The Vietic languages are a branch of the

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 ...

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 term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

, spoken by the

Vietic peoples Vietic peoples refers to a group of ethnic groups of Southeast Asia. Geographic distribution The Vietic peoples are aboriginal to northern Vietnam, Laos and surrounding areas, mostly in northern Annamite mountains, although they can also be fou ...

in Laos and Vietnam. The branch was once referred to by the terms ''Việt–Mường'', ''Annamese–Muong'', and ''Vietnamuong''; the term ''Vietic'' was proposed by La Vaughn Hayes, who proposed to redefine ''Việt–Mường'' as referring to a sub-branch of Vietic containing only

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

and Mường. Many of the Vietic languages have tonal or

phonation The term phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, ''phonation'' is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the defini ...

al systems intermediate between that of Viet–Muong and other branches of Austroasiatic that have not had significant Chinese or Tai influence. Vietnamese, today, has had significant Chinese influence especially in vocabulary and tonal system.

Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary ( vi, từ Hán Việt, Chữ Hán: 詞漢越, literally 'Chinese language, Chinese-Vietnamese words') is a layer of some 3,000 monosyllabic Morpheme, morphemes of the Vietnamese language borrowed from Literary Chinese wi ...

accounts for about 30–60% of Vietnamese vocabulary, not including

calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...

s from Chinese.

Origins

The ancestor of the Vietic language is traditionally assumed to have been located in today's North Vietnam. However, the origin of the Vietic languages remains a controversial topic among linguists. Another theory, based on linguistic diversity, locates the most probable homeland of the Vietic languages in modern-day Bolikhamsai Province and Khammouane Province in

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

as well as parts of Nghệ An Province and Quảng Bình Province in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. The time depth of the Vietic branch dates back at least 2,500 years to 2,000 years (Chamberlain 1998); 3,500 years (Peiros 2004); or around 3,000 years (Alves 2020).Chamberlain, J.R. 1998,
The origin of Sek: implications for Tai and Vietnamese history
, in The International Conference on Tai Studies, ed. S. Burusphat, Bangkok, Thailand, pp. 97-128. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University. Even so, archaeogenetics demonstrated that before the Đông Sơn period, the Red River Delta's inhabitants were predominantly Austroasiatic: genetic data from

Phùng Nguyên culture The Phùng Nguyên culture of Vietnam (c. 2,000 – 1,500 BC) is a name given to a culture of the Bronze Age in Vietnam which takes its name from an archeological site in Phùng Nguyên, east of Việt Trì discovered in 1958. It was during this p ...

Mán Bạc Mán Bạc is a Neolithic archaeological site located in Yên Mô District, Ninh Bình Province, Vietnam, dated from around 1,850–1,650 BC. Mán Bạc is associated with the Phùng Nguyên culture. With 95 burials found at the site, Mán Bạc ...

burial site (dated 1,800 BC) have close proximity to modern Austroasiatic speakers such as the

Mlabri Mlabri can refer to: * Mlabri people The Mlabri ( Thai: มลาบรี) or Mrabri are an ethnic group of Thailand and Laos, and have been called "the most interesting and least understood people in Southeast Asia". Only about 400 or fewer Mlab ...

and

Lua Lua or LUA may refer to: Science and technology * Lua (programming language) * Latvia University of Agriculture * Last universal ancestor, in evolution Ethnicity and language * Lua people, of Laos * Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...

from Thailand, the Nicobarese from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

(

Nicobar Islands The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean. They are located in Southeast Asia, northwest of Aceh on Sumatra, and separated from Thailand to the east by the Andaman Sea. Located southeast of the Indian s ...

), and the Khmer from

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand t ...

; meanwhile, "mixed genetics" from

Đông Sơn culture The Dong Son culture or the Lạc Việt culture (named for modern village Đông Sơn, a village in Thanh Hóa, Vietnam) was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centred at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the ...

's Núi Nấp site showed affinity to " Dai from China, Tai-Kadai speakers from Thailand, and Austroasiatic speakers from Vietnam, including the

Kinh The Vietnamese people ( vi, người Việt, lit=Viet people) or Kinh people ( vi, người Kinh) are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day Northern Vietnam and Southern China (Jing Islands, Dongxing, Guangxi). The native lang ...

"; therefore, " e likely spread of Vietic was southward from the RRD, not northward. Accounting for southern diversity will require alternative explanations."

Vietnamese

The

Vietnamese language Vietnamese ( vi, tiếng Việt, links=no) is an Austroasiatic languages, Austroasiatic language originating from Vietnam where it is the national language, national and official language. Vietnamese is spoken natively by over 70 million people, ...

was identified as

in the mid-nineteenth century, and there is now strong evidence for this classification. Modern Vietnamese has lost many

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 ...

phonological and morphological features. Vietnamese also has large stocks of borrowed

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

vocabulary. However, there continues to be resistance to the idea that Vietnamese could be more closely related to Khmer than to Chinese or Tai languages among Vietnamese nationalists. The vast majority of scholars attribute typological similarities with Sinitic and Tai to

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 th ...

rather than to common inheritance. Chamberlain (1998) argues that the Red River Delta region was originally Tai-speaking and became Vietnamese-speaking only between the seventh and ninth centuries AD as a result of emigration from the south, i.e., modern

Central Vietnam Central Vietnam ( vi, Trung Bộ or ), also known as Middle Vietnam or The Middle, formerly known as by South Vietnam, and Annam under French Indochina, is one of the three geographical regions within Vietnam. The name Trung Bộ was used by ...

, where the highly distinctive and conservative North-Central Vietnamese dialects are spoken today. Therefore, the region of origin of Vietnamese (and the earlier Viet–Muong) was well south of the Red River.*Chamberlain, James R. 1998.
The Origin of the Sek: Implications for Tai and Vietnamese History
. ''Journal of the Siam Society'' 86.1 & 86.2: 27-48. On the other hand, Ferlus (2009) showed that the inventions of pestle, oar and a pan to cook sticky rice, which is the main characteristic of the

, correspond to the creation of new lexicons for these inventions in Northern Vietic (Việt–Mường) and Central Vietic ( Cuoi-Toum). The new vocabularies of these inventions were proven to be derivatives from original verbs rather than borrowed lexical items. The current distribution of Northern Vietic also corresponds to the area of Dong Son culture. Thus, Ferlus concludes that the Northern Vietic (Viet-Muong) is the direct heirs of the Dongsonian, who have resided in Southern part of Red river delta and North Central Vietnam since the 1st millennium BC. Furthermore, John Phan (2013, 2016)Phan, John. 2013
Lacquered Words: the Evolution of Vietnamese under Sinitic Influences from the 1st Century BCE to the 17th Century CE
Ph.D. dissertation: Cornell University.Phan, John D. & de Sousa, Hilário. 2016
A preliminary investigation into Proto-Southwestern Middle Chinese
(Paper presented at the International workshop on the history of Colloquial Chinese – written and spoken, Rutgers University, New Brunswick NJ, 11–12 March 2016.) argues that “Annamese Middle Chinese” was spoken in the Red River Valley and was then later absorbed into the coexisting Proto-Viet-Muong, one of whose divergent dialect evolved into Vietnamese language. Annamese Middle Chinese belonged to

Middle Chinese Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

in southwestern China that eventually "diversified into"

Waxiang Chinese Waxiang (; ) is a divergent variety of Chinese, spoken by the Waxiang people, an unrecognized ethnic minority group in the northwestern part of Hunan province, China. Waxiang is a distinct language, very different from its surrounding Southweste ...

, the Jiudu patois 九都土話 of

Hezhou Hezhou () is a prefecture-level city in the northeast of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. Geography and climate Hezhou is located in northeastern Guangxi. It borders Hunan to the north and Guangdong to the east. ...

, Southern

Pinghua Pinghua (; Yale romanization of Cantonese, Yale: ''Pìhng Wá''; sometimes disambiguated as /) is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of the Guangxi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with some speakers in Hunan province. Pinghua ...

, and various

Xiang Chinese Xiang or Hsiang (; ); Changsha Xiang: ''sian1 y3'', also known as Hunanese (), is a group of linguistically similar and historically related Sinitic languages, spoken mainly in Hunan province but also in northern Guangxi and parts of neighborin ...

dialects (e.g.,

Xiangxiang Xiangxiang () is a county-level city under the administration of Xiangtan, Hunan province, China. Located on Central Hunan and the west of Xiangtan, Xiangxiang is bordered by Ningxiang County and Shaoshan City to the north, Xiangtan County to the ...

湘鄉, Luxi 瀘溪, Qidong 祁東, and

Quanzhou Quanzhou, postal map romanization, alternatively known as Chinchew, is a prefecture-level city, prefecture-level port city on the north bank of the Jin River, beside the Taiwan Strait in southern Fujian, China. It is Fujian's largest metrop ...

全州). Phan (2013) lists three major types of Sino-Vietnamese borrowings, which were borrowed during different eras: *Early Sino-Vietnamese (

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

(ca. 1st century CE) and Jin dynasty (ca. 4th century CE) layers) *Late Sino-Vietnamese (

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

) *Recent Sino-Vietnamese (

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

and post-Ming dynasty)

Distribution

Vietic speakers reside in and around the

Nakai–Nam Theun Nakai-Nam Theun National Park in Nakai District, Khammouane Province, Laos, is one of the last remaining wildernesses in Southeast Asia. Nakai-Nam Theun covers approximately 4,270 km2 of the Annamite Range and the adjacent Nakai Plateau in ...

Conservation Area of Laos and north-central Vietnam (Chamberlain 1998). Many of these speakers are referred to as Mường, Nhà Làng, and Nguồn. Chamberlain (1998) lists current locations in Laos for the following Vietic peoples. An overview based on first-hand fieldwork has been proposed by

Michel Ferlus Michel Ferlus (born 1935) is a French linguistics, linguist whose special study is in the historical phonology of languages of Southeast Asia. In addition to phonological systems, he also studies Writing system, writing systems, in particular the ...

. * Nguồn: Ban Pak Phanang, Boualapha District, Khammouane; others in Vietnam * Liha, Phong (Cham), and

Toum Salsat toum or toumya (Arabic pronunciation of 'garlic') is a garlic sauce common to the Levant. Similar to the Provençal aioli, there are many variations, a common one containing garlic, salt, olive oil or vegetable oil, and lemon juice, tr ...

: Khamkeut District; probably originally from the northern Nghe An / Khamkeut border area * Ahoe: originally lived in Na Tane Subdistrict of Nakai District, and Ban Na Va village in Khamkeut District; taken to Hinboun District during the war, and then later resettled in Nakai Tay (39 households) and in Sop Hia (20 households) on the Nakai Plateau. * Thaveung (Ahao and Ahlao dialects): several villages near Lak Xao; probably originally from the Na Heuang area * Cheut: Ban Na Phao and Tha Sang, Boualapha District; others probably also in Pha Song, Vang Nyao, Takaa; originally from Hin Nam No and Vietnam * Atel: Tha Meuang on the Nam Sot (primarily Malang people); originally from the Houay Kanil area * Thémarou: Vang Chang on the

Nam Theun Nam Theun (also known as ''Khading''), is a river in Laos, in Khammouane Province, Khammouane and Bolikhamsai Provinces. Together with its tributaries Nam One, Nam Noy, and Nam Theun it has total length of and drains an area of . "Nam Theun" is ...

; Ban Soek near the Nam Noy * Makang: Na Kadok, Khamkeut District (primarily Saek people); originally from the Upper Sot area *

Malang Malang (; ) is a landlocked List of regencies and cities of Indonesia, city in the Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province of East Java. It has a history dating back to the age of Singhasari, Singhasari Kingdom. It is the second most popul ...

: Tha Meuang on the Nam Sot *"Salang": Ban Xe Neua, Boualapha District *Atop: Na Thone, Khamkeut District (primarily Tai Theng people); originally from the Upper Sot area * Mlengbrou: near the Nam One; later relocated to the Yommalath District side of the Ak Mountain, and now living in Ban Sang, Yommalath District (primarily Yooy people) * Kri: Ban Maka In Vietnam, some Vietic

hill-tribe Hill people, also referred to as mountain people, is a general term for people who live in the hills and mountains. This includes all rugged land above and all land (including plateaus) above elevation. The climate is generally harsh, with s ...

peoples, including the Arem, Rục, Maliêng, and Mày (Cươi), were resettled at Cu Nhái (located either in western Quảng Bình Province or in the southwest of Hương Khê District in

Hà Tĩnh Province Hà is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as He in Chinese and Ha in Korean. Ha is the anglicized variation of the surname Hà. It is also the anglicized variation of Hạ. Notable people with the surname Hà *Hà Kiều Anh, Mis ...

). The Sách are also found in Vietnam. The following table lists the lifestyles of various Vietic-speaking ethnic groups. Unlike the neighboring Tai ethnic groups, many Vietic groups are not paddy agriculturalists.

Languages

The discovery that Vietnamese was a Mon–Khmer language, and that its tones were a regular reflection of non-tonal features in the rest of the family, is considered a milestone in the development of

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

. Vietic languages show a typological range from a Chinese or Tai typology to a typical Mon-Khmer Austroasiatic typology, including (a) complex tonal systems, complex phonation systems or blends; (b) C(glide)VC or CCVC syllable templates; monosyllabic or polysyllabic and isolating or agglutinative typology. * Arem: This language lacks the breathy

common to most Vietic languages, but does have

glottalized Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonan ...

final consonants. * Cuôi:

Hung Hung may refer to: People * Hung (surname), various Chinese surnames * Hùng king, a king of Vietnam People with the given name Hung include: * Hung Huynh, Vietnamese-American chef, winner of the third season of the television show ''Top Chef'' ...

in Laos, and Thô in Vietnam * Aheu ( Thavung): This language makes a four-way distinction between clear and breathy phonation combined with glottalized final consonants. This is very similar to the situation in the

Pearic languages The Pearic languages (alternatively called the Chongic languages) are a group of endangered languages of the Eastern Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken by Pear people (the ''Por'', the ''Samré'', the ''Samray'', the ...

in which, however, the glottalization is in the vowel. * Ruc, Sach,

May May is the fifth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the third of seven months to have a length of 31 days. May is a month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere. Therefore, May ...

, and Chưt: A

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

; the

register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...

system is the four-way contrast of Aheu augmented with pitch. *

Maleng Maleng, also known as Pakatan and Bo, is a Vietic language of Laos and Vietnam. Maleng has the four-way register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or rang ...

( Bo, Pakatan): Tones as in Ruc-Sach. *

Pong ''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcor ...

, Tum, Khong-Kheng *Việt–Mường:

and Mường. These two dialect chains share 75% of their basic vocabulary, and have similar systems of 5–6 contour tones. These are regular reflexes of other Vietic languages: The three low and three high tones correspond to

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer ...

and

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

initial consonants in the ancestral language; these then split depending on the original final consonants: Level tones correspond to

open syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...

s or final

nasal consonants In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...

; high rising and low falling tones correspond to final

stops Stop may refer to: Places *Stop, Kentucky, an unincorporated community in the United States * Stop (Rogatica), a village in Rogatica, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina Facilities * Bus stop * Truck stop, a type of rest stop for truck dri ...

, which have since disappeared; dipping tones to final

fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

s, which have also disappeared; and glottalized tones to final glottalized consonants, which have deglottalized.

Classification

Sidwell & Alves (2021)

Sidwell & Alves (2021) propose the following classification of the Vietic languages, which was first proposed in Sidwell (2021). Below, the most divergent (basal) branches listed first. Vietic is split into two primary branches, ''Western'' (corresponding to the ''Thavung–Malieng'' branch) and ''Eastern'' (all of the non-Thavung–Malieng languages). *''Thavung–Malieng'' (''Western Vietic''): Kri,

, Malieng; Ahao/Ahlao, Thavung *''Eastern Vietic'' **'' Chut'': Arem; Sach, Ruc,

**''Phong–Liha'' (''Pong–Toum''): Phong,

, Liha **''Cuoi–Tho'': Cuoi, Tho **''Viet–Muong'':

, Muong, Nguon The Thavung-Malieng group retains the most archaic lexicon and phonological features, while the Chut group merges *-r and *-l finals to *-l with the northern languages. Sidwell & Alves (2021) propose that the Vietic languages had dispersed from the

Red River Delta The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta ( vi, Châu thổ sông Hồng) is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in northern Vietnam. ''Hồng'' (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese wor ...

, based on evidence from loanwords from early Sinitic and extensive

Tai Tai or TAI may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Tai (comics) a fictional Marvel Comics supervillain *Tai Fraiser, a fictional character in the 1995 film ''Clueless'' *Tai Kamiya, a fictional character in ''Digimon'' Businesses and organisations ...

-Vietic contact possibly dating back to the Dong Son period.

Chamberlain (2018)

Chamberlain (2018:9)Chamberlain, James R. 2018.
A Kri-Mol (Vietic) Bestiary: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnozoology in the Northern Annamites
'
Kyoto Working Papers on Area Studies
No. 133. Kyoto: Kyoto University. uses the term Kri-Mol to refer to the Vietic languages, and considers there to be two primary splits, namely ''Mol-Toum'' and ''Nrong-Theun''. Chamberlain (2018:12) provides the following phylogenetic classification for the Vietic languages. ;Kri-Mol *Mol-Toum **Việt-Mường ***

*** Mường, Nguồn **Toum-Ruc ***

, Phong, Liha *** Ruc, Cheut,

, Sach, Malieng *Nrong-Theun **Kri-Phoong *** Kri, Phoong *** Mlengbrou ** Ahlao-Atel ***Ahoe-Ahlao ****Ahoe ****Ahlao, Ahao ***Atel-Maleng ****Thémarou ****Atel, Atop, (Makang), Arao,

, Malang, To-e (Pakatan)

Sidwell (2015)

Based on comparative studies by Ferlus (1982, 1992, 1997, 2001) and new studies in Muong languages by Phan (2012), Sidwell (2015) pointed out that Muong is a paraphyletic taxon and subgroups with Vietnamese. Sidwell's (2015) proposed internal classification for the Vietic languages is as follows. Vietic * Viet-Muong: Vietnamese, Mường Muốt, Mường Nàbái, Mường Chỏi, etc. * Pong-Toum: Đan Lai, Hung, Toum, Cuôi, etc. * Chut ** East: Mãliềng, Maleng, Arem, Kri, Chứt (Mày, Rụt, Sách, Mụ Già), etc. ** West: Thavung, Pakatan, etc.

Chamberlain (2003)

The following classification of the Vietic languages is from Chamberlain (2003:422), as quoted in Sidwell (2009:145). Unlike past classifications, there is a sixth "South" branch that includes Kri, a newly described language. *Vietic **North (Viet–Muong) ***

*** Mường (according to Phan (2012), Mường is

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

Phan, John D. 2012. "Mường is not a subgroup: Phonological evidence for a paraphyletic taxon in the Viet-Muong sub-family." ''Mon-Khmer Studies'' 40:1-18.) *** Nguồn ** Northwest (Cuoi) ** West (Thavưng) ***Ahoe ***Ahao ***Ahlao ** Southeast (Chut) ***Cheut ***Rục ***Sách ***Mày ***Malieng ***( Arem ?) ***(Kata) ** Southwest (Maleng) ***Atel ***Thémarou ***Arao ***Makang ***Malang ***Maleng ***Tơe ** South (Kri) ***Kri ***Phóng ***Mlengbrou

Animal cycle names

(1992, 2013)Michel Ferlus
The sexagesimal cycle, from China to Southeast Asia
23rd Annual Conference of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, May 2013, Bangkok, Thailand. notes that the 12-year animal cycle (

zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the Sun path, apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. ...

) names in the

Khmer calendar Khmer(s) may refer to: Cambodia *''Srok Khmer'' (lit. "Khmer land" or "Land of the Khmer(s)"), a colloquial exonym used to refer to Cambodia by Cambodians; see * *Khmer people, the ethnic group to which the great majority of Cambodians belong **K ...

, from which

Thai Thai or THAI may refer to: * Of or from Thailand, a country in Southeast Asia ** Thai people, the dominant ethnic group of Thailand ** Thai language, a Tai-Kadai language spoken mainly in and around Thailand *** Thai script *** Thai (Unicode block ...

animal cycle names are also derived, were borrowed from a phonologically conservative form of Viet-Muong. Ferlus contends that the animal cycle names were borrowed from a Viet-Muong (Northern Vietic) language rather than from a Southern Vietic language, since the vowel in the

Old Khmer Old Khmer is the oldest attested stage of the Khmer language, an Austroasiatic language historically and presently spoken across Cambodia, Southern Vietnam, and parts of Thailand and Laos. It is recorded in inscriptions dating from the early 7th c ...

name for "

snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

" corresponds to Viet-Muong /a/ rather than to Southern Vietic /i/.

References

External links

La Vaughn Hayes Vietic Digital ArchivesRWAAI
(Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
Vietic languages
in the RWAAI Digital Archive {{Austro-Asiatic languages