The Pakanic languages constitute a branch of two

Austroasiatic languages 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 t ...

, Bolyu and Bugan. They are spoken in Guangxi and

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

provinces of southern China. Mang was formerly included, but is now considered by

Paul Sidwell Paul James Sidwell is an Australian linguist based in Canberra, Australia who has held research and lecturing positions at the Australian National University. Sidwell, who is also an expert and consultant in forensic linguistics, is most notab ...

to form its own separate branch within Austroasiatic.Sidwell, Paul. (2021)
''Austroasiatic Dispersal: the AA "Water-World" Extended''SEALS 2021

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Classification

Jenny & Sidwell (2015) consider Pakanic to be an independent branch of Austroasiatic. Various classifications had previously been proposed for individual Pakanic languages. In 1990,

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 ...

argued that Bolyu constitutes a separate Mon-Khmer branch. Edmondson & Gregerson (1996) listed many phonological and lexical similarities shared by Bolyu and

Vietic languages The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken by the Vietic peoples in Laos and Vietnam. The branch was once referred to by the terms ''Việt–Mường'', ''Annamese–Muong'', and ''Vietnamuong''; the term ' ...

. However,

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 Univ ...

later suggested that Pakanic (i.e., Bolyu and Bugan) shares an affinity with

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 disti ...

and was part of a wider Northern Mon-Khmer group.

''Mangic'' proposal

''Mangic'', a proposed language grouping that includes Mang as a sister to Pakanic within a unified subgroup of Austroasiatic, is recognized by

Ilia Peiros Ilia Peiros (full name: Ilia Iosifovich Peiros, Илья Иосифович Пейрос; born 1948) is a Russian linguist who specializes in the historical linguistics of East Asia. Peiros is a well-known scholar in the Moscow School of Compara ...

(2004) and Sidwell's earlier classifications.

Nguyen Van Loi Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...

also classified Mang within the Samtau group of Waic with

Palaungic 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 disti ...

, although he later classified Mang as a sister of Waic (Sidwell 2009:133).

Reconstruction

Proto-Pakanic, the

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 unattes ...

ancestral to Bolyu and Bugan but not Mang, was reconstructed by Andrew Hsiu (2016). Hsiu (2017), citing Li Xulian (1999), notes that Pakanic languages were formerly spoken further up north in

Guizhou Guizhou (; formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked province in the southwest region of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the province. Guizhou borders the autonomous region of Guangxi to the ...

and were in close contact with Gelao. Hsiu (2017) also notes that Pakanic languages display loanword influence from Kra languages, and have also influenced Kra languages.

References

External links

Mang vocabulary from SEAlang

Bolyu vocabulary from SEAlang

RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)

Pakanic languages in RWAAI Digital Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Palyu Languages

Classification

''Mangic'' proposal

Reconstruction

See also

References

Further reading

External links