Nathan W. Hill (2019). The historical phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. xiv + 373.

The historical phonology of Tibetan, Burmese, and Chinese is a compact volume that synthesises and systematises a wide range of research on the sound changes stretching back from these three languages toward a common ancestor. One chapter for each titular language traces a series of sound changes from a documented past form of the language (Old Tibetan, Old Burmese and Middle Chinese) to the reconstructed proto-language of the subfamily, and then to the proto-language ancestral to all three (Proto-Sino-Tibetan). A fourth chapter brings these together to focus on the phonological structure of the proto-language itself. An appendix and three indexes provide easily referenced lists of sound laws and examples, and topics for future research are clearly marked at the end of each chapter. As Hill himself states (p. 257), ‘the ambition of this work lies not in the proposal of this or that reconstruction but in a methodological reorientation of the study of Trans-Himalayan languages towards the paragon of Indo-European historical linguistics’. In this, the book succeeds admirably. This is not to say that other past and present historical research on this language family has not been valuable – far from it – but Hill’s work does represent a new level of focus on regular phonological correspondences and sound-change laws. With extensively cross-referenced evidence and falsifiable predictions, the book presents a model for how this kind of work should be done, and raises a multitude of topics for future research. Linguists working on varieties of Burmese, Chinese, Tibetan and related languages will find the descriptions of sound changes especially helpful. It has been difficult to determine how Sino-Tibetan languages and subfamilies are related to each other, so it is crucial to work out which sound changes each language has undergone in order to determine its genetic classification. This is true for Sino-Tibetan as a whole, and for Sinitic, Bodish and Burmish languages in particular. Historical linguists, typologists and phonologists interested in sound change more generally will also find the clearly packaged sound laws helpful to their work. However, this book is not about the modern varieties of these languages. The chapters begin with Old Tibetan, Old Burmese and Middle and Old Chinese, and work back from there. Readers interested in the subsequent diversification of these languages should look elsewhere, though the context presented here may still prove valuable.