Austro-Asiatic languages
The
Austro-Asiatic languages are a large
language family of
Southeast Asia,
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.
Austroasiatic 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 Austroasiatic languages are the
autochthonous languages of Southeast Asia and
eastern India, and that the other languages of the region, including the
Indo-European,
Tai-Kadai, and
Sino-Tibetan languages, are the result of later
migrations of people. (There are, for example, Austroasiatic words in the Tibeto-Burman languages of eastern Nepal.) Some linguists have attempted to prove that Austroasiatic languages are related to
Austronesian languages, thus forming the
Austric superfamily.
Linguists traditionally recognize two primary divisions of Austroasiatic: 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 Austroasiatic languages, of which 147 are Mon-Khmer and 21 are Munda. However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published.
Each of the families that is written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade. However, the relationships between these families within Austroasiatic 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 cannot be evaluated by peer review.
Gérard Diffloth (1974)
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
*** Korku
***
Kherwarian**South Munda
***
Kharia-Juang***
Koraput Munda*
Mon-Khmer**Eastern Mon-Khmer
***
Khmer (Cambodian)
***
Pearic ***
Bahnaric ***
Katuic ***
Vietic (includes Vietnamese)
**Northern Mon-Khmer
***
Khasi (
Meghalaya,
India)
***
Palaungic ***
Khmuic **Southern Mon-Khmer
***
Mon***
Aslian (
Malaya)
***
Nicobarese (
Nicobar Islands)
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 is 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
*****
Palaungic *****
Khmuic'
****Central Mon-Khmer
*****
Khmer dialects
*****
Pearic*****Asli-Bahnaric
******
Aslian******Mon-Bahnaric
*******
Monic*******Katu-Bahnaric
********
Katuic********
BahnaricGérard 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 Austroasiatic language. These are the only Austroasiatic 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.
* Peiros, Ilia. 1998.
Comparative Linguistics in Southeast Asia. Pacific Linguistics Series C-142. Canberra, Australian National University.
*
Ethnologue classification
