While providing unique and detailed information on early Tibeto-Burman languages and their contact and relationship to other languages, this book at the same time sets out to establish a field of Tibeto-Burman comparative-historical linguistics based on the classical Indo-European model. With papers by C. Bauer on Burmese and Mon, C. Beckwith on Old Tibetan syllable margins, B. Zeisler on Tibetan case marking, R. Yanson on Burmese historical phonology, G. Jacques on Tangut rimes, K. Iwasa on early Lolo manuscripts, V. Kasevich on the causative in Tibeto-Burman, and C. Beckwith on Old Tibetan and Old Chinese reconstruction. With an extensive Introduction to theoretical problems of the linguistics of Tibeto-Burman and other East and Southeast Asian languages.
