healthcare of the Tibeto-Burman groups in Thailand and to analyst the factors that could affect the diversity of ethnobotanical knowledge. Materials and methodsThe study compiled data from 15 group-informants residing in 12 different villages. The information gathering process involved a combination of free-listing, semi-structured interviews, group discussion, and the walk-to-the-wood method. To analyze the data, the researchers used various methods such as use-reports, Relative Frequency of Citation (RFC), Relative Importance Index (RI), and Cluster analysis. ResultsThis study identified 200 plant species used in traditional women's healthcare practices, with leaves being the most frequently used part. Drinking was the most common method for internal use, while bathing and steam were the most emphasized for external use. Blumea balsamifera and Buddleja asiatica had high RI and RFC. Cluster analysis revealed that group-informants were divided by ethnicity and geographical location. ConclusionThis study contributes to the understanding of traditional healthcare practices among Tibeto-Burman groups in Thailand, with a particular focus on women's wellness. The results provide insight into the ethnobotanical knowledge of these communities and highlight the important role played by women in traditional medicine. The study underscores the need for continued research in this field to preserve and utilize this valuable knowledge.

Of Cosmological Visions and Creativity: Shaping Animism, Indigenous Science, and Forestry in Southwest China

How do cosmological visions unsettle animistic and scientific ways of approaching the world? Whereas ‘cosmovisions’ have the narrow meaning of ‘worldviews’, people unleash new ‘cosmological visions’ through the creative act of relating to—and simultaneously dismantling—their constructs of the world at large. Drawing on my ethnography of the Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman group of Southwest China, I show how an ethnohistorian and a priest set out, at the request of a local official, to address deforestation with a cosmological vision built upon animistic, indigenous scientific, social scientific, and natural scientific sensibilities. Holding sacrifices to land spirits across the Liangshan mountains of Yunnan province in the mid-2000s, they urged Nuosu to refrain from cutting down trees. Many Nuosu in the lumber trade responded with a counter vision that showed respect for land spirits but an unprecedented detachment from the world in animistic-cum-scientific terms. Cosmological visions like these proliferate among Nuosu, encouraging them to experiment with everything from testing the patience of land spirits to undercutting the science behind China’s forest protection policies. Here, creativity opens up new ways of envisioning indigenous autonomy and what it means to be alive to the world as an animist, a scientist, or both.

Population-Genetic History of China in the Context of the East Asian Population History

The territory of modern China was a zone of active population transformations from the time of its occupation by human species. There was the formation zone of the progenitors of all Mongoloid populations associated with the eastern trunk of non-Africans. The most ancient group is associated with the population of Tianyuan cave (田園洞). The basal steam split, after Tianyuan branch separation into two clusters of southern and northern populations. The north groups formed a gene pool base for the modern population of the northern half of China, Japan, Korea, as well as Mongolia, Siberia, and America. The southern groups formed a gene pool core for the population of Indochina, Indonesia, eastern Oceania. From the beginning of the Neolithic era, two-way interaction begins between both groups. During the agricultural spread, people from the region of the upper Yellow River actively settled in Tibet, the southwestern provinces of China, the lower reaches of the Yellow River, forming the basis of the gene pool of modern Tibetans, other Tibetan-Burmans and progenitors of the Han. Also, the migrants from the valley of Yellow River influence the population of the western Liao River, associated with another subgroup of the northern Mongoloid cluster. And the basin of this river, this population inhabits the Korean Peninsula, and from there to the Japanese archipelago. In historical time, especially in the Jin, Tang and Song eras, the penetration of northerners south of the Yellow River intensified. It absorbs local groups and affects the gene pools of local Sino-Tibetan and Hmong-Mien groups that have escaped assimilation. At the same time, the southern groups of Han Chinese also receive a noticeable admixture from the southern Mongoloid groups of the southern cluster. The arrival of the Han Chinese probably causes the outflow of part of the Tibeto-Burman groups to northeast India. The invasions of the steppe nomads did not change the gene pool of China. On the contrary, the resettlement of Han farmers in the steppe left a noticeable admixture in the population of Mongolia from the Xiongnu era to the present. Thus, the population of China since ancient times has not only a turbulent internal population history but had been influencing since the earliest epochs to rest of the population of the Inhabited parts of the World like Siberia, both Americas, India, South-East Asia and Oceania.

CLASSIFIERS IN REANG

Language is an identity as well as a means of passing down knowledge from one generation to the next, serving as the foundation for a particular native speaker's understanding. The Reang is one of the languages belonging to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family (Reang, 2021). It is spoken in Mizoram, Tripura, and Assam. It is also spoken in neighbouring nations, particularly Bangladesh and Myanmar. According to the Census of India 2011, Reang has a total population of 1,88,080. The study area of this present work focuses on the Reang spoken in the west, south, and northern regions of Tripura. Reang is a Tibeto-Burman language, and it has numerous classifiers for virtually anything or every shape, just like other TibetoBurman languages, including Boro, Garo, Rabha, Dimasa, and Kokborok. There are very scanty linguistic works done on the classifiers of Reang. The current work makes an effort to discuss the range of classifiers in Reang. “Classifiers are affixes that are used in various languages to indicate the grammatical or semantic classification of words." The term ‘classifier’ is commonly used for a wide range of noun categorization devices. Classifiers are generally defined as morphemes that classify and quantify nouns according to semantic criteria. Classifiers classify a noun inherently. They designate and specify semantic features inherent to the nominal denotatum and divide the set of nouns in a certain language into disjunct classes. "(Senft 2000: 21).

Manifesting the invisible. Writing, piercing, shaping, and taming potency in Southwest China

Potency is an often invisible form of power that becomes manifest when written deeply into bodies and things. Among the Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman group of Southwest China, “writing” or “manifesting” (bbur ꁱ) is a vast polysemic concept rooted in the scriptures of priests, which, however, exceeds its own bounds. Nuosu manifest potency by writing it into religious scriptures and handwrought effigies, piercing it into embroidered clothing and tattooed bodies, shaping it into public statues, and taming it into animals, all of which bring animate powers and presences to life.

On the Tangut prefix 2da:-

The Tangut language was spoken during the Xixia (Tangut) dynasty (A.D. 1038-1227) in the northwestern part of China.The first emperor (A.D. 1036) established the Tangut script for the language. Although the Tangut language and its script are now extinct, the many documents written in the Tangut script enable us to reconstruct its phonology and grammar. Tangut belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group (Tangut-Qiang). Its grammar possesses unique features that are not found in either Old Tibetan or Old Burman. One of such features is a directional prefix. Six or seven morphemes function as prefixes. Previous works have discussed the change in the function of the prefix from directional to aspect (perfective). Some minor Tibeto-Burman languages have morphemes that are similar syllables or functions to Tangut. In this article, we present the outline of the prefixes and a description of the prefix 2da:- with sample sentences and discuss some remarks

New insights into the fine-scale history of western-eastern admixture of the northwestern Chinese population in the Hexi Corridor via genome-wide genetic legacy.

Trans-Eurasian cultural and genetic exchanges have significantly influenced the demographic dynamics of Eurasian populations. The Hexi Corridor, located along the southeastern edge of the Eurasian steppe, served as an important passage of the ancient Silk Road in Northwest China and intensified the transcontinental exchange and interaction between populations on the Central Plain and in Western Eurasia. Historical and archeological records indicate that the Western Eurasian cultural elements were largely brought into North China via this geographical corridor, but there is debate on the extent to which the spread of barley/wheat agriculture into North China and subsequent Bronze Age cultural and technological mixture/shifts were achieved by the movement of people or dissemination of ideas. Here, we presented higher-resolution genome-wide autosomal and uniparental Y/mtDNA SNP or STR data for 599 northwestern Han Chinese individuals and conducted 2 different comprehensive genetic studies among Neolithic-to-present-day Eurasians. Genetic studies based on lower-resolution STR markers via PCA, STRUCTURE, and phylogenetic trees showed that northwestern Han Chinese individuals had increased genetic homogeneity relative to northern Mongolic/Turkic/Tungusic speakers and Tibeto-Burman groups. The genomic signature constructed based on modern/ancient DNA further illustrated that the primary ancestry of the northwestern Han was derived from northern millet farmer ancestors, which was consistent with the hypothesis of Han origin in North China and more recent northwestward population expansion. This was subsequently confirmed via excess shared derived alleles in f3/f4 statistical analyses and by more northern East Asian-related ancestry in the qpAdm/qpGraph models. Interestingly, we identified one western Eurasian admixture signature that was present in northwestern Han but absent from southern Han, with an admixture time dated to approximately 1000 CE (Tang and Song dynasties). Generally, we provided supporting evidence that historic Trans-Eurasian communication was primarily maintained through population movement, not simply cultural diffusion. The observed population dynamics in northwestern Han Chinese not only support the North China origin hypothesis but also reflect the multiple sources of the genetic diversity observed in this population.

An Experimental Analysis of Speech Features for Tone Speech Recognition

Recently Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) has been successfully integrated in many commercial applications. These applications are performing significantly well in relatively controlled acoustical environments. However, the performance of an Automatic Speech Recognition system developed for non-tonal languages degrades considerably when tested for tonal languages. One of the main reason for this performance degradation is the non-consideration of tone related information in the feature set of the ASR systems developed for non-tonal languages. In this paper we have investigated the performance of commonly used feature for tonal speech recognition. A model has been proposed for extracting features for tonal speech recognition. A statistical analysis has been done to evaluate the performance of proposed feature set with reference to the Apatani language of Arunachal Pradesh of North-East India, which is a tonal language of Tibeto-Burman group of languages.

Gastric Cancer in Nepal A Locally Advanced Disease

The goal of this study is to describe the distribution of gastric cancer by age, gender, duration of symptoms, nutritional status and staging of the disease based on operative findings and correlation between the data. This was an observational study. The study was conducted at Department of Surgery, Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital from December 2012 to December 2017. All patients who were admitted to the department with a diagnosis of stomach cancer and underwent palliative or curative intent procedure were reviewed and analyzed. Out of the 80 patients, 51(63.7%) were male and 29 (36.3%) patients were female. The disease was commonest in the 6th and 7th decades of life. Majority of the patients were of Tibetoburmese (Mongolian) origin with 44 (55%). Majority of patients, 60 (75%) patients had long duration of illness of more than 6 months. Most of the patients had albumin level less than 3gm/dl. Gastric carcinoma is a male predominant malignancy usually of old age and commonly observed in the Tibeto-Burman group of people. Overwhelming majority diagnosed at an advanced stage and had poor prognosis.

Paternal Y chromosomal genotyping reveals multiple large-scale admixtures in the formation of Lolo-Burmese–speaking populations in southwest China

Background: Bai and Yi people are two Tibeto-Burman speaking ethnic groups in Yunnan, southwest China. The genetic structure and history of these two groups are largely unknown due to a lack of available genetic data.Aim: To investigate the paternal genetic structure and population relationship of the Yi and Bai people.Subjects and methods: We collected samples from 278 Bai individuals and 283 Yi individuals from Yunnan and subsequently genotyped 43 phylogenetically relevant Y-SNPs in those samples. We estimated haplogroup frequencies and merged our data with a reference database including 46 representative worldwide populations to infer genetic relationships.Results: Y chromosomal haplogroup O-M175 is the dominant lineage in both Bai and Yi people. The Bai and Yi show a close genetic relationship with other Tibeto-Burman–speaking populations with high frequencies of haplogroup O2a2b1a1-Page23, which is also confirmed by PCA. The frequencies of the Tai-Kadai specific lineage O1a-M119, the southern China widespread lineage O1b-P31 and the eastern China enriched lineage O2a1b-002611, are also relatively high in our studied populations.Conclusions: The paternal Y chromosomal affinity of the Bai and Yi with Tibeto-Burman groups is consistent with the language classification. During the formation of the Bai and Yi populations, there were multiple large-scale admixtures, including the expansion of Neolithic farming populations from northern China, the assimilation of Tai-Kadai–speaking populations in southwest China, the demographic expansion driven by Neolithic agricultural revolution from southern China, and the admixture with populations of military immigration from northern and eastern China.

Forensic features and genetic structure of 23 autosomal STRs in Artux Turkic-speaking population residing in southwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Autosomal short tandem repeats (STRs) are viewed as the gold standard in forensic individual identification and parentage testing. The Huaxia Platinum System contains 23 autosomal markers along with rs2032678 (Yindel) and amelogenin. Here, we genotyped 23-STRs in the southwestern Xinjiang Uyghur residing in the Artux Region and assessed the allele frequency and forensic statistical parameters. All investigated STRs are in conformity with the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium with an effective combined power of discrimination (0.99999999999999999999999999992) and cumulative probability of exclusion (0.9999999997) in the Artux Uyghur population. Population comparisons among 54 worldwide populations via PCA and MDS indicate that the Artux Uyghur population has a close genetic relationship with geographically distinct Uyghurs and Kazakh groups than other East Asians or Eurasians. Genetic ancestry component dissection among 2198 individuals from Sinitic, Turkic, and Tibeto-Burman language groups further demonstrates the genetic homogeneity within the Turkic language family and apparent genetic heterogeneity among other language groups.

The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China by Mark Bender and Aku Wuwu

Reviewed by: The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China by Mark Bender and Aku Wuwu Thomas Heberer (bio) The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China. Translated by Mark Bender and Aku Wuwu. From a transcription by Jjivot Zopqu. Studies on Ethnic Groups in China. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. xcv, 173 pp. Paperback $30.00, isbn 978-0-29574569-5. We are currently witnessing a massive loss of cultures on a global scale. The world is facing a fast-paced change, particularly with regard to indigenous people. Diversity is shrinking, something we can regret but not impede. Globalization processes, Western perceptions of modern ways of living, greed for profit, resource depletion—there are many reasons why indigenous diversity is vanishing. In this remarkable book, we read about the imagined origins of one of China's multitude of ethnic groups, the Nuosu people (a group officially belonging to the Yi nationality) living in the Liangshan Mountains in southern Sichuan Province and northern Yunnan Province. As the renowned social anthropologist Stevan Harrell writes in his Foreword, The Book of Origins is the story the Nuosu "tell themselves about how they got where they are and how they fit in – to the cosmos, the spirit world, the natural world, and the social world" (p. vii). The Book of Origins, which for many centuries existed solely in oral form or written in Nuosu script on specific scrolls, is still recited at important rituals and ceremonies such as funerals and weddings. The Yi are the sixth-largest ethnic minority in China and their language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group. There are about ten million Yi people living in China, primarily in the southwestern provinces of Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou, with a small number in Guangxi. Approximately 2.5 million Yi, the Liangshan Yi in southern Sichuan Province (Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture), and some Yi in northwestern Yunnan Province call themselves Nuosu in their own language. The translators and editors of The Book of Origins are Mark Bender (professor of East Asian languages and literatures at Ohio State University) and Aku Wuwu (professor and associate dean of the College of Yi Studies at the Southwestern University of Nationalities in Chengdu/Sichuan and a renowned poet). The two scholars collaborated with Jjivot Zopqu, a Nuosu traditional mediator and an expert on traditional Yi texts. The three have taken on the weighty task of translating the Yi epic from the Nuosu language into Chinese and from the latter into English, which meant that they had to "deal with a lot of obscure terms, puzzling ellipses, unfamiliar names for people and places, and obtuse allusions" (p. vii), as they explain. They have done a splendid job in mastering this tremendous challenge. [End Page 171] A Preface informs us about the background and how the book came to be published. The Introduction provides very detailed insights into (a) The Book of Origins, its history, ritual significance, and function; (b) the Yi people, the Nuosu, their settlement area, social structure, religious beliefs, their customs, and material culture; and (c) the contents of The Book of Origins and its meanings. The main part of this volume consists of the translation of the Book. The Book is too rich to review in detail here, for it encompasses the genesis of the world and the Nuosu clans, their migration, and their natural and social order, embedded in a world of spirits, humans, plants, animals, and landscapes. It presents a world apart from "Western" worldviews but at the same time inspires the readers to reflect on and understand other worldviews and to scrutinize our own. The translation does not only contribute to the history of ideas and our understanding of the society, literature, and religious beliefs of the Nuosu Yi, but also signifies that the Book is part and parcel of global understandings of the development and configuration of the world. The question of how the world began has always been a human preoccupation. People across the world and across cultures have looked for explanations and conceptualized their interpretations in mythic images. The Book of Origins is a kind of creation myth: it depicts the...

The genomic landscape of Nepalese Tibeto-Burmans reveals new insights into the recent peopling of Southern Himalayas

While much research attention has focused on demographic processes that enabled human diffusion on the Tibetan plateau, little is known about more recent colonization of Southern Himalayas. In particular, the history of migrations, admixture and/or isolation of populations speaking Tibeto-Burman languages, which is supposed to be quite complex and to have reshaped patterns of genetic variation on both sides of the Himalayan arc, remains only partially elucidated. We thus described the genomic landscape of previously unsurveyed Tibeto-Burman (i.e. Sherpa and Tamang) and Indo-Aryan communities from remote Nepalese valleys. Exploration of their genomic relationships with South/East Asian populations provided evidence for Tibetan admixture with low-altitude East Asians and for Sherpa isolation. We also showed that the other Southern Himalayan Tibeto-Burmans derived East Asian ancestry not from the Tibetan/Sherpa lineage, but from low-altitude ancestors who migrated from China plausibly across Northern India/Myanmar, having experienced extensive admixture that reshuffled the ancestral Tibeto-Burman gene pool. These findings improved the understanding of the impact of gene flow/drift on the evolution of high-altitude Himalayan peoples and shed light on migration events that drove colonization of the southern Himalayan slopes, as well as on the role played by different Tibeto-Burman groups in such a complex demographic scenario.

Polygenic study of endurance-associated genetic markers ACE I/D, ACTN3 Arg(R)577Ter(X), CKMM A/G NcoI and eNOS Glu(G)298Asp(T) in male Gorkha soldiers

BackgroundGorkhas, a sub-mountainous population of the Himalayan region, are known for strength and bravery. In the present study when “Gorkha” is used without brackets, we are mentioning Gorkhas of Tibeto-Burman origin. Physical capability, strength and endurance are important components of fitness associated with genetic traits. The aim of this study was to examine the endurance potential of male Gorkha soldiers, based on endurance-related genetic markers ACE I/D, ACTN3 Arg (R)577Ter(X), CKMM A/G NcoI and eNOS Glu(G)298Asp(T).MethodsGenotypic and allelic frequencies were determined in 374 male Gorkha soldiers (Tibeto-Burman). These frequencies were compared with frequencies obtained from Gorkha (Indo-Aryan), high-altitude natives (Tibeto-Burman) and Indian lowlanders (Indo-Aryan). “Total genotype score” (TGS) was calculated from accumulated combination of polymorphisms with maximum value “100” for theoretically “optimal” polygenic score. Probability of occurrence of “optimal” endurance profile was also determined.ResultsACE II genotypic frequency was highest in Tamangs followed by Gurungs, Rais, Limbus and Magars. No statistical difference in genotypic and allelic frequency of ACTN3 Arg(R)577Ter(X) was noted within the groups. Rais showed the highest CKMM A allele frequency (0.908) compared to other Gorkha (Tibeto-Burman) groups. Limbus and Tamangs showed the highest eNOS G allele frequency (0.938 and 0.915, respectively) compared to that of other groups. Probability of male Gorkha soldiers possessing a theoretically optimal polygenic endurance profile for four candidate polymorphisms was ~3.35% (1 in 30). Four percent of the population of male Gorkha soldiers (15 in 374) exhibited an optimal TGS 100, and 16% exhibited TGS 87 for endurance compared to male Indian soldiers belonging to the lowland (Indo-Aryan) and Gorkha (Indo-Aryan) populations suggesting an overall more “favourable” polygenic profile in the male Gorkha soldier (Tibeto-Burman) population.ConclusionsThis study presents evidence of higher frequency of endurance-associated genes in the Gorkhas implying thereby that such genetically endowed individuals from the population may be selected and trained for achieving excellence in endurance-related elite sports activities.

A Grammar of Guìqióng: A Language of Sichuan by Li Jiang

Reviewed by: A Grammar of Guìqióng: A Language of Sichuan by Li Jiang David Bradley A Grammar of Guìqióng: A Language of Sichuan. Li Jiang. Leiden: Brill. 2015. Pp. xiii + 452. $209.00 (hardcover). This is a very valuable study of an underdocumented Qiangic Tibeto-Burman language of western Sichuan in southwestern China. The speakers, like most other related small groups in western Sichuan, are mostly officially classified as part of the Tibetan nationality; the author suggests a much larger population than any previous study, over 12,500 in the ethnic group, of whom nearly ten thousand are speakers of the language and the rest are able to understand but not speak; previous studies have suggested six to seven thousand speakers. One reason for the difference is that about fifteen hundred of these in two villages are officially classified as Han Chinese. However, the author also says that the language is “seriously losing its vigour” (p. 18), with those over sixty mostly monolingual, those over forty bilingual but now using mainly Chinese, and younger people having limited knowledge of the language. The usual name for this group used in the linguistic literature, “Guìqióng,” is a Han Chinese exonym based on the autonym [gu33tɕhiɐŋ55] or [gu33dʑɦiɐŋ21] (p.5); this latter name has not previously appeared in the literature, and the author tentatively relates it to the word [dʑiɐŋ33] ‘north’, as their origin story says that the group came from the north like most other Tibeto-Burman groups; the first syllable may be linked to the in-group plural suffix (pp. 82–83, misglossed there as ‘exclusive’). An earlier extensive study of the language, Song (2011), appeared as one in a series of progressively more detailed Chinese studies beginning with Sun (1983:111–25, 1991:227–30 and passim) and Huang (1992), all of which are in Chinese and are cited and discussed by Li; below, these are compared with the book under review where relevant. Both this book and Song (2011) start with very useful introductions on the historical, geographical, and cultural background of this group (pp.1–22; Song 2011:1–36), which is unusual in grammars, but extremely relevant and useful; the book also includes a number of useful pictures. We are told that another exonym, “Yútōng,” said to be derived from Tibetan, has been used for some six hundred years; it refers to the fact that the Guìqióng are the only group in the area who wear large turbans (pp. 5–6). The presentation of phonology (pp. 23–62) is uneven and would benefit greatly from a complete table showing the cooccurrence of initial consonants and vowels, which may also have led to a somewhat different analysis. There are very substantial phonological and lexical differences between the large and valuable vocabulary presented here (pp. 349–442) and the considerably more extensive vocabulary provided by Song (2011:230–93), as well as the smaller vocabularies of Sun (1991) and Huang (1992). These differences are in part notational, as the author chooses an idiosyncratic way of representing tones with apostrophes before or after initial consonants, while Song (2011), following other Chinese authors, uses numbers (5 for high, 1 for low), as does this review. There are numerous and profound differences in the analysis of the segmental systems as well. This is surprising, as Song and Li worked with the same main consultants on the same variety of the language. Li (pp. 23–31) posits eight vowels i y ɛ ə ɐ u o ɔ, five of which also occur contrastively nasalized, and a very large array of diphthongs. There is a contrast between syllables with final n, syllables with final ŋ, and nasalized vowels, but there are no other final consonants. Other analyses propose much larger vowel inventories; Song (2011:41) lists fourteen monophthongs and nine nasalized vowels. Some of the differences are the result of different allophonic analyses; the additional vowels proposed by Song are e ø ɿʉ ɯ ər, most of which are treated as allophones of one of the author’s nine vowels, but some of which should not be. For example, the author...