The Kra–Dai languages ( , also known as Tai–Kadai and Daic ), are a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term ''family'' is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics ...

mainland Southeast Asia Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

southern China Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture. Extent The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between ...

, and northeastern India. All languages in the family are tonal, including Thai and Lao, the national languages of

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

, respectively. Around 93 million people speak Kra–Dai languages; 60% of those speak Thai. ''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

'' lists 95 languages in the family, with 62 of these being in the Tai branch.

Names

The name "Kra–Dai" was proposed by Weera Ostapirat (2000), as Kra and Dai are the reconstructed autonyms of the Kra and Tai branches, respectively. "Kra–Dai" has since been used by the majority of specialists working on Southeast Asian linguistics, including Norquest (2007), Pittayaporn (2009),Pittayaporn, Pittayawat. 2009. The phonology of Proto-Tai. Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell UniversityPeter Jenks and Pittayawat Pittayaporn
Kra-Dai Languages
Oxford Bibliographies in "Linguistics", Ed. Mark Aranoff. New York: Oxford University Press. Baxter & Sagart (2014), and Enfield & Comrie (2015). The name "Tai–Kadai" is used in many references, as well as ''

'' and ''

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

'', but Ostapirat (2000) and others suggest that it is problematic and confusing, preferring the name "Kra–Dai" instead.Ostapirat, Weera. (2000).
Proto-Kra
" ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'' 23 (1): 1–251. "Tai–Kadai" comes from an obsolete bifurcation of the family into two branches, Tai and Kadai, which had first been proposed by Paul K. Benedict (1942). In 1942, Benedict placed three Kra languages ( Gelao, Laqua ( Qabiao), and Lachi) together with Hlai in a group that he called "Kadai", from ''ka'', meaning "person" in Gelao and Laqua and ''dai'', a form of a Hlai autonym. Benedict's (1942) "Kadai" group was based on his observation that Kra and Hlai languages have Austronesian-like numerals. However, this classification is now universally rejected as obsolete after Ostapirat (2000) demonstrated the coherence of the Kra branch, which does not subgroup with the Hlai branch as Benedict (1942) had proposed. "Kadai" is sometimes used to refer to the entire Kra–Dai family, including by Solnit (1988).Solnit, David B. 1988. "The position of Lakkia within Kadai." In ''Comparative Kadai: Linguistic studies beyond Tai'', Jerold A. Edmondson and David B. Solnit (eds.). pages 219–238. Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics 86. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. Adding to the confusion, some other references restrict the usage of "Kadai" to only the Kra branch of the family. The name "Daic" is used by

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 work ...

(2008).

Origin

James R. Chamberlain (2016) proposes that the Tai–Kadai (Kra–Dai) language family was formed as early as the 12th century BCE in the middle of the Yangtze basin, coinciding roughly with the establishment of the Chu fiefdom and the beginning of the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

.Chamberlain, James R. (2016).
Kra-Dai and the Proto-History of South China and Vietnam
, pp. 27–77. In ''Journal of the Siam Society'', Vol. 104, 2016. The high diversity of Kra–Dai languages in southern China, especially in

Guizhou ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = , image_map = Guizhou in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_alt = Map showing the location of Guizhou Province , map_caption = Map s ...

and

Hainan Hainan is an island provinces of China, province and the southernmost province of China. It consists of the eponymous Hainan Island and various smaller islands in the South China Sea under the province's administration. The name literally mean ...

, points to that being an origin of the Kra–Dai language family, founding the nations that later became Thailand and Laos in what had been Austroasiatic territory. Genetic and linguistic analyses show great homogeneity among Kra–Dai-speaking people in Thailand. Although the position of Kra–Dai in relation to Austronesian is still contested, some propose that Kra–Dai and Austronesian are genetically connected. Weera Ostapirat (2005) sets out a series of regular sound correspondences between them, assuming a model of a primary split between the two; they would then be co-ordinate branches. Ostapirat (2013) continues to maintain that Kra–Dai and Austronesian are sister language families, based on certain phonological correspondences. On the other hand, Laurent Sagart (2008) proposes that Kra–Dai is a later form of what he calls "FATK" (Formosan Ancestor of Tai–Kadai) a branch of Austronesian belonging to the subgroup "Puluqic", developed in Taiwan, whose speakers migrated back to the mainland, to Guangdong, Hainan, and north Vietnam, around the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE. Upon their arrival in this region, they underwent linguistic contact with an unknown population, resulting in a partial relexification of FATKFormosan ancestor of Tai–Kadai. vocabulary. Erica Brindley (2015) supports Sagart's hypothesis, arguing that the radically different Kra-Dai history of migration to the mainland (as opposed to the Philippines for Proto-Austronesian) and extended contact with Austro-Asiatic and Sinitic speakers would make the relationship appear more distant. She also suggests that the presence of only the most basic Austronesian vocabulary in Kra-Dai makes this scenario of relexification more plausible. Besides various concrete pieces of evidence for a Kra–Dai existence in present-day Guangdong, remnants of Kra–Dai languages spoken further north can be found in unearthed inscriptional materials and non-Han substrata in Min and

Wu Chinese , region = Shanghai, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, parts of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces; overseas and migrant communities , ethnicity = Wu , speakers = million , date = 2021 , ref = e27 , fa ...

. Wolfgang Behr (2002, 2006, 2009, 2017) points out that most non-Sinitic words found in Chu inscriptional materials are of Kra–Dai origin. For example, the Chu graph for 'one, once' written as Neng2

(? < OC *nnəŋ) in the ''E jun qijie'' 鄂君啟筯 bronze tally and in Warring States bamboo inscriptions, which represents a Kra–Dai areal word; compare Proto-Tai *hnïŋ ''='' *hnɯŋ (Siamese ²²nɯŋ, Dai ³³nɯŋ, Longzhou nəəŋ^A etc.) 'one, once'. In the early 1980s, Wei Qingwen (韦庆稳), a Zhuang linguist, proposed that the Old Yue language recorded in the

Song of the Yue Boatman The Song of the Yue Boatman () is a short song in an ancient language of southern China in the Yangtze River valley said to have been recorded around 528 BC. A transcription using Chinese characters, together with a Chinese version, is preser ...

is in fact a language ancestral to Zhuang. Wei used reconstructed

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

for the characters and discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang. Later, Zhengzhang Shangfang (1991) followed Wei's proposal but used Thai script for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms not found in modern pronunciation. Zhengzhang notes that 'evening, night, dark' bears the C tone in Wuming Zhuang ''xam^C2'' and ''ɣam^C2'' 'night'. The item ''raa'' normally means 'we (inclusive)' but in some places, e.g., Tai Lue and White Tai, it means 'I'. However,

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 French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Biography Born in Paris in 1951, he earned ...

criticizes Zhengzhang's interpretation as anachronistic, because however archaic the Thai script is, the Thai language was only written 2,000 years after the song had been recorded; even if Proto-Kam–Tai had emerged by the 6th century BCE, its pronunciation would have been substantially different from Thai. Chinese plain 5c

Internal classification

Kra–Dai consists of at least five well-established branches, namely Kra, Kam–Sui, Tai, Be, and Hlai (Ostapirat 2005:109). ; Tai: southern China and Southeast Asia ; Kra: southern China, northern Vietnam; called ''Kadai'' in ''

'' and ''Geyang'' (仡央) in Chinese ; Kam–Sui:

and

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

, China ; Be:

; possibly also includes Jizhao of

Guangdong ) means "wide" or "vast", and has been associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD 226. The name "''Guang''" ultimately came from Guangxin ( zh, labels=no, first=t, t= , s=广信), an outpost established in Han dynasty ...

; Hlai:

Chinese linguists have also proposed a Kam–Tai group that includes Kam–Sui, Tai, and Be.Liang Min 梁敏 & Zhang Junru 张均如. 1996. ''Dongtai yuzu gailun'' 侗台语族概论 / ''An introduction to the Kam–Tai languages''. Beijing: China Social Sciences Academy Press 中国社会科学出版社. Kra–Dai languages that are not securely classified and may constitute independent Kra–Dai branches include the following: * Lakkia and Biao, which may or may not subgroup with each other, are difficult to classify due to aberrant vocabulary but are sometimes classified as

sisters A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

of Kam–Sui (Solnit 1988). * Jiamao of southern Hainan, China, is an aberrant Kra–Dai language traditionally classified as a

Hlai language The Hlai languages ( zh, s=黎语, p=Líyǔ) are a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China by the Hlai people, not to be confused with the colloquial name for the Lei ...

, although Jiamao contains many words of non-Hlai origin. * Jizhao of

, China, is currently unclassified within Kra–Dai but appears to be most closely related to Be (Ostapirat 1998).Ostapirat, W. (1998)
A Mainland Bê Language? / 大陆的Bê语言?
''Journal of Chinese Linguistics'', 26(2), 338–344 Kra–Dai languages of mixed origins are: * '' Hezhang Buyi'':

Northern Tai The Northern Tai languages are an established branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. They include the northern Zhuang languages and Bouyei of China, Tai Mène of Laos and Yoy of Thailand. Languages Ethnologue ''Ethnologue'' distingui ...

and Kra * '' E'':

and

Pinghua Pinghua is a pair of Sinitic languages spoken mainly in parts of Guangxi, with some speakers in Hunan. Pinghua is a trade language in some areas of Guangxi, spoken as a second language by speakers of Zhuang languages. Some speakers are offic ...

Chinese * '' Caolan'':

and

Central Tai The Central Tai languages include southern dialects of Zhuang, and various Nung and Tày dialects of northern Vietnam. Central Tai languages differ from Northern Tai languages in that Central Tai distinguishes unaspirated and aspirated onse ...

* '' Jiamao'': Hlai and other unknown elements ( Austroasiatic?)

Edmondson and Solnit (1988)

An early but influential classification, with the traditional Kam–Tai clade, was Edmondson and Solnit's classification from 1988:Edmondson, Jerold A. and David B. Solnit, editors. 1988. Comparative Kadai: Linguistic studies beyond Tai. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, 86. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. vii, 374 p.Edmondson, Jerold A. and David B. Solnit, editors. 1997. Comparative Kadai: the Tai branch. Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington Publications in Linguistics, 124. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. vi, 382 p. * Kra–Dai ** Kra (Geyang) ** Hlai ** Kam–Tai *** **** Lakkia– Biao **** Kam–Sui *** **** Be **** Tai This classification is also used by Liang and Zhang (1996), Chamberlain (2016: 38), and ''Ethnologue'', though by 2009 Lakkia was made a third branch of Kam–Tai and Biao was moved into Kam–Sui.

Ostapirat (2005); Norquest (2007)

Weera Ostapirat (2005:128) suggests the possibility of Kra and Kam–Sui being grouped together as Northern Kra–Dai and Hlai with Tai as Southern Kra–Dai. Norquest (2007) has further updated this classification to include Lakkia and Be. Norquest notes that Lakkia shares some similarities with Kam–Sui, while Be shares some similarities with Tai. Norquest (2007:15) notes that Be shares various similarities with

Northern Tai languages The Northern Tai languages are an established branch of the Tai languages of Southeast Asia. They include the northern Zhuang languages and Bouyei of China, Tai Mène of Laos and Yoy of Thailand. Languages Ethnologue ''Ethnologue'' distingu ...

in particular.Norquest, Peter K. 2007
''A Phonological Reconstruction of Proto-Hlai''
Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona. Following Ostapirat, Norquest adopts the name Kra–Dai for the family as a whole. The following tree of Kra–Dai is from Norquest (2007:16): * Kra–Dai ** Northern *** Kra *** Northeastern **** Lakkia **** Kam–Sui ** Southern *** Hlai *** Be–Tai **** Tai **** Be Additionally, Norquest (2007) also proposes a reconstruction for Proto-Southern Kra–Dai.

Norquest (2015, 2020)

A classification of Kra–Dai by Norquest (2015, 2020) is provided as follows: * Kra–Dai ** Kra ** Eastern Kra–Dai *** Biao *** Lakkja–Kam–Tai **** Lakkja **** Kam–Tai ***** Kam–Sui ***** Western Kam–Tai ****** Hlai ****** Be–Tai ******* Ong-Be ******* Tai

Norquest (2021)

Based on shared lexical innovations, Norquest (2021) significantly revised his classification of Kra–Dai. Together, Biao and Lakkja form the most divergent subgroup of Kra–Dai. Be–Tai and Hlai are placed together as part of a "Hlai–Tai" group. * Kra–Dai ** Biao– Lakkja ** Kam–Tai *** Kam–Sui *** Kra–Tai **** Kra **** Hlai–Tai ***** Hlai ***** Be–Tai ****** Be ****** Tai

Hypotheses regarding external relationships

Austro-Tai

Genesis of Daic languages and their relation with Austronesians

Several scholars have presented evidence that Kra–Dai may be related to, or even a branch of, the

Austronesian language family The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

. There are a number of possible cognates in the core vocabulary, displaying regular sound correspondences. Among proponents, there is yet no agreement as to whether they are a sister group to Austronesian in a family called Austro-Tai, a back-migration from

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

to the mainland or a later migration from the Philippines to Hainan during the Austronesian expansion. The inclusion of Japanese in the Austro-Tai family, as proposed by Paul K. Benedict in the late 20th century, is not supported by the current proponents of the Austro-Tai hypothesis.

Sino-Tai

The Kra–Dai languages were formerly considered to be part of the Sino-Tibetan family, partly because they contain large numbers of words that are similar to Sino-Tibetan languages. However, Western scholars generally consider them to be Sinitic loanwords and note that basic vocabulary words in Kra–Dai languages often have cognates with Austronesian instead.Ostapirat, Weera. (2005). "Kra–Dai and Austronesian: Notes on phonological correspondences and vocabulary distribution", pp. 107–131 in Sagart, Laurent, Blench, Roger & Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia (eds.), ''The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics.'' London/New York: Routledge-Curzon. Outside China, the Kra–Dai languages are now classified as an independent family. In China, they are called ''Dong–Tai'' (侗台) or ''Zhuang–Dong'' (壮侗) languages and are generally included, along with the

Hmong–Mien languages The Hmong–Mien languages (also known as Miao–Yao and rarely as Yangtzean) are a highly tonal language family of southern China and northern Southeast Asia. They are spoken in mountainous areas of southern China, including Guizhou, Hunan, Yunn ...

, in the Sino-Tibetan family.Luo, Yongxian. 2008. Sino-Tai and Tai-Kadai: Another look. In Anthony V. N. Diller and Jerold A. Edmondson and Yongxian Luo (eds.), ''The Tai-Kadai Languages'', 9–28. London & New York: Routledge.

Hmong–Mien

Kosaka (2002) has argued specifically for a Miao–Dai family. Based on proposed lexical cognates, he proposes a genetic relation between Hmong–Mien and Kra–Dai languages. He further suggests that similarities between Kra–Dai and Austronesian are due to later areal contact in the coastal areas of eastern and southeastern China or an older ancestral relation (Proto-

East Asian East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

).Kosaka, Ryuichi. 2002.
On the affiliation of Miao-Yao and Kadai: Can we posit the Miao–Dai family
" ''

Mon-Khmer Studies ''Mon-Khmer Studies'' was an academic journal that focused on Mon-Khmer languages. It was established in 1964 and ceased publication in 2016. From 1992 onwards, it was published by Mahidol University and SIL International SIL Global (formerl ...

'' 32:71–100.

Japonic

Vovin (2014) has proposed that the location of the Japonic

Urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...

(linguistic homeland) is in southern China. He argues for typological evidence that Proto-Japanese may have been a monosyllabic, SVO syntax and isolating language, which is also characteristic of Kra–Dai languages. According to him, these common features are however not due to a genetic relationship but rather the result of intense contact.Vovin, Alexander (2014)
''Out Of Southern China? --some linguistic and philological musings on the possible Urheimat of the Japonic language family--''
''XXVIIes Journées de Linguistique d'Asie Orientale 26–27 juin 2014''.

Reconstruction

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * Blench, Roger. 2004
''Stratification in the peopling of China: how far does the linguistic evidence match genetics and archaeology?''
Paper for the Symposium "Human migrations in continental East Asia and Taiwan: genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence". Geneva 10–13 June 2004. Université de Genève. * * * Edmondson, J.A. and D.B. Solnit eds. 1997. ''Comparative Kadai: the Tai branch''. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics and the University of Texas at Arlington. * * * * * * *