FRENCH

• Address: Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orientale, INALCO, 2 rue de Lille, 75007 Paris
   
• E-mail : my first name, dot, my last name, at, gmail, dot, com
   

Laurent Sagart received his PhD in 1977 (University of Paris 7) and his Doctorat d'Etat in 1990 (University of Aix-Marseille 1). He is a senior scientist with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Paris, France). He has been a visiting professor at Ts'inghua University (1987-89), La Trobe University (1999), Hongkong City University (2005), the University of Chicago (2006) and Cornell University (2007). He is the author  or co-author of five books, including "Old Chinese: a new reconstruction" (2014, Oxford University Press), written in collaboration with Wiliam Baxter, which was honored by the Linguistic Society of America’s Leonard Bloomfield Award for 2016; and of many papers on East Asian linguistics.
 

Research interests

• Chinese dialectology, especially the Gan-Hakka dialects

• Old Chinese reconstruction, morphology and etymology

• Chinese loanwords into neighboring languages

• Genetic relationships in East Asia

• Languages and genes, languages and the domestication of cereals

• Reconstruction of Proto-Austronesian, Austronesian languages, Austronesian subgrouping. 
   

Video (in French)

Généalogie des langues d'Asie orientale (01:17:48), Les archives audiovisuelles de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales (ESCOM-MSH)
 

Selected publications

Download Laurent Sagart’s publications  on HAL-SHS open archive

Laurent Sagart's page on Academia

Books

• Phonologie du dialecte hakka de Sung Him Tong. Paris: Langages Croisés, 1982. 153 p.

• Les dialectes gan. Paris: Langages Croisés, 1993. 285 p.

• The Roots of Old Chinese. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1999. 262 p.

• Chinese translation: Shanggu Hanyu Cigen. Shanghai Educational Publishing House. 2004.

• P. Picq, L. Sagart, G. Dehaene et C. Lestienne : La plus belle histoire du langage. Paris : Le Seuil, 2008.

• W. Baxter and L. Sagart. Old Chinese: a new reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014

Edited volume

• The Peopling of East Asia. edited by Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench et Alicia Sanchez-Mazas. Londres: RoutledgeCurzon. 2005. 323 p.

Translation

• Zhengzhang Shangfang (2001) The phonology of Old Chinese. Paris: collection Cahiers de Linguistique Asie orientale. Translated by L. Sagart.

Papers

• A propos de M.J. Hashimoto "The Hakka Dialect". Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 2, (1977) 87-91.

• Sur le deuxième plan pour la simplification de l'écriture chinoise. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 4 (1978), 105-113.

• Babbling and early language in Cantonese. Hongkong University Working Papers in Language and Language Teaching 2 (1979), 1-7.

• A list of Sung Him Tong Hakka words of dubious etymology. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XI (1982), 2: 69-86.

• Phonology of a Cantonese dialect of the New Territories: Kat Hing Wai. Journal of the Hongkong branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 (1983), 142-160.

• How did the aspirated stops become voiced ? Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages 22 (1984), 87-94.

• Le destin des obstruantes sonores du chinois ancien dans les dialectes min. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XIII (1984), 1: 91-99.

• On the Departing tone. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 14 (1986), 1: 91-112.  Traduction chinoise: Yuwen Yanjiu 3 (1988):  55-64.

• On Gan-Hakka. Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies, New  Series, 18 (1988), 1: 141-160.

• Nord et Sud dans la langue des Shang. T'oung Pao LXXXIV (1988): 249-54.

• Glottalized tones in South-East Asian languages. In: David Bradley, Eugenie Henderson and Martine Mazaudon (eds.)

• Prosodic Analysis and Asian Linguistics: to honour R.K. Sprigg., pp. 81-90. 1989. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics C-104.

• Phonologie et lexique d'un dialecte gan: Shanggao. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XVIII (1989), 2: 183-227.

• Un dialecte du nord Jiangxi: Wuning. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XIX (1990), 2: 143-93.

• Chinese 'left' = Tibeto-Burman 'hot, pain'. T'oung Pao, Vol. LXXVII (1991), 4-5: 336-40.

• Chinese tones from Austronesian final consonants. in M. Ratliff and E. Schiller (eds.) Papers from the 1st annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society: 367-79. 1991: Arizona State University.

• Quelques changements phonétiques dans les consonnes initiales des dialectes gan. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XXI (1992), 1: 133-63.

• [en chinois] Guanyu Xing Gongwan jiaoshou dui zhuzuo "Hanyu Nandaoyu tongyuan lun" de shuping [à propos du compte rendu de mon "Chinese and Austronesian are genetically related" par le prof. Xing Gongwan]. Minzu Yuwen 5 (1992):37-41.

• Chinese and Austronesian: evidence for a genetic relationship. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 21 (1993), 1 : 1-62. Chinese translation by Zeng Xiaoyu in: Shi Feng (ed.) Hanyu Yanjiu zai haiwai, pp. 59-110., Beijing:Yuyanxueyuan, 1995.

• Le Wen Qi Ji et le dialecte de Nanchang à la fin du 16ème siècle. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XXI (1993), 2: 309-12.

• Austronesian final consonants and the origin of Chinese tones. In Jerold A. Edmondson and Kenneth J. Gregerson (eds.) Tonality in Austronesian Languages, pp. 47-59. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication No. 24. 1993. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

• L'infixe -r- en chinois archaique. Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris, tome LXXXVIII (1993), fascicule 1, pp. 261-293.

• New views on Old Chinese phonology. Diachronica vol. X (1993), No.2: 237-260.

• Cinq étymologies chinoises. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 23 (1994): 299-308.

• Old Chinese and Proto-Austronesian evidence for Sino-Austronesian. Oceanic Linguistics 33 (1994), 2: 271-308.

• Some remarks on the Ancestry of Chinese. In: William S.-Y. Wang (ed.) The Ancestry of the Chinese Language. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series no. 8 (1995), pp. 195-223.

• Comments from Sagart. In: William S.-Y. Wang (ed.) The Ancestry of the Chinese Language. Journal of Chinese Linguistics monograph series no. 8 (1995), pp. 337-372.

• Questions of method in Chinese-Tibeto-Burman comparison. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XXIV (1995), 2: 245-255.

• Chinese "buy" and "sell" and the direction of borrowings between Chinese and Hmong-Mien. T'oung Pao LXXXI (1995), 4-5: 328-342.

• Analogical levelling in the personal pronouns of Pingxiang dialect. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 25 (1996), 1: 113-114.

• Discussion note: a reply to J. A. Matisoff’s “a key etymology”. Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman area, Volume 17.1 (1994, publié en 1996): 167-168.

• Modern dialects and Old Chinese morphology: will they meet ? IACL newsletter 4, 2 (1996): 15.

• Eulogy for Haudricourt. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 25, 1 (1997): 174-176.

• Le préfixe *k‐du chinois archaïque et ses vestiges dans les dialectes modernes. Mémoires de la Société Linguistique de Paris, nouvelle série, tome V (1997), 177-185.

• On distinguishing Hakka and non-Hakka dialects. Journal of Chinese Linguistics (1998) 26, 2: 281-302.

• The Chinese and Tibeto-Burman words for ‘blood’. In Honor of Mei Tsu-lin: Studies in Historical Syntax and Morphology, éd. par Alain Peyraube et Sun Chaofen, 165-181. Collection des Cahiers de Linguistique asie Orientale 3. Paris: EHESS, 1999.

• The origin of Chinese tones. Proceedings of the Symposium/Cross-Linguistic Studies of Tonal Phenomena/Tonogenesis, Typology and Related Topics, ed. By Shigeki Kaji, pp. 91-104. Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA). Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 1999.

• Les langues, un patrimoine à préserver. in J. Bindé (ed.) Les clés du XXIe siècle, pp. 220-225. Paris: Seuil/UNESCO, 2000.

• Xiesheng xilie he san deng wenti. Proceedings of the 11th Symposium of the Chinese Phonological Society and the 6th International Symposium on Chinese Phonology. Xuzhou, August 2000. pp. 4-6.

• Sagart, L. (2000) Two Jiangxi sound changes in spatial perspectives: the case of th- > h- and tsh- > th-. In : Pang-Hsin Ting and Anne O. Yue (eds.) In Memory of Professor Li Fang-Kuei: essays on linguistic change and the Chinese dialects, 243-259. Institue of Linguistics (preparatory office), Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan; University of Washington, Seattle

• The Gan dialects. In: Jane Garry and Carl Rubino (eds.) Facts About the World's Languages : An Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages, Past and Present (Facts About the World's Languages) pp.139-141. New York and Dublin: The T.H. Wilson publishing company, 2001.

• Sagart, L. (2001) Nanxiong and Hakka. Fangyan (2001) Vol. 23, 2: 142-151.

• Sagart, L. (2001) "Vestiges of Archaic Chinese Derivational Affixes in Modern Chinese Dialects". In: (H. Chappell, ed.) Sinitic Grammar - Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives. 2001: Oxford University Press.

• Sagart, L. (2002). Response to Professor Ting. Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 30, 2: 392-403.

• Sagart, L. (2002) Gan, Hakka and the Formation of Chinese Dialects, in Dialect Variations in Chinese, ed. by Dah-an Ho, pp. 129-154. Taipei: Academia Sinica.

• Sagart, L. (2003) Stan Starosta. Journal of Chinese linguistics 31, 1.

• Sagart, L. (2003) Da Ding Bangxin Jiaoshou [réponse au professeur Ding] Yuyanxue Luncong 28, 1: 338-339.

• Sagart, L. (2003) Sources of Middle Chinese manner types: Old Chinese prenasalized initials in Hmong-Mien and Sino-Tibetan perspective. Language and Linguistics, 4.4:757-768.

• Sagart, L. (2003) The vocabulary of cereal cultivation and the phylogeny of East Asian languages. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 23 (Taipei papers, Volume 1): 127-136.

• Sagart, L. (2004) La parenté des langues austronésiennes, in E. Zeitoun (ed.) Les langues austronésiennes. Faits de Langues 23-24: 23-39.

• Sagart, L. (2004) The higher phylogeny of Austronesian and the position of Tai-Kadai. Oceanic Linguistics 43 (2004) 411-444.  http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00090906

• Sagart, L. (2004) The Chinese names of the four directions. Journal of the American Oriental Society 124, 69-76.  http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00087314

• Sagart, L. (2005) Sino-Tibetan-Austronesian: an updated and improved argument. In L. Sagart, R. Blench and A.Sanchez-Mazas (eds) The peopling of East Asia: Putting together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics 161-176. Londres: RoutledgeCurzon.  http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00085059

• Sagart, L. (2005) Tai-Kadai as a subgroup of Austronesian. In L. Sagart, R. Blench and A. Sanchez-Mazas (eds) The peopling of East Asia: Putting together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics 177-181. Londres: RoutledgeCurzon. http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00104725

• Sagart, L. (2006) On intransitive nasal prefixation in Sino-Tibetan languages. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 35, 1: 57-70.   http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00103359. Traduction chinoise par Gu Feng, revue par Zeng Xiaoyu : Zhonggu Hanyu fayin fangfa leixing de laiyuan -touguo Miao-Yaoyu yu Hanzangyu kan shanggu hanyu de biguanyin shengmu. Nankai yuyanxue kan 2006, 2:148-155.

• Sagart, L. (2006) Review: James A. Matisoff (2003) Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman. System and philosophy of Sino-Tibeto-Burman Reconstruction. Diachronica XXII (2006) 206-223.  http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00094374

• Sagart, L. (2006) L'emploi des phonétiques dans l'écriture chinoise. In : Françoise Bottero et Redouane Djamouri (eds.) Ecriture chinoise : Données, usages et représentations, 35-53. Paris : CRLAO.   http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00103227

• Sagart, L. (2007) Introduction. In: Coblin, W. S. (2007) Modern Chinese phonology: from Guanhua to Mandarin, 1-6. Collection des Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 11. Paris: EHESS.

• Sagart, L. (2008) Reply to Matisoff on the Handbook of proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and philosophy of Sino-Tibetan reconstruction. Diachronica 25, 1: 153-155.

• Sagart, L. (2008) the expansion of setaria farmers in East Asia: a linguistic and archaeological model. In Sanchez-Mazas A, Blench R, Ross M, Peiros I, Lin M, eds. Past human migrations in East Asia: matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics pp 133-157. Routledge Studies in the Early History of Asia, London: Routledge.

• Sagart, L. (2010) Is Puyuma a primary branch of Austronesian ? Oceanic Linguistics 49, 1.

• Sagart, L. (2010) Preface. In: E. Zeitoun, (ed.) Formosan Linguistics: Stanley Starosta's contributions, ii-vi. Language and Linguistics Monograph series. Taipei: Academia Sinica.

• Sagart, L. (2010) Foreword. In: John U. Wolff, Proto-Austronesian Phonology with Glossary, xv-xvii. Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program publications.

• Sagart, L. (2011) The Austroasiatics: East to West or West to East ? in: N. J. Enfield (ed.) Dynamics of Human Diversity: The Case of Mainland Southeast Asia, 345-359. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

• Sagart, L. (2011) 华澳语系发源于何时何地 (en chinois: le berceau sino-tibétain-austronésien: où et quand ?). Communication on Contemporary Anthropology 5:143-147/e21

• Sagart, L. (2011) How many independent rice vocabularies in East Asia ? Rice Vol. 4, n° 4:121-133.

• Sagart Laurent (2012) Jerry Norman. Cahiers de linguistique - Asie orientale, vol. 41 n°2, 2012. pp. 341-351

• Sagart, L. (2013) The Higher Phylogeny of Austronesian: A Response to Winter. Oceanic Linguistics 52.1: 249-255. http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00781136.

• Sagart, L. (2013). Is Puyuma a primary branch of Austronesian ? A rejoinder. Oceanic Linguistics 52, 2: 481-492.

• Sagart, L. (2013) Siraya : retrieving the phonology, grammar and lexicon of a dormant Formosan language by Alexander Adelaar (review). Oceanic Linguistics 52, 2: 540-549

• Sagart, L. (2014). A note on Sino-Tibetan bone words and Chinese pitch-pipes. in: Richard VanNess Simmons and Newell Ann Van Auken (eds.) Studies in Chinese and Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Dialect, Phonology, Transcription and Text, 179-183. Taipei: Institue of Linguistics, Academia Sinica.

• Sagart, L. (2014). In defense of the numeral-based model of Austronesian phylogeny, and of Tsouic. Language and Linguistics 15, 6: 859–882.

• Sagart, L. in press. Word families. Encyclopédie Brill de la linguistique chinoise.

• (Squib) Sagart, L. in press. Liangdao Man and Austronesian origins. To appear in Journal of Chinese Linguistics.

• (Squib) Sagart, L. in press. The Wider Connections of Austronesian: A Response to Blust (2009). To appear in Diachronica.

Joint articles

• de Boysson-Bardies, L. Sagart, N. Bacri. Phonetic analysis of late babbling. Journal of Child Language 8 (1981),  511-524.

• de Boysson-Bardies, N. Bacri, L. Sagart, M. Poizat. Timing in late babbling. Journal of Child Language 8 (1981),  525-539.

• de Boysson-Bardies, L. Sagart, C. Durand. Discernible differences in the babbling of infants according to target language. Journal of Child Language 11 (1984), 1-15.

• Sagart, L. et P. Hallé. Esquisse de la phonologie d'un dialecte du Jiangxi: Nancheng. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XIII (1984), 2: 191-215.

• Sagart, L., P. Hallé, B. de Boysson-Bardies, C. Arabia-Guidet. Tone production in Modern Standard Chinese: an electromyographic investigation. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale XV (1986), 2: 205-21.

• de Boysson-Bardies, L. Sagart, P. Hallé C. Durand. Acoustic investigations of cross-linguistic variability in babbling. In B. Lindblom (ed.) Precursors of early speech. 1986. Houndmills, Basingstoke: the MacMillan Press.

• de Boysson-Bardies, B., P. Hallé, L. Sagart, C. Durand. A cross-linguistic investigation of vowel formants in babbling. Journal of Child Language 16 (1989), I: 1-18.

• Sagart, L., et E. Todd Une hypothèse sur l'origine du système familial communautaire. Diogène 160 (1992): 145-75.

• Baxter, W. H. III et L. Sagart. Word formation in Old Chinese. In Jerome L. Packard (ed.) New Approaches to Chinese Word Formation: Morphology, phonology and the lexicon in modern and ancient Chinese, 35-76. 1998. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

• Xing Gongwan et L. Sagart : A dialogue between L. Sagart and Xing Gongwan. Minzu Yuwen (2000) 4: 28-33.

• Sagart, L. et Xu Shixuan (2001) History through loanwords : the loan correspondences between Hani and Chinese. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 30, 1 :3-54.

• Sagart, L. et Xu Shixuan (2002) Hani yu zhong Hanyu jieci de lishi cengci. Zhongguo Yuwen 2002, 1: 55-65.

• Sagart, L., R. Blench et Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (2005). Introduction. In: L. Sagart, R. Blench, A. Sanchez-Mazas (eds): The peopling of East Asia: putting together archaeology, linguistics and genetics, 1-14. Londres: RoutledgeCurzon. http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00104717

• E. Poloni, E. S., A. Sanchez-Mazas, G. Jacques, L. Sagart (2005) Comparing linguistic and genetic relationships among east asian populations: a study of the Rh and GM polymorphisms. In: L. Sagart, R. Blench, A. Sanchez-Mazas (eds): The peopling of East Asia: putting together archaeology, linguistics and genetics, 252-272. Londres:  RoutledgeCurzon.  http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00105082

• Sanchez-Mazas, A., E. S. Poloni, G. Jacques and L. Sagart (2005) HLA genetic diversity and linguistic variation in East Asia. In: L. Sagart, R. Blench, A. Sanchez-Mazas (eds): The peopling of East Asia: putting together archaeology, linguistics and genetics 273-296. Londres: RoutledgeCurzon. http://halshs.ccsd.cnrs.fr/halshs-00104753

• Sanchez-Mazas A, Osipova L, Dugoujon J-M, Sagart L and Poloni ES (2008) The GM genetic polymorphism in Taiwan aborigines, new data revealing remarkable differentiation patterns. In: Sanchez-Mazas A, Blench R, Ross MD, Peiros I, Lin M (eds) Past Human Migrations in East Asia, Matching archaeology, linguistics and genetics, pp.313-333. London and New-York: Routledge.

• Lee, Yeon-ju and Laurent Sagart (2008) No limits to borrowing: the case of Bai and Chinese. Diachronica 25, 3.

• Laurent Sagart et W. H. Baxter (2009) Reconstructing Old Chinese uvulars in the Baxter-Sagart system (Version 0.99). Cahiers de Linguistique Asie orientale, 38(2) 221-244 (2009).

• Laurent Sagart et W. H. Baxter (2010) Shanggu Hanyu de m- he N- qianzhui (上古汉语的 N- 和 m- 前缀) [les préfixes N- et m- en chinois archaïque]. Journal of Sino-Tibetan Linguistics 4, 62-69.

• Chappell, Hilary et Laurent Sagart (2011) le hakka. In: Bonvini, E., Peyraube, A, et J. Busuttil (eds.) Dictionnaire des langues, 1016-1024. Paris, PUF. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00087316

• Sagart, L. and W. Baxter (2012) Reconstructing the s- prefix in Old Chinese. Language and Linguistics 13.1: 29-59.

• Sagart, L. et Xu, Shixuan 徐世璇 (2013) 哈尼语中汉语借词的历史层次 (les couches chronologiques d’emprunts chinois en Hani). In : Jacques, G. et Lan, Qingyuan (eds.) 中国少数民族语言汉语借词的历史层次 (les couches chronologiques d’emprunts chinois dans les langues de minorités en Chine). Pagination non encore connue. Beijing: Shangwu.

• Lee Yeon-ju et Laurent Sagart (2013) 从白语中的汉语词汇看借词的无限制性 (No limits to borrowing: the case of Bai and Chinese). In : Jacques, G. et Lan, Qingyuan (eds.) 中国少数民族语言汉语借词的历史层次 (les couches chronologiques d’emprunts chinois dans les langues de minorités en Chine). Pagination non encore connue. Beijing: Shangwu.

• Sagart, L. and Baxter, W. sous presse. Old Chinese phonology. Encyclopédie Brill de la linguistique chinoise.
   

last updated: november 2022