Qiangic languages in the context of "Tangut people"

The Qiang people (Qiangic: Rrmea; Chinese: 羌族; pinyin: Qiāngzú) are an ethnic group in China. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognised by the People's Republic of China, with a population of approximately 312,981 in 2020. They live mainly in a mountainous region in the northwestern part of Sichuan (Szechwan) on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

The Gyalrongic languages (also known as Rgyalrongic or Jiarongic) constitute a branch of the Qiangic languages of Sino-Tibetan, but some propose that it may be part of a larger Rung languages group and do not consider it to be particularly closely related to Qiangic but suggest that similarities between Gyalrongic and Qiangic may be from areal influence. However, other work suggests that Qiangic as a whole may in fact be paraphyletic, with the only commonalities of the supposed "branch" being shared archaisms and areal features that were encouraged by language contact. Jacques & Michaud (2011) propose that Qiangic including Gyalrongic may belong to a larger Burmo-Qiangic group based on some lexical innovations.

The Tangut people (Tangut: 𗼎𗾧, mjɨ nja̱ or 𗼇𘓐, mji dzjwo; Chinese: 党項; pinyin: Dǎngxiàng; Tibetan: མི་ཉག་, Wylie: mi nyak; Mongolian: Тангуд) were a Sino-Tibetan people who founded and inhabited the Western Xia dynasty. The group initially lived under Tuyuhun authority, but later submitted to the Tang dynasty. After the collapse of Tang dynasty, the Tanguts established the Western Xia. They spoke the Tangut language, which initial research believed to be either of the Qiangic or Yi groups of the Tibeto-Burman family, later phylogenetic and historical linguistic accounts revealed that it belonged to the Gyalrongic branch of the Qiangic group. The Western Xia was annihilated by the Mongol Empire in 1227, and most of its written records and architecture were destroyed. Today the Tangut language and its unique script are extinct; only fragments of Tangut literature remain.