Ethnologue identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages. These form thirteen established families (plus perhapsShompen, which is poorly attested, as a fourteenth), which have traditionally been grouped into two, as Mon–Khmer,[2] andMunda. However, one recent classification posits three groups (Munda, Mon-Khmer, andKhasi–Khmuic),[3] while another has abandonedMon–Khmer as a taxon altogether, making it synonymous with the larger family.[4]
The nameAustroasiatic was coined byWilhelm Schmidt (German:austroasiatisch) based onauster, theLatin word for "South" (but idiosyncratically used by Schmidt to refer to the southeast), and "Asia".[7] Despite the literal meaning of its name, only three Austroasiatic branches are actually spoken in South Asia:Khasic,Munda, andNicobarese.
Regarding word structure, Austroasiatic languages are well known for having an iambic"sesquisyllabic" pattern, with basic nouns and verbs consisting of an initial, unstressed, reducedminor syllable followed by a stressed, full syllable.[8] This reduction of presyllables has led to a variety of phonological shapes of the same original Proto-Austroasiatic prefixes, such as the causative prefix, ranging from CVC syllables to consonant clusters to single consonants among the modern languages.[9] As for word formation, most Austroasiatic languages have a variety of derivational prefixes, many haveinfixes, but suffixes are almost completely non-existent in most branches except Munda, and a few specialized exceptions in other Austroasiatic branches.[10]
The Austroasiatic languages are further characterized as having unusually large vowel inventories and employing some sort ofregister contrast, either betweenmodal (normal) voice andbreathy (lax) voice or between modal voice andcreaky voice.[11] Languages in the Pearic branch and some in the Vietic branch can have a three- or even four-way voicing contrast.
However, some Austroasiatic languages have lost the register contrast by evolving more diphthongs or in a few cases, such as Vietnamese,tonogenesis. Vietnamese has been so heavily influenced by Chinese that its original Austroasiatic phonological quality is obscured and now resembles that of South Chinese languages, whereas Khmer, which had more influence from Sanskrit, has retained a more typically Austroasiatic structure.
Much work has been done on the reconstruction ofProto-Mon–Khmer inHarry L. Shorto'sMon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary. Little work has been done on theMunda languages, which are not well documented. With their demotion from a primary branch, Proto-Mon–Khmer becomes synonymous with Proto-Austroasiatic. Paul Sidwell (2005) reconstructs the consonant inventory of Proto-Mon–Khmer as follows:[12]
Each of the families that is written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade.[clarification needed] By contrast, the relationshipsbetween these families within Austroasiatic are debated. In addition to the traditional classification, two recent proposals are given, neither of which accepts traditional "Mon–Khmer" as a valid unit. However, little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore cannot be evaluated by peer review.
In addition, there are suggestions that additional branches of Austroasiatic might be preserved in substrata ofAcehnese in Sumatra (Diffloth), theChamic languages of Vietnam, and theLand Dayak languages of Borneo (Adelaar 1995).[13]
Diffloth's widely cited original classification, now abandoned by Diffloth himself, is used inEncyclopædia Britannica and—except for the breakup of Southern Mon–Khmer—inEthnologue.
Peiros is alexicostatistic classification, based on percentages of shared vocabulary. This means that languages can appear to be more distantly related than they actually are due tolanguage contact. Indeed, when Sidwell (2009) replicated Peiros's study with languages known well enough to account for loans, he did not find the internal (branching) structure below.
Diffloth compares reconstructions of various clades, and attempts to classify them based on shared innovations, though like other classifications the evidence has not been published. As a schematic, we have:
Paul Sidwell (2009), in alexicostatistical comparison of 36 languages which are well known enough to exclude loanwords, finds little evidence for internal branching, though he did find an area of increased contact between the Bahnaric and Katuic languages, such that languages of all branches apart from the geographically distantMunda and Nicobarese show greater similarity to Bahnaric and Katuic the closer they are to those branches, without any noticeable innovations common to Bahnaric and Katuic.
He therefore takes the conservative view that the thirteen branches of Austroasiatic should be treated as equidistant on current evidence. Sidwell &Blench (2011) discuss this proposal in more detail, and note that there is good evidence for a Khasi–Palaungic node, which could also possibly be closely related to Khmuic.[15]
If this would the case, Sidwell & Blench suggest that Khasic may have been an early offshoot of Palaungic that had spread westward. Sidwell & Blench (2011) suggestShompen as an additional branch, and believe that a Vieto-Katuic connection is worth investigating. In general, however, the family is thought to have diversified too quickly for a deeply nested structure to have developed, since Proto-Austroasiatic speakers are believed by Sidwell to have radiated out from the centralMekong river valley relatively quickly.
Subsequently, Sidwell (2015a: 179)[16] proposed thatNicobarese subgroups withAslian, just as how Khasian and Palaungic subgroup with each other.
A subsequent computational phylogenetic analysis (Sidwell 2015b)[17] suggests that Austroasiatic branches may have a loosely nested structure rather than a completely rake-like structure, with an east–west division (consisting of Munda, Khasic, Palaungic, and Khmuic forming a western group as opposed to all of the other branches) occurring possibly as early as 7,000 years before present. However, he still considers the subbranching dubious.
Integrating computational phylogenetic linguistics with recent archaeological findings, Paul Sidwell (2015c)[18] further expanded his Mekong riverine hypothesis by proposing that Austroasiatic had ultimately expanded intoIndochina from theLingnan area ofsouthern China, with the subsequent Mekong riverine dispersal taking place after the initial arrival of Neolithic farmers from southern China.
Sidwell (2015c) tentatively suggests that Austroasiatic may have begun to split up 5,000 years B.P. during theNeolithic transition era ofmainland Southeast Asia, with all the major branches of Austroasiatic formed by 4,000 B.P. Austroasiatic would have had two possible dispersal routes from the western periphery of thePearl River watershed ofLingnan, which would have been either a coastal route down the coast of Vietnam, or downstream through theMekong River viaYunnan.[18] Both the reconstructed lexicon of Proto-Austroasiatic and the archaeological record clearly show that early Austroasiatic speakers around 4,000 B.P. cultivated rice andmillet, kept livestock such as dogs, pigs, and chickens, and thrived mostly in estuarine rather than coastal environments.[18]
At 4,500 B.P., this "Neolithic package" suddenly arrived in Indochina from the Lingnan area without cereal grains and displaced the earlier pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer cultures, with grain husks found in northern Indochina by 4,100 B.P. and in southern Indochina by 3,800 B.P.[18] However, Sidwell (2015c) found that iron is not reconstructable in Proto-Austroasiatic, since each Austroasiatic branch has different terms for iron that had been borrowed relatively lately from Tai, Chinese, Tibetan, Malay, and other languages.
During theIron Age about 2,500 B.P., relatively young Austroasiatic branches in Indochina such asVietic,Katuic,Pearic, andKhmer were formed, while the more internally diverseBahnaric branch (dating to about 3,000 B.P.) underwent more extensive internal diversification.[18] By the Iron Age, all of the Austroasiatic branches were more or less in their present-day locations, with most of the diversification within Austroasiatic taking place during the Iron Age.[18]
Paul Sidwell (2018)[19] considers the Austroasiatic language family to have rapidly diversified around 4,000 years B.P. during the arrival of rice agriculture in Indochina, but notes that the origin of Proto-Austroasiatic itself is older than that date. The lexicon of Proto-Austroasiatic can be divided into an early and late stratum. The early stratum consists of basic lexicon including body parts, animal names, natural features, and pronouns, while the names of cultural items (agriculture terms and words for cultural artifacts, which are reconstructible in Proto-Austroasiatic) form part of the later stratum.
Roger Blench (2017)[20] suggests that vocabulary related to aquatic subsistence strategies (such as boats, waterways, river fauna, and fish capture techniques) can be reconstructed for Proto-Austroasiatic. Blench (2017) finds widespread Austroasiatic roots for 'river, valley', 'boat', 'fish', 'catfish sp.', 'eel', 'prawn', 'shrimp' (Central Austroasiatic), 'crab', 'tortoise', 'turtle', 'otter', 'crocodile', 'heron, fishing bird', and 'fish trap'. Archaeological evidence for the presence of agriculture in northernIndochina (northern Vietnam, Laos, and other nearby areas) dates back to only about 4,000 years ago (2,000 BC), with agriculture ultimately being introduced from further up to the north in the Yangtze valley where it has been dated to 6,000 B.P.[20]
Sidwell (2022)[5][21] proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in theRed River Delta area about 4,000-4,500 years before present, instead of the Middle Mekong as he had previously proposed. Austroasiatic dispersed coastal maritime routes and also upstream through river valleys. Khmuic, Palaungic, and Khasic resulted from a westward dispersal that ultimately came from the Red River valley. Based on their current distributions, about half of all Austroasiatic branches (including Nicobaric and Munda) can be traced to coastal maritime dispersals.
Hence, this points to a relatively late riverine dispersal of Austroasiatic as compared toSino-Tibetan, whose speakers had a distinct non-riverine culture. In addition to living an aquatic-based lifestyle, early Austroasiatic speakers would have also had access to livestock, crops, and newer types of watercraft. As early Austroasiatic speakers dispersed rapidly via waterways, they would have encountered speakers of older language families who were already settled in the area, such as Sino-Tibetan.[20]
Sidwell (2018)[22] (quoted in Sidwell 2021[23]) gives a more nested classification of Austroasiatic branches as suggested by his computational phylogenetic analysis of Austroasiatic languages using a 200-word list. Many of the tentative groupings are likelylinkages.Pakanic andShompen were not included.
Roger Blench (2009)[24] also proposes that there might have been other primary branches of Austroasiatic that are now extinct, based onsubstrate evidence in modern-day languages.
Pre-Chamic languages (the languages of coastal Vietnam before the Chamic migrations). Chamic has various Austroasiatic loanwords that cannot be clearly traced to existing Austroasiatic branches (Sidwell 2006, 2007).[25][26] Larish (1999)[27] also notes thatMoklenic languages contain many Austroasiatic loanwords, some of which are similar to the ones found in Chamic.
Acehnese substratum (Sidwell 2006).[25] Acehnese has many basic words that are of Austroasiatic origin, suggesting that either Austronesian speakers have absorbed earlier Austroasiatic residents in northern Sumatra, or that words might have been borrowed from Austroasiatic languages in southern Vietnam – or perhaps a combination of both. Sidwell (2006) argues that Acehnese and Chamic had often borrowed Austroasiatic words independently of each other, while some Austroasiatic words can be traced back to Proto-Aceh-Chamic. Sidwell (2006) accepts that Acehnese and Chamic are related, but that they had separated from each other before Chamic had borrowed most of its Austroasiatic lexicon.
Bornean substrate languages (Blench 2010).[28] Blench cites Austroasiatic-origin words in modern-day Bornean branches such asLand Dayak (Bidayuh,Dayak Bakatiq, etc.),Dusunic (Central Dusun,Visayan, etc.),Kayan, andKenyah, noting especially resemblances withAslian. As further evidence for his proposal, Blench also cites ethnographic evidence such as musical instruments in Borneo shared in common with Austroasiatic-speaking groups in mainland Southeast Asia. Adelaar (1995)[29] has also noticed phonological and lexical similarities betweenLand Dayak andAslian. Kaufman (2018) presents dozens of lexical comparisons showing similarities between various Bornean and Austroasiatic languages.[30]
Lepcha substratum ("Rongic").[31] Many words of Austroasiatic origin have been noticed inLepcha, suggesting aSino-Tibetan superstrate laid over an Austroasiatic substrate. Blench (2013) calls this branch "Rongic" based on the Lepcha autonymRóng.
Other languages with proposed Austroasiatic substrata are:
Jiamao, based on evidence from the register system of Jiamao, aHlai language (Thurgood 1992).[32] Jiamao is known for its highly aberrant vocabulary in relation to otherHlai languages.
Kerinci: van Reijn (1974)[33] notes that Kerinci, aMalayic language of centralSumatra, shares many phonological similarities with Austroasiatic languages, such assesquisyllabic word structure and vowel inventory.
John Peterson (2017)[34] suggests that "pre-Munda" (early languages related to Proto-Munda) languages may have once dominated the easternIndo-Gangetic Plain, and were then absorbed by Indo-Aryan languages at an early date as Indo-Aryan spread east. Peterson notes that easternIndo-Aryan languages display many morphosyntactic features similar to those of Munda languages, while western Indo-Aryan languages do not.
Other than Latin-based alphabets, many Austroasiatic languages are written with theKhmer,Thai,Lao, andBurmese alphabets. Vietnamese divergently had an indigenous script based on Chinese logographic writing. This has since been supplanted by the Latin alphabet in the 20th century. The following are examples of past-used alphabets or current alphabets of Austroasiatic languages.
Several lexical resemblances are found between the Hmong-Mien and Austroasiatic language families (Ratliff 2010), some of which had earlier been proposed byHaudricourt (1951). This could imply a relation or early language contact along theYangtze.[41]
According to Cai (et al. 2011),Hmong–Mien people aregenetically related to Austroasiatic speakers, and their languages were heavily influenced bySino-Tibetan, especiallyTibeto-Burman languages.[42]
Mitsuru Sakitani suggests thatHaplogroup O1b1, which is common in Austroasiatic people and some other ethnic groups insouthern China, and haplogroup O1b2, which is common in today'sJapanese andKoreans, are the carriers of early rice agriculture from southern China.[44] Another study suggests that the haplogroup O1b1 is the major Austroasiatic paternal lineage and O1b2 the "para-Austroasiatic" lineage of theKoreans andYayoi people.[45]
The Austroasiatic migration route began earlier than the Austronesian expansion, but later migrations of Austronesians resulted in the assimilation of the pre-Austronesian Austroasiatic populations.Austro-asiatic dispersal
A full genomic study by Lipson et al. (2018) identified a characteristic lineage that can be associated with the spread of Austroasiatic languages in Southeast Asia and which can be traced back to remains of Neolithic farmers fromMán Bạc (c. 2000 BCE) in theRed River Delta in northern Vietnam, and to closely relatedBan Chiang and Vat Komnou remains inThailand andCambodia respectively. This Austroasiatic lineage can be modeled as a sister group of theAustronesian peoples with significant admixture (ca. 30%) from a deeply diverging eastern Eurasian source (modeled by the authors as sharing some genetic drift with theOnge, a modernAndamanese hunter-gatherer group) and which is ancestral to modern Austroasiatic-speaking groups of Southeast Asia such as theMlabri and theNicobarese, and partially to the Austroasiatic Munda-speaking groups of South Asia (e.g. theJuang). Significant levels of Austroasiatic ancestry were also found in Austronesian-speaking groups ofSumatra,Java, andBorneo.[46][note 3]
A 2020 study states that present Austroasiatic groups in Mainland Southeast Asia can be modeled as an admixture of Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers and ancestral East Asians associated with the Neolithic farming expansion, with the exception of Kinh and Muong who share more drift with Tai-Kadai and Hmong-Mien groups. Kinh and Muong are also more related toDongsonian culture and are implied to have roots in southern China instead of Southeast Asia.[48] Austroasiatic-speaking groups in southernChina (such as theWa andBlang inYunnan) predominatly carry the same Mainland Southeast Asian Neolithic farmer ancestry, but with additional geneflow from northern and southern East Asian lineages that can be associated with the spread ofTibeto-Burman andKra-Dai languages, respectively.[49]
Huang et. al (2020) states that Austroasiatic ancestry most likely originated from southwest China and that the 'core Austroasiatic' population derives most of their ancestry from Mekong Neolithic (58.0%–75.2%) instead of Late Neolithic Fujian, which is more common in the 'core Austronesian' population. Austroasiatic-related ancestry is widespread in Mainland Southeast Asia. Hmong-Mien groups in southern China also show closer affinities with Austroasiatic groups but there is evidence of Kra-Dai admixture, which increases in groups that live further east. This admixture is also present in Mainland Southeast Asians.[50]
According to Chaubey et al., "Austro-Asiatic speakers in India today are derived from dispersal fromSoutheast Asia, followed by extensive sex-specific admixture with local Indian populations."[51] According to Riccio et al., theMunda peoples are likely descended from Austroasiatic migrants from Southeast Asia.[52]
^Earlier classifications by Sidwell had lumpedMang andPakanic together into aMangic subgroup, but Sidwell currently considers Mang and Pakanic to each be independent branches of Austroasiatic.
^Schmidt, Wilhelm (1906). "Die Mon–Khmer-Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens ('[The Mon–Khmer Peoples, a Link between the Peoples of Central Asia and Austronesia')".Archiv für Anthropologie.5:59–109.
^Roger Blench,2009. Are there four additional unrecognised branches of Austroasiatic? Presentation at ICAAL-4, Bangkok, 29–30 October. Summarized in Sidwell and Blench (2011).
^abSidwell (2005) casts doubt on Diffloth's Vieto-Katuic hypothesis, saying that the evidence is ambiguous, and that it is not clear where Katuic belongs in the family.
^Sidwell, Paul. 2015a. "Austroasiatic classification." In Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell, eds (2015).The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill.
^abcdefSidwell, Paul. 2015c.Phylogeny, innovations, and correlations in the prehistory of Austroasiatic. Paper presented at the workshopIntegrating inferences about our past: new findings and current issues in the peopling of the Pacific and South East Asia, 22–23 June 2015, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
^Sidwell, Paul. 2018.Austroasiatic deep chronology and the problem of cultural lexicon. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, held 17–19 May 2018 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
^Sidwell, Paul. 2007. "The Mon-Khmer Substrate in Chamic: Chamic, Bahnaric and Katuic ContactArchived 16 June 2015 at theWayback Machine." In SEALS XII Papers from the 12th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 2002, edited by Ratree Wayland et al.. Canberra, Australia, 113-128. Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University.
^Larish, Michael David. 1999.The Position of Moken and Moklen Within the Austronesian Language Family. Doctoral dissertation, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.
^Kaufman, Daniel. 2018.Between mainland and island Southeast Asia: Evidence for a Mon-Khmer presence in Borneo. Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series. Kahin Center for Advanced Research on Southeast Asia, Cornell University. (handoutArchived 18 February 2023 at theWayback Machine /slidesArchived 18 February 2023 at theWayback Machine)
^van Reijn, E. O. (1974). "Some Remarks on the Dialects of North Kerintji: A link with Mon-Khmer Languages."Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 31, 2: 130–138.JSTOR41492089.
^Reid, Lawrence A. (2009). "Austric Hypothesis". In Brown, Keith; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.).Concise Encyclopaedia of Languages of the World. Oxford: Elsevier. pp. 92–94.
^Guo, Jianxin; Wang, Weitao; Zhao, Kai; Li, Guangxing; He, Guanglin; Zhao, Jing; Yang, Xiaomin; Chen, Jinwen; Zhu, Kongyang; Wang, Rui; Ma, Hao (2022)."Genomic insights into Neolithic farming-related migrations in the junction of east and southeast Asia".American Journal of Biological Anthropology.177 (2):328–342.doi:10.1002/ajpa.24434.ISSN2692-7691.S2CID244155341.Archived from the original on 5 January 2022. Retrieved5 January 2022.In our study, we found the sharing of a large amount of ancestry (>50%) among the Vietnam Late Neolithic ancients, Wa_L and Blang_X, indicating the Yunnan Austroasiatic populations had been influenced both linguistically and genetically by the expansion of Austroasiatic groups from mainland SEA.
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