| West Gyalrongic | |
| Region: | China |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Qiangic |
| Fam3: | Gyalrongic |
| Child1: | Khroskyabs |
| Child2: | Horpa |
| Child3: | †Tangut |
| Glotto: | west2973 |
| Glottoname: | West Gyalrongic |
The West Gyalrongic languages constitute a group of Gyalrongic languages. On the basis of both morphological and lexical evidence, Lai et al. (2020) add the extinct Tangut language to West Gyalrongic.[1] Beaudouin (2023) through a morphosyntactic analysis based on phonetic correspondences, shows that Tangut should be included within the Horpa languages.[2]
Sagart et al. (2019) estimate that West and East Gyalrongic had diverged from each other about 3,000 years before present.[3]
Although Tangut is most commonly associated with Yinchuan, the capital of the Tangut Empire, Zhoushan (周山, Zhōushān) in Jinchuan County (Chinese: 金川縣 Jīnchuān Xiàn, Written Tibetan: Chuchen; roughly located between the territories of Khroskyabs and Situ speakers today) had a historically attested population of Tangut people in 945 AD. As a result, based on both historiographical and linguistic evidence, Lai et al. (2020) place the ultimate homeland of the Tangut in present-day western Sichuan.[1]
However, the Tangut were already rulers of the Dingnan Jiedushi from 881AD, which indicates another scenario, as they could not migrate to a place they were already situated.