Everything about Austroasiaticlanguages totally explained
The
Austro-Asiatic languages are a large
language family of
Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout
India and
Bangladesh. The name comes from the
Latin word for "south" and the
Greek name of
Asia, hence "
South Asia". Among these languages, only
Vietnamese,
Khmer, and
Mon have a long recorded history, and only Vietnamese and Khmer have official status (in Vietnam and Cambodia, respectively). The rest of the languages are spoken by minority groups.
Austro-Asiatic languages have a disjunct distribution across India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia, separated by regions where other languages are spoken. It is widely believed that the Austro-Asiatic languages are the
autochthonous languages of Southeast Asia and the eastern
Indian subcontinent, and that the other languages of the region, including the
Indo-European,
Tai-Kadai,
Dravidian, and
Sino-Tibetan languages, are the result of later
migrations of people. (There are, for example, Austro-Asiatic words in the Tibeto-Burman languages of eastern Nepal.) Some linguists have attempted to prove that Austro-Asiatic languages are related to
Austronesian languages, thus forming the
Austric superfamily.
Classification
Linguists traditionally recognize two primary divisions of Austro-Asiatic: the
Mon-Khmer languages of Southeast Asia,
Northeast India and the
Nicobar Islands, and the
Munda languages of
East and Central India and parts of Bangladesh.
Ethnologue identifies 168 Austro-Asiatic languages, of which 147 are Mon-Khmer and 21 are Munda. However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published, and it's possible that the linguistic classification has been influenced by researchers' subjective perception of a racial dichotomy between the speakers of languages that have traditionally been classified as Mon-Khmer and those that have traditionally been classified as Munda.
Each of the families that's written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade. However, the relationships between these families within Austro-Asiatic is debated; in addition to the traditional classification, two recent proposals are given, neither of which accept traditional Mon-Khmer as a valid unit. It should be noted that little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore can't be evaluated by peer review.
This is the widely cited classification used in the
Encyclopædia Britannica. Several languages that were not known of at the time are missing.
- Munda
- North Munda
- South Munda
- Kharia-Juang
- Koraput Munda
- Mon-Khmer
- Eastern Mon-Khmer
- Northern Mon-Khmer
- Southern Mon-Khmer
Ilia Peiros (2004)
Peiros is a
lexicostatistic classification, based on percentages of shared vocabulary. This means that a language may appear to be more distantly related than it actually is due to
language contact, so it's only a starting point for a proper genealogical classification.
Nicobarese
Munda-Khmer
- Munda
- Mon-Khmer
- Khasi
- Nuclear Mon-Khmer
- Mangic (Mang + Palyu) (perhaps in Northern MK)
- Vietic (perhaps in Northern MK)
- Northern Mon-Khmer
- Central Mon-Khmer
Gérard Diffloth (2005)
Rather than counting cognates, Diffloth compares reconstructions of various clades, and attempts to classify them based on shared innovations.
Munda languages (India) » * Koraput: 7 languages
*Core Munda languages » :* Kharian-Juang: 2 languages
:*North Munda languages » :: Korku
:: Kherwarian: 12 languages
Khasi-Khmuic languages » * Khasian: 3 languages of eastern India and Bangladesh.
*Palaungo-Khmuic languages » :* Khmuic: 13 languages of Laos and Thailand.
» :*Palaungo-Pakanic languages
:: Pakanic or Palyu: 2 languages of southern China » :: Palaungic: 21 languages of Myanmar, southern China, and Thailand, plus Mang of Vietnam.
Nuclear Mon-Khmer languages » * Khmero-Vietic languages
» :* Vieto-Katuic languages
:: Vietic: 10 languages of Vietnam and Laos, including the Vietnamese language, which has the most speakers of any Austro-Asiatic language. These are the only Austro-Asiatic languages to have highly developed tone systems. » :: Katuic: 19 languages of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.
» :* Khmero-Bahnaric languages
::* Bahnaric: 40 languages of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. » ::*Khmeric languages
::: The Khmer dialects of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. » ::: Pearic: 6 languages of Cambodia.
» * Nico-Monic languages
:* Nicobarese languages: 6 languages of the Nicobar Islands, a territory of India.
» :* Asli-Monic languages
:: Aslian: 19 languages of peninsular Malaysia and Thailand. » :: Monic: 2 languages, the Mon language of Myanmar and the Nyahkur language of Thailand.
There are in addition several unclassified languages of southern China.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Austroasiaticlanguages'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://austro-asiatic_languages.totallyexplained.com">Austro-Asiatic languages Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
