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Proto-Palaungic Language, Proto-Palaungic
Proto-Palaungic is the reconstructed proto-language of the Palaungic languages of mainland Southeast Asia.Sidwell, Paul. 2015. The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon'. München: Lincom Europa. Homeland Paul Sidwell (2015) suggests that the Urheimat (homeland) of Proto-Palaungic was in what is now the border region of Laos and Sipsongpanna in Yunnan, China. The Khmuic homeland was adjacent to the Palaungic homeland, resulting in many lexical borrowings among the two branches due to intense contact. Sidwell (2014) suggests that the word for 'water' (Proto-Palaungic *ʔoːm), which Gérard Diffloth had used as one of the defining lexical innovations for his Northern Mon-Khmer branch, was likely borrowed from Palaungic into Khmuic. Reconstructed forms The following list of Proto-Palaungic reconstructions, organized by semantic category, is from Sidwell (2015: 100-111). ;Personal pronouns ;Demonstratives * *nɔʔ ‘this (prox.)’ * *neʔ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Austroasiatic
Proto-Austroasiatic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austroasiatic languages. Proto-Mon–Khmer (i.e., all Austroasiatic branches except for Munda) has been reconstructed in Harry L. Shorto's ''Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary'', while a new Proto-Austroasiatic reconstruction is currently being undertaken by Paul Sidwell. Scholars generally date the ancestral language to 5,000-4,000 B.P. (i.e. 3,000-2,000 BCE) with a homeland in southern China or the Mekong River valley. Sidwell (2022) proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in the Red River Delta area about 4,000-4,500 years before present. Phonology Shorto (2006) The Proto-Mon–Khmer language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Mon–Khmer languages, a purported primary branch of the Austroasiatic language family. However, Mon–Khmer as a taxon has been abandoned in recent classifications, making Proto-Mon–Khmer synonymous with Proto-Austroasiatic;Sidwell, Paul (2009)The Austroasiatic Central Riveri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foxtail Millet
Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidence of foxtail millet cultivation was found along the ancient course of the Yellow River in Cishan, China, carbon dated to be from around 8,000 years before present. Foxtail millet has also been grown in India since antiquity. Other names for the species include dwarf setaria, foxtail bristle-grass, giant setaria, green foxtail, Italian millet, German millet, and Hungarian millet. Description Foxtail millet is an annual grass with slim, vertical, leafy stems which can reach a height of . The seedhead is a dense, hairy panicle long. The small seeds, around in diameter, are encased in a thin, papery hull which is easily removed in threshing. Seed color varies greatly between varieties. File:Food grain foxtail millet.jpg, Seeds of foxt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sambar Deer
The sambar (''Rusa unicolor'') is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 2008. Populations have declined substantially due to severe hunting, local insurgency, and industrial exploitation of habitat. The name "sambar" is also sometimes used to refer to the Philippine deer called the "Philippine sambar", and the Javan rusa called the "Sunda sambar". Description The appearance and the size of the sambar vary widely across its range, which has led to considerable taxonomic confusion in the past; over 40 different scientific synonyms have been used for the species. In general, they attain a height of at the shoulder and may weigh as much as , though more typically .Burnie D and Wilson DE (Eds.), ''Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to the World's Wildlife''. DK Adult (2005), Head and body length varies from , with a tail. Individuals belonging to western subspecies tend to be large ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Contact
Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum languages, or as the result of migration, with an intrusive language acting as either a superstratum or a substratum. Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing and relexification. The common products include pidgins, creoles, code-switching, and mixed languages. In many other cases, contact between speakers occurs but the lasting effects on the language are less visible; they may, however, include loan words, calques or other types of borrowed material. Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual. Meth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexical Diffusion
Lexical diffusion is the hypothesis that a sound change is an abrupt change that spreads gradually across the words in a language to which it is applicable. It contrasts with the Neogrammarian view that a sound change results from phonetically-conditioned articulatory drift acting uniformly on all applicable words, which implies that sound changes are regular, with exceptions attributed to analogy and dialect borrowing. Similar views were expressed by Romance dialectologists in the late 19th century but were reformulated and renamed by William Wang and coworkers studying varieties of Chinese in the 1960s and the 1970s. William Labov found evidence for both processes but argued that they operate at different levels. Neogrammarians and dialectologists A key assumption of historical linguistics is that sound change is regular. The principle was summarized by the Neogrammarians in the late 19th century in the slogan "sound laws suffer no exceptions" and forms the basis of the compar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperata Cylindrica
''Imperata cylindrica'' (commonly known as cogongrass or kunai grass ) is a species of Perennial plant, perennial rhizomatous grass native to tropical and subtropical Asia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Australia, Africa, and southern Europe. It has also been introduced to Latin America, the Caribbean, and the southeastern United States. It is a highly flammable pyrophyte, and can spread rapidly by colonizing disturbed areas and encouraging more frequent wildfires. Common names The species is most commonly known in English as "cogongrass", from Castilian Spanish, Spanish ''cogón'', from the Tagalog language, Tagalog and Visayan languages, Visayan ''kugon''. Other common names in English include ''kunai grass'', ''blady grass'', ''satintail'', ''spear grass'', ''sword grass'', ''thatch grass'', ''alang-alang'', ''lalang grass'', ''cotton wool grass'', and ''kura-kura'' , among other names. Description It grows from 0.6 to 3 m (2 to 10 feet) tall. The leaf, leaves are about 2& ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ficus
''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig (''F. carica'') is a temperate species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region (from Afghanistan to Portugal), which has been widely cultivated from ancient times for its fruit, also referred to as figs. The fruit of most other species are also edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are extremely important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of considerable cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses. Description ''Ficus'' is a pantropical genus of trees, shrubs, and vines occupying a wide variety of ecological niches; most are evergreen, bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Job's Tears
Job's tears (''Coix lacryma-jobi)'', also known as Adlay or Adlay millet, is a tall grain-bearing perennial tropical plant of the family Poaceae (grass family). It is native to Southeast Asia and introduced to Northern China and India in remote antiquity, and elsewhere cultivated in gardens as an annual. It has been naturalized in the southern United States and the New World tropics. In its native environment it is grown at higher elevation areas where rice and corn do not grow well. Job's tears are also commonly sold as Chinese pearl barley. There are two main varieties of the species, one wild and one cultivated. The wild variety, ''Coix lacryma-jobi'' var. ''lacryma-jobi'', has hard-shelled pseudocarps—very hard, pearly white, oval structures used as beads for making prayer beads or rosaries, necklaces, and other objects. The cultivated variety ''Coix lacryma-jobi'' var. ''ma-yuen'' is harvested as a cereal crop, has a soft shell, and used medicinally in parts of Asia. Nom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gérard Diffloth
Gérard Diffloth (born in Châteauroux, France, 1939) is a French linguist who is known as a leading specialist in the Austroasiatic languages. As a retired linguistics professor, he was former employed at the University of Chicago and Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA, after a dissertation on the Irula language. He is an advocate of immersion fieldwork for linguistic research. Diffloth is known for his widely cited 1974 and 2005 classifications of the Austroasiatic languages. He is a Consulting Editor of the ''Mon–Khmer The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ... Studies Journal''. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaungic Languages
The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages. Phonological developments Most of the Palaungic languages lost the contrastive voicing of the ancestral Austroasiatic consonants, with the distinction often shifting to the following vowel. In the Wa branch, this is generally realized as breathy voice vowel phonation; in Palaung–Riang, as a two-way register tone system. The Angkuic languages have contour tone — the U language, for example, has four tones, ''high, low, rising, falling,'' — but these developed from vowel length and the nature of final consonants, not from the voicing of initial consonants. Homeland Paul Sidwell (2015) suggests that the Palaungic Urheimat (homeland) was in what is now the border region of Laos and Sipsongpanna in Yunnan, China. The Khmuic homeland was adjacent to the Palaungic homeland, resulting in many lexical borrowings among the two branches due to intense contact. Sidwell (2014) suggests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khmuic Languages
The Khmuic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken mostly in northern Laos, as well as in neighboring northern Vietnam and southern Yunnan, China. Khmu is the only widely spoken language in the group. Homeland Paul Sidwell (2015) suggests that the Khmuic Urheimat (homeland) was in what is now Oudomxay Province, northern Laos. Languages The Khmuic languages are: *Mlabri (Yumbri) * Kniang (Phong 3, Tay Phong) * Ksingmul (Puok, Pou Hok, Khsing-Mul) * Khmu’ *Khuen * O’du * Prai * Mal (Thin) * Theen (Kha Sam Liam) There is some disagreement over whether Bit is Khmuic or Palaungic; Svantesson believes it is most likely Palaungic, and it is sometimes placed in Mangic, but most classifications here take them as Khmuic. Similarly, Phuoc (Xinh Mul) and Kháng are also sometimes classified as Mangic, and Kháng is classified as Palaungic by Diffloth. The recently discovered Bumang language is also likely a Khmuic or Palaungic language. Jerold A. Edmondson con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
