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Austro-Tai Languages
The Austro-Tai languages, sometimes also Austro-Thai languages, are a proposed language family that comprises the Austronesian languages and the Kra–Dai languages. Related proposals include Austric ( Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906) and Sino-Austronesian (Laurent Sagart in 1990, 2005). Origins The Kra–Dai languages contain numerous similar forms with Austronesian which were noticed as far back as Schlegel in 1901. These are considered to be too many to explain as chance resemblance. The question then is whether they are due to language contact (i.e., borrowing) or to common descent (i.e., a genealogical relationship). Evidence The first proposal of a genealogical relationship was that of Paul Benedict in 1942, which he expanded upon through 1990. This took the form of an expansion of Wilhelm Schmidt's Austric phylum, and posited that Kra–Dai and Austronesian had a sister relationship within Austric, which Benedict then accepted. Benedict later abandoned Austric but maintaine ...
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Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and north-west of mainland Australia. Southeast Asia is bordered to the north by East Asia, to the west by South Asia and the Bay of Bengal, to the east by Oceania and the Pacific Ocean, and to the south by Australia (continent), Australia and the Indian Ocean. Apart from the British Indian Ocean Territory and two out of atolls of Maldives, 26 atolls of Maldives in South Asia, Maritime Southeast Asia is the only other subregion of Asia that lies partly within the Southern Hemisphere. Mainland Southeast Asia is completely in the Northern Hemisphere. East Timor and the southern portion of Indonesia are the only parts that are south of the Equator. Th ...
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Proto-Kra
Proto-Kra is the reconstructed ancestor of the Kra languages. It was reconstructed in 2000 by Weera Ostapirat in his Ph.D. dissertation. Lower-level reconstructions Ostapirat (2000) provided preliminary phonological reconstructions for several lower-level groupings before attempting a reconstruction of Proto-Kra. *Proto-Kra **Proto-South-Western Kra ***Proto-Western Kra ( Gelao, Lachi) ***Proto-Southern Kra ( Laha) **Proto-Central-East Kra ***Proto-Central Kra ( Paha) ***Proto-Eastern Kra ( Buyang, Qabiao) Phonology Consonants Proto-Kra has a total of 32 consonants, seven of which (marked in green) can occur as syllable finals (Ostapirat 2000:224, 236). Marc Miyake (2008) Miyake, Marc. 2008Did Proto-Kra have retroflex initials?(Part
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Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify 3,500–4,000 BCE on Taiwan. Lower-level reconstructions have also been made, and include Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian. Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian. Phonology Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed by constructing sets of correspondences among consonants in the various Austronesian languages, according to the comparative method. Although in theory the result should be unambiguous, in practice given the large number of languages there are numerous disagreements, with various scholars differing significantly on the number and nature of the phonemes in Proto-Austronesian. In the past, some disagreements concerned whe ...
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Malayo-Polynesian
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast Asia (Indonesian and Philippine Archipelago) and the Pacific Ocean, with a smaller number in continental Asia in the areas near the Malay Peninsula. Cambodia, Vietnam and the Chinese island Hainan serve as the northwest geographic outlier. Malagasy, spoken in the island of Madagascar off the eastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, is the furthest western outlier. The languages spoken south-westward from central Micronesia until Easter Island are sometimes referred to as the Polynesian languages. Many languages of the Malayo-Polynesian family show the strong influence of Sanskrit and Arabic, as the western part of the region has been a stronghold of Hinduism, Buddhism, and, later, Islam. Two morphological characteristics of the Mal ...
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Kra Languages
The Kra languages (also known as the Geyang 仡央 or Kadai languages) are a branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in southern China (Guizhou, Guangxi, Yunnan) and in northern Vietnam ( Hà Giang Province). Names The name ''Kra'' comes from the word C "human" as reconstructed by Ostapirat (2000), which appears in various Kra languages as ''kra'', ''ka'', ''fa'' or ''ha''. Benedict (1942) used the term ''Kadai'' for the Kra and Hlai languages grouped together and the term ''Kra-Dai'' is proposed by Ostapirat (2000). The Kra branch was first identified as a unified group of languages by Liang (1990),Liang Min 梁敏. 1990Geyang yuqun de xishu wenti 仡央语群的系属问题/ On the affiliation of the Ge-Yang group of languages." In ''Minzu Yuwen'' 民族语文 1990(6): 1-8. who called it the ''Geyang'' 仡央 languages. ''Geyang'' 仡央 is a portmanteau of the first syllable of ''Ge''- in Gelao and the last syllable of -''yang'' in Buyang. The name ''Kra'' was propos ...
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Buyang Language
Buyang () is a Kra language spoken in Guangnan and Funing counties, Yunnan Province, China by the Buyang people. It is important to the reconstruction of the hypothetical macrofamily Austro-Tai as it retains the disyllabic roots characteristic of Austronesian languages. Examples are "to die", "eye", "head", and "eight". (See Austro-Tai for proposed connections.) The Buyang language was only discovered in 1990 by Chinese linguist Liang Min. In 1999, a doctoral dissertation and book was published for Buyang. The book has also recently been translated into English. Many speakers of Buyang are also fluent in Zhuang. Subdivisions The Buyang (布央) dialect cluster is spoken by a total of around 2,000 people living mostly in the Gula (谷拉) River valley of southeastern Yunnan Province, China. It is spoken in at least eight villages in Gula Township 谷拉乡, Funing County 富宁县, Wenshan Zhuang–Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, China. Buyang is divided into the f ...
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Laryngeal Consonant
Laryngeal consonants (a term often used interchangeably with guttural consonants) are consonants with their primary articulation in the larynx. The laryngeal consonants comprise the pharyngeal consonants (including the epiglottals), the glottal consonants, and for some languages uvular consonants.Scott Moisik, Ewa Czaykowska-Higgins, & John H. Esling (2012"The Epilaryngeal Articulator: A New Conceptual Tool for Understanding Lingual-Laryngeal Contrasts"/ref> The term ''laryngeal'' is often taken to be synonymous with ''glottal'', but the larynx consists of more than just the glottis (vocal folds): it also includes the epiglottis and aryepiglottic folds. In a broad sense, therefore, laryngeal articulations include the radical consonants, which involve the root of the tongue. The diversity of sounds produced in the larynx is the subject of ongoing research, and the terminology is evolving. The term ''laryngeal consonant'' is also used for laryngealized consonants articulated in ...
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Creaky Voice
In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact. They normally vibrate irregularly at 20–50 pulses per second, about two octaves below the frequency of modal voicing, and the airflow through the glottis is very slow. Although creaky voice may occur with very low pitch, as at the end of a long intonation unit, it can also occur with a higher pitch. All contribute to make a speaker's voice sound creaky or raspy. In phonology In the Received Pronunciation of English, creaky voice has been described as a possible realisation of glottal reinforcement. For example, an alternative phonetic transcription of ''attempt'' could ...
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Stop Consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lips (, ), or glottis (). Plosives contrast with nasals, where the vocal tract is blocked but airflow continues through the nose, as in and , and with fricatives, where partial occlusion impedes but does not block airflow in the vocal tract. Terminology The terms ''stop, occlusive,'' and ''plosive'' are often used interchangeably. Linguists who distinguish them may not agree on the distinction being made. The terms refer to different features of the consonant. "Stop" refers to the airflow that is stopped. "Occlusive" refers to the articulation, which occludes (blocks) the vocal tract. "Plosive" refers to the release burst (plosion) of the consonant. Some object to the use of "plosive" for inaudibly released stops, which may then instead be ca ...
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Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are nasals like and , liquids like and , and semivowels like and . This set of sounds contrasts with the obstruents ( stops, affricates and fricatives). For some authors, only the term ''resonant'' is used with this broader meaning, while ''sonorant'' is restricted to consonants, referring to nasals and liquids but not vocoids (vowels and semivowels). Types Whereas obstruents are frequently voiceless, sonorants are almost always voiced. A typical sonorant consonant inventory found in many languages comprises the following: two nasals , two semivowels , and two liquids . In the sonority hierarchy, all sounds higher than fricatives are sonorants. They can therefore form the nucleus of a syllable in languages that place ...
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