Brag-bar kinship system in synchronic and diachronic perspectives* Zhang Shuya INALCO-CRLAO bragbarskad@gmail.com Fan Jingming Université Paris-Nanterre jmfiav@gmail.com Abstract The Rgyalrong languages are a group of unwritten non-Tibetic languages spoken in north-western Sichuan Province, China. This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the Brag-bar (a dialect of Situ Rgyalrong) kinship ter- minology at the synchronic level, and then by using both internal reconstruction and comparative method, we attempt to explain the direc- tionality of both formal and semantic changes in the Brag-bar terminology. Thus we demonstrate that the present kinship system of Brag-bar (Situ) originates from a system with Omaha skewing. Keywords: Kinship, Brag-bar, Rgyalrong languages, Omaha skewing, Cross-parallel distinction 1. Introduction The Rgyalrong languages are spoken in north-western Sichuan Province, China. Speakers of Rgyalrong languages are classified as part of the Tibetan Minzu by the Chinese government. 1 Previous studies (Jacques 2008: 42–3; 2012b) show that Omaha skewing is attested in the Japhug (Northern Rgyalrong) kinship system and might once have existed in Tangut, an extinct West Rgyalrongic lan- guage. Nevertheless this special cross-generational equation seems to be absent in Situ (Eastern Rgyalrong) terminologies (Wang 2016). This paper deals with the previously undescribed kinship terminology of Brag-bar (Situ). Based on the comparative method, it attempts to explain the divergences between the kinship systems of Brag-bar and Japhug. First, in section 2, we provide background information on the language in question. Then, in section 3, we introduce the terminological framework and * We would like to express our gratitude to Guillaume Jacques, who has read every version of this paper and provided valuable suggestions. We would also like to thank Lai Yunfan, Philippe Ramirez, Stephen Morey, Jesse Gates, Gong Xun and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. Finally, we would like to thank Thomas Pellard, who generously shared the LaTeX codes for the kinship diagrams. 1 Rgylarong language speakers also see themselves as ethnic Tibetans. Bulletin of SOAS, 83, 3 (2020), 479–503. © SOAS University of London, 2020. doi:10.1017/S0041977X2000261X the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X2000261X Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, on 19 Dec 2020 at 06:37:18, subject to