There have been various classification schemes for

Southeast Asian languages There have been various classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages (see the articles for the respective language families). Language families The five established major language families are: * Kra–Dai * Austronesian *Austroasiatic * Hm ...

(see the articles for the respective language families).

Language families

The five established major language families are: * Kra–Dai * Austronesian *

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The te ...

* Hmong–Mien *

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

Isolates and small families

A number of language groups in

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

traditionally considered to be

(

Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...

) may in fact constitute independent language families or isolates (

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and works ...

2011). (See Language isolates and independent language families in Arunachal.) *Potential language isolates and independent language families in Arunachal: Digaro, Hrusish (including the

Miji languages Miji (autonym: Dmay), also Dhammai or Sajolang, is a cluster of possibly Sino-Tibetan languages in Arunachal Pradesh, northeastern India. "Dialects" include at least two distinct languages, which are not particularly close, with only half of the ...

Blench, Roger. 2015
''The Mijiic languages: distribution, dialects, wordlist and classification''
m.s.), Midzu, Puroik, Siangic, and

Kho-Bwa The Kho-Bwa languages, also known as Bugunish and Kamengic, are a small family of languages spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India. The name ''Kho-Bwa'' was originally proposed by George van Driem (2001). It is based on the reconstructed ...

*The two

Andamanese The Andamanese are the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia. The Andamanese peoples are among the various groups ...

language families:

Great Andamanese The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely relate ...

and Ongan *

Language isolate Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...

s and languages with isolate substrata of Southeast Asia: Kenaboi,

Enggano Enggano Island is about 100 km (60 mi) southwest of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the 92 officially listed outlying islands of Indonesia, though it can also be considered a barrier island of Sumatra. Enggano is about long from e ...

, and the

Philippine Negrito languages The Negrito peoples of the Philippines speak various Philippine languages. They have more in common with neighboring languages than with each other, and are listed here merely as an aid to identification. Classification The following languages are ...

Manide and Umiray Dumagat

Macrofamilies

Several

macrofamily In historical linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily or phylum, is a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families (also isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ' ...

schemes have been proposed for linking multiple language families of Southeast Asia. None of these proposals is yet accepted by mainstream comparative linguistics, though research into higher-level relationships among these languages has gained some renewed scholarly interest over the last three decades; the various hypotheses are still under investigation, and the validity of each has yet to be resolved. *

Austro-Tai 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-Austrone ...

links the Austronesian and Kra–Dai languages. Several current scholars, including

Laurent Sagart Laurent Sagart (; born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO – UMR 8563) unit of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Biography Born in Paris in 1951, he earned hi ...

, Stanley Starosta, Weera Ostapirat and

Lawrence Reid Lawrence Andrew Reid (often known as Laurie Reid) is an American linguist who specializes in Austronesian languages, particularly on the morphosyntax and historical linguistics of the Philippine languages. Education Reid graduated with an MA in ...

,Reid, Lawrence A. (2006). "Austro-Tai Hypotheses". pp. 609–610 in Keith Brown (editor in chief), ''The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', 2nd edition. accept or theorize a close relationship between these families, but the specifics of the relationship remain unclear. Multiple models of the internal branching of Austro-Tai have been put forward, and Austro-Tai has been incorporated as a subgroup within some larger macrofamily schemes, e.g. in Starosta's ''East Asian'' as well as in Sagart's model of Austronesian (see below), both of which regard Kra–Dai as a subfamily within Austronesian. A few versions of Austro-Tai have included

Japonic Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...

and/or the isolate Ainu as well, though these have not been met with as much acceptance. * Miao–Dai (Kosaka 2002) is a hypothesis for a family including Miao–Yao (Hmong–Mien) and Kra–Dai. * Sino-Austronesian (Sagart 2004, 2005) links Austro-Tai (''Austronesian'') with Sino-Tibetan (''Tibeto-Burman''). *

Austric The Austric languages are a proposed language family that includes the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the Austroasiatic languages spoken in Mainland Southeast ...

links all of the major language families of Southeast Asia apart from Sino-Tibetan. Several variants of the Austric hypothesis have been proposed since it took shape with

Paul K. Benedict Paul King Benedict (; July 5, 1912 – July 21, 1997) was an American anthropologist, mental health professional, and linguist who specialized in languages of East and Southeast Asia. He is well known for his 1942 proposal of the Austro-Tai ...

's proposal (1942). Some of these also incorporate Japonic, Korean and/or Ainu. One version called the "Greater Austric" hypothesis ( Bengtson 1996) includes Ainu as well as Nihali, a language isolate of India. ** The "Proto-Asian hypothesis" or "Austro-Asian" (Larish 2006) argues for lexical evidence of relationship among all of the languages typically included in Austric as well as Japanese–Korean and Sino-Tibetan.Larish, Michael D. 2006
Possible Proto-Asian Archaic Residue and the Statigraphy of Diffusional Cumulation in Austro-Asian Languages
Paper presented at the Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, 17–20 January 2006, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines. *

East Asian East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...

(Starosta 2005) covers all of these families (except Japonic, Koreanic, Ainu and Nihali) as well as Sino-Tibetan. It posits Austronesian (including Kra–Dai) as the most divergent branch, coordinate with a primary branch ''Sino-Tibetan–Yangzian'' which links Sino-Tibetan with a clade called ''Yangzian'' (or ''Yangtzean''), named for the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

river, which includes Austroasiatic and Hmong–Mien. * In a different direction, the Dené–Caucasian hypothesis links Sino-Tibetan to languages of Siberia ( Dene–Yeniseian) and the Caucasus ( North Caucasian or Macro-Caucasian). On the basis of

lexicostatistics Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...

Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothet ...

additionally hypothesized an even larger Dené–Daic macrofamily which incorporates both Dené–Caucasian and Austric as primary branches. Genetic similarities between the peoples of East and Southeast Asia have led some scholars such as

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch linguist associated with the University of Bern, where he is the chair of Historical Linguistics and directs the Linguistics Institute. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gramma ...

to speculate about " Haplogroup O languages".

Proto-languages

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 ...

br>
**

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesi ...

br>
*** Visayan languages#Reconstruction, Proto-Visayan languagebr>
*** Malayic languages#Reconstruction, Proto-Malayic languagebr>
**** Chamic languages#Reconstruction, Proto-Chamic languagebr>
*** Proto-Oceanic language, Proto-Oceanicbr>
**** Proto-Polynesian language, Proto-Polynesianbr>
* Proto-Kra–Dai language, Proto-Kra–Dai **

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 severa ...

br>
** Proto-Kam–Sui language, Proto-Kam–Suibr>
** Proto-Hlai language, Proto-Hlaibr>
** Proto-Tai language, Proto-Taibr>
* Proto-Austroasiatic language, Proto-Austroasiaticbr>
http://sealang.net/monkhmer/dictionary/] ** Proto-Palaungic language, Proto-Palaungic ** Proto-Khmeric ** Proto-Aslian **

Proto-Munda Proto-Munda is the reconstructed proto-language of the Munda languages of South Asia. It has been reconstructed by Sidwell & Rau (2015). According to Sidwell Proto-Munda language split from proto- Austro-asiatic in Indo china and arrived in coast ...

Proto-Sino-Tibetan Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Sino-Tibetan language family and the common ancestor of all languages in it, most prominently the Chinese languages, the Tibetan language, Yi, Bai, Burmese, Karen, Tangut, ...

language **

Old Chinese language Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...

br>
** Proto-Tibeto-Burman language, Proto-Tibeto-Burmanbr>
*** Proto-Loloish language, Proto-Loloishbr>
***

Proto-Karenic Proto-Karenic or Proto-Karen is the reconstructed ancestor of the Karenic languages. Reconstruction The foundation of the reconstruction of Proto-Karen was laid by André-Georges Haudricourt in 1946, with revisions in 1953 and 1975. Haudricourt ...

* Proto-Hmong–Mienbr>
**Proto-Hmongic languag

**Proto-Mienic languag

Comparison

The following table compares the phonemic inventories of various recently reconstructed

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unattest ...

s of

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, consistin ...

Maps of language families

References

External links

* Hartmann, John (Professor of Thai).
Outline: Spoken and Written Languages of Southeast Asia
"

Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system ...

. * Migliazza, Brian. 2004
Southeast Asia Language Families
{{navboxes bottom Languages of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian 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 south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...