Qiangic

Qiangic is a cluster of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in the mountains of western Sichuan and northern Yunnan, along the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. Its members include Qiang, whose speakers call themselves Rma, Gyalrong, Muya, Pumi and, in some classifications, Baima; many linguists also place the extinct Tangut language of Western Xia, 1038 to 1227, here.

Peoples labelled Qiang appear in Shang oracle bones of the second millennium BCE as pastoral tribes on the western frontier, who drifted south-west as Han power expanded. By the Ming dynasty the name belonged to the highland communities of the upper Min River. Qiangic languages have elaborate verb morphology and pronominal systems, and most lack an established written tradition.