Proto-Austroasiatic is the reconstructed ancestor of the

Austroasiatic languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

. 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 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 nota ...

. Scholars generally date the ancestral language to with a

homeland A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethnic natio ...

in southern China or the

Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River ( , ) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's List of rivers by length, twelfth-longest river and List of longest rivers of Asia, the third-longest in Asia with an estimated l ...

valley. Sidwell (2022) proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in the

Red River Delta The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta () 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 word for "red" or "crimson". T ...

area around . 500 Proto-Austroasiatic etyma were published by

in 2024.

Phonology

Earlier work sought to reconstruct the ancestor of the

Mon–Khmer languages The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority pop ...

, viewed as a primary branch of the Austroasiatic language family alongside the

Munda languages The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about eleven million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic langu ...

. This bifurcate model has been abandoned in favour of a flatter classification since around 2000.Sidwell, Paul (2009)
The Austroasiatic Central Riverine Hypothesis
Keynote address, SEALS, XIX. Nevertheless, the Munda, Khasi and Nicobarese languages, whose phonologies are more innovative, are less useful for the reconstruction of PAA phonology, though were relied upon to recognize archaic etyma.

Consonants

A total of 21 or 22

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s are reconstructed for Proto-Austroasiatic. To account for contrasts found in

Katuic languages The fifteen Katuic languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken by about 1.5 million people in Southeast Asia. People who speak Katuic languages are called the Katuic peoples. Paul Sidwell is the leading specialist on the Katuic ...

tentatively added *ʄ to the inventory reconstructed by Harry L. Shorto in 2006. Sidwell (2024) adds *ɕ.

Vowels

Sidwell & Rau (2015) reconstruct 8 Proto-Austroasiatic

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s, each of which can occur short or long. This differs from Shorto's inventory, based on correspondences between Mon and Khmer only, in adding . Sidwell (2023) adds a close central vowel . Proto-Austroasiatic

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s are more difficult, though and are generally recognized. Shorto also reconstructed some forms using and , but Sidwell accounts for these using long vowels , and . Sidwell tentatively suggests and .

Word structure

Common word structures in Proto-Austroasiatic include *CV(C) and *CCV(C) roots. *CVC roots can also be affixed either via prefixes or infixes, as in *C-CVC or *CVC. Sidwell and Rau (2015) propose the following syllable structure for Proto-Austroasiatic.Sidwell, Paul. 2018
Austroasiatic Studies: state of the art in 2018
. Presentation at the Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, May 22, 2018. * *C_i(C_m)VC_f Medial consonants (C_m) are *-w -, *-r -, *-l -, *-j -, and *-h-. All of the Proto-Austroasiatic consonants except for

implosives Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in additio ...

and voiced stops can occur as syllable finals (C_f). Also possible are sesquisyllables: * *(C_p(n/r/l))C_iVC_f All of the Proto-Austroasiatic unvoiced stops and voiced stops, as well as *m-, *N-, *r-, *l-, and *s-, can occur as presyllables (C_p). These may arise from prefixes and infixes. Several daughter languages feature presyllable "coda-copying" from main syllables, which may have been a feature of Proto-Austroasiatic. The Proto-Austroasiatic word template was later revised as follows by Sidwell (2023).Sidwell, Paul. 2023. ''How to reconstruct the Proto-Austroasiatic Vowels''. ICAAL 11 (11th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics, Chiang Mai 26–27 October 2023). * *(Cv(C)).ˈCVC(ˀ) Hiroz (2024) proposes disyllabic forms for some Proto-Austroasiatic etyma. A few tentative reconstructions are: * #suláː 'leaf' * #kuláːʔ 'tiger' * #kujáːl 'wind, air' * #kil- 'bird, flying animal' (nominal class for birds and flying animals; cf. Old Mon , ) ** #kil-ʔáːk 'crow' ** #kil-láːŋ 'bird of prey'

Morphology

Sidwell (2008) considers the two most morphologically conservative Mon–Khmer branches to be Khmuic and Aslian. On the other hand, Vietnamese morphology is far more similar to that of Chinese and the

Tai languages The Tai, Zhuang–Tai, or Daic languages (Ahom language, Ahom: 𑜁𑜪𑜨 𑜄𑜩 or 𑜁𑜨𑜉𑜫 𑜄𑜩 ; ; or , ; , ) are a branch of the Kra–Dai languages, Kra–Dai language family. The Tai languages include the most widely spo ...

and has lost many morphological features found in Proto-Mon–Khmer. The following Proto-Mon–Khmer affixes, which are still tentative, have been reconstructed by

. * Nominalizing *-n- (instrumental in Kammu, resultative in Khmu) * Nominalizing agentive *-m- * Nominalizing iterative (expressive of repetitiveness/numerousness) *-l-/*-r- * Nominalizing instrumental *-p- * Causative *p(V)- (allomorphs: ''p-, pn-, -m-'') * Reciprocal *tr-/*t(N)- * Stative *h-/*hN- (?)

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 ...

(2012) notes that Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan share many similarities regarding word structure, particularly nominal affixes (otherwise known as sesquisyllables or minor syllable prefixes). Blench does not make any definitive conclusions about how these similarities could have arisen, but suggests that this typological diffusion might have come about as a result of intensive contact in an area between northern Vietnam, Laos, and northeast Myanmar. Sidwell & Rau (2014) notice that the Sora-style

noun incorporation In linguistics, incorporation is a phenomenon by which a grammatical category, such as a verb, forms a compound (linguistics), compound with its direct object (object incorporation) or adverbial modifier, while retaining its original syntax, synt ...

is also found outside of the Munda branch. Sidwell & Jenny & Alves (2020) further added, that the Munda noun incorporation system and referent indexation in predicates show internal head-first, verb-initial order, which can be taken as more archaic than the verb-final structures at clause/sentence level. Sora (Sora-Gorum, South Munda): Bolyu ( Pakanic):

Syntax

Like the

, Proto-Mon–Khmer has an SVO, or verb-medial, order. Proto-Mon–Khmer also makes use of noun classifiers and serial verb constructions (Shorto 2006). However,

(2018) suggests that Proto-Austroasiatic may have in fact been verb-initial, with SVO order occurring in

Indochina 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 ...

due to convergence in the

Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area The Mainland Southeast Asia linguistic area is a sprachbund including languages of the Sino-Tibetan, Hmong–Mien (or Miao–Yao), Kra–Dai, Austronesian and Austroasiatic families spoken in an area stretching from Thailand to China. Neighb ...

. Various modern-day Austroasiatic languages display verb-initial word order, including Pnar and Wa (Jenny 2015). Nicobarese also displays verb-initial word order.

Lexicon

Below are some Proto-Austroasiatic words relating to animals, plants, agriculture, and material culture from Sidwell (2024). ;Invertebrates ;Vertebrates ;Plants ;Agriculture ;Material culture * *ɲaːˀ 'house' * *ɗuːŋ 'home, clan territory' * *ɟraŋ, *ɟrɔŋ 'post, pillar' * *puːŋ, *poaŋ 'window' * *Cdaŋ 'walling/fencing material' * *taːɲ 'weave (v.)' * *ksɛːʔ 'string, cord' * *kam 'arrow' * *ʔaːkˀ 'bow (n.)' Numerals are as follows: *1. *muəjˀ, *moːjˀ *2. *ɓaːr *3. *peːˀ *4. *puənˀ *6. *truʔ, *pruʔ *7. *pɔh, *pəɕ *8. *tNɕaːm

Function words

Proto-Austroasiatic personal pronouns determiners, and particles are as follows, with reconstructions from Sidwell & Rau (2015) and Shorto (2006). Sidwell (2024) revises the personal pronouns as follows.

Branch reconstructions

Austroasiatic branch-level reconstructions include: *Proto- Munda: Sidwell & Rau (2015) (

list A list is a Set (mathematics), set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of t ...

) *Proto- Khasic: Sidwell (2012)
list
*Proto- Palaungic: Sidwell (2010, 2015)
list 1
list 2) *Proto- Khmuic: Sidwell (2013)
list
*Proto- Pakanic: Hsiu (2016) (

) *Proto- Vietic: Ferlus (2007) *Proto- Katuic: Sidwell (2005)
list
*Proto- Bahnaric: Sidwell (2011)
list
*Proto- Khmeric: Sidwell & Rau (2015), based on Ferlus (1992) (

) *Proto- Pearic: Sidwell & Rau (2015); Headley (1985)Headley, Robert K. 1985.
Proto-Pearic and the classification of Pearic
" In Suriya Ratanakult et al (eds.), ''Southeast Asian Linguistic Studies Presented to Andre-G. Haudricourt''. Institute of Language and Culture for Rural Development, Mahidol University. pp. 428-478. (

) *Proto- Monic: Diffloth (1984)
list
*Proto- Aslian: Phillips (2012)Phillips, Timothy C. 2012. ''Proto-Aslian: towards an understanding of its historical linguistic systems, principles and processes''. Ph.D. thesis, Institut Alam Dan Tamadun Melayu Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi. (

) *Proto- Nicobarese: Sidwell (2018) (

)

Origin and dispersal

(2009) suggested that the likely homeland of Austroasiatic is in the

region, and that the family is not as old as frequently assumed, dating to perhaps 2,000 BCE. However, Ilia Peiros (2011) criticized Sidwell's 2009 riverine dispersal hypothesis heavily and claimed many contradictions. He showed with his analysis that the homeland of Austroasiatic is somewhere near the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

. He suggests the

Sichuan Basin The Sichuan Basin (), formerly transliterated as the Szechwan Basin, sometimes called the Red Basin, is a lowland region in southwestern China. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides and is drained by the upper Yangtze River and its tributar ...

as likely homeland of proto-Austroasiatic before they migrated to other parts of central and southern China and then into Southeast Asia. He further suggests that the family must be as old as proto-Austronesian and proto-Sino-Tibetan or even older.

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...

(2011) proposed that the homeland of Austroasiatic was in the

Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Southwestern China, Northeastern India, and Bangladesh. It is known as Brahmaputra or Luit in Assamese, Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, and ...

basin. He further suggested, based on genetic studies, that the migration of Kra–Dai people from Taiwan replaced the original Austroasiatic language but the effect on the people was only minor. Local Austroasiatic speakers adopted Kra-Dai languages and partially their culture.

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 ...

(2011) and

Peter Bellwood Peter Stafford Bellwood (born Leicester, England, 1943) is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. He is well known for his Early Farming Dispersal H ...

(2013) supported the theory of an origin of Austroasiatic along the

Yangtze river The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

in southern China. Genetic and linguistic research in 2015 about ancient people in East Asia suggest an origin and homeland of Austroasiatic in today

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 ...

or even further north. Integrating computational phylogenetic linguistics with recent archaeological findings, Paul Sidwell (2015)Sidwell, Paul. 2015. ''Phylogeny, innovations, and correlations in the prehistory of Austroasiatic''. Paper presented at the workshop ''Integrating inferences about our past: new findings and current issues in the peopling of the Pacific and South East Asia'', 22–23 June 2015, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany. further expanded his Mekong riverine hypothesis by proposing that Austroasiatic had ultimately expanded into

from the

Lingnan Lingnan (; ) is a geographic area referring to the lands in the south of the Nanling Mountains. The region covers the modern China, Chinese subdivisions of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hong Kong & Macau and Northern Vietnam. Background The ar ...

area of

, with the subsequent Mekong riverine dispersal taking place after the initial arrival of Neolithic farmers from southern China. He tentatively suggests that Austroasiatic may have begun to split up 5,000 years B.P. during the Neolithic transition era of

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 ...

, with all the major branches of Austroasiatic formed by 4,000 B.P. Austroasiatic would have had two possible dispersal routes from the western periphery of the

Pearl River The Pearl River (, or ) is an extensive river system in southern China. "Pearl River" is often also used as a catch-all for the watersheds of the Pearl tributaries within Guangdong, specifically the Xi ('west'), Bei ('north'), and Dong ( ...

watershed of

, which would have been either a coastal route down the coast of Vietnam, or downstream through the

via

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

. Both the reconstructed lexicon of Proto-Austroasiatic and the archaeological record clearly show that early Austroasiatic speakers around 4,000 B.P. cultivated rice and

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most millets belong to the tribe Paniceae. Millets are important crops in the Semi-arid climate, ...

, kept livestock such dogs, pigs, and chickens, and thrived mostly in estuarine rather than coastal environments. At 4,500 B.P., this "Neolithic package" suddenly arrived in Indochina from the Lingnan area without cereal grains and displaced the earlier pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer cultures, with grain husks found in northern Indochina by 4,100 B.P. and in southern Indochina by 3,800 B.P. However, Sidwell found that iron is not reconstructable in Proto-Austroasiatic, since each Austroasiatic branch has different terms for iron that had been borrowed relatively lately from Tai, Chinese, Tibetan, Malay, and other languages. During the

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

about 2,500 B.P., relatively young Austroasiatic branches in Indochina such as Vietic, Katuic, Pearic, and Khmer were formed, while the more internally diverse Bahnaric branch (dating to about 3,000 B.P.) underwent more extensive internal diversification. By the Iron Age, all of the Austroasiatic branches were more or less in their present-day locations, with most of the diversification within Austroasiatic taking place during the Iron Age. Paul Sidwell (2018)Sidwell, Paul. 2018. ''Austroasiatic deep chronology and the problem of cultural lexicon''. Paper presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, held May 17–19, 2018 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. considers the Austroasiatic language family to have rapidly diversified around 4,000 years B.P. during the arrival of rice agriculture in Indochina, but notes that the origin of Proto-Austroasiatic itself is older than that date. The lexicon of Proto-Austroasiatic can be divided into an early and late stratum. The early stratum consists of basic lexicon including body parts, animal names, natural features, and pronouns, while the names of cultural items (agriculture terms and words for cultural artifacts, which are reconstructable in Proto-Austroasiatic) form part of the later stratum.

(2018)Blench, Roger. 2018
Waterworld: lexical evidence for aquatic subsistence strategies in Austroasiatic
In ''Papers from the Seventh International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics'', 174-193. Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society Special Publication No. 3. University of Hawaii Press.Blench, Roger. 2017.
Waterworld: lexical evidence for aquatic subsistence strategies in Austroasiatic
'. Presented at ICAAL 7, Kiel, Germany. suggests that vocabulary related to aquatic subsistence strategies (such as boats, waterways, river fauna, and fish capture techniques) can be reconstructed for Proto-Austroasiatic. Blench (2018) finds widespread Austroasiatic roots for 'river, valley', 'boat', 'fish', 'catfish sp.', 'eel', 'prawn', 'shrimp' (Central Austroasiatic), 'crab', 'tortoise', 'turtle', 'otter', 'crocodile', 'heron, fishing bird', and '

fish trap A fish trap is a animal trapping, trap used for fishing, catching fish and other aquatic animals of value. Fish traps include fishing weirs, lobster trap, cage traps, fish wheels and some fishing net rigs such as fyke nets. The use of traps ar ...

'. Archaeological evidence for the presence of agriculture in northern

(northern Vietnam, Laos, and other nearby areas) dates back to only about 4,000 years B.P. (2,000 B.C.), with agriculture ultimately being introduced from further up to the north in the Yangtze valley where it has been dated to 6,000 B.P. Hence, this points to a relatively late riverine dispersal of Austroasiatic as compared to

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

, whose speakers had a distinct non-riverine culture. In addition to living an aquatic-based lifestyle, early Austroasiatic speakers would have also had access to livestock, crops, and newer types of watercraft. As early Austroasiatic speakers dispersed rapidly via waterways, they would have encountered speakers of older language families who were already settled in the area, such as Sino-Tibetan. Sidwell (2021)
Video presentation)
/ref> proposes that the locus of Proto-Austroasiatic was in the

area about 4,000-4,500 years before present. Austroasiatic dispersed coastal maritime routes and also upstream through river valleys. Khmuic, Palaungic, and Khasic resulted from a westward dispersal that ultimately came from the Red River valley. Based on their current distributions, about half of all Austroasiatic branches (including Nicobaric and Munda) can be traced to coastal maritime dispersals.

References

* * * *
Mon–Khmer.com: Lectures by Paul Sidwell

External links

Mon–Khmer languages at SEAlangMon–Khmer languages
at Ethnologue

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proto-Austroasiatic Language *

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...