Austro-Asiatic languages

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The Austroasiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia and India. The name comes from the Greek word for South Asia.

Austroasiatic languages have a disjunct distribution across India and Southeast Asia, separated by regions where other languages are spoken. It is widely believed that the Austroasiatic languages are the autochthonous languages of Southeast Asia and eastern India, and that the other languages of the region, including the Indo European, Tai-Kadai, and Sino-Tibetan languages, are the result of later migrations of people. (There are, for example, Austroasiatic words in the Tibeto-Burman languages of eastern Nepal.) Some linguists have attempted to prove that Austroasiatic languages are related to Austronesian languages, thus forming the Austric superfamily.

Linguists traditionally recognize two major divisions of Austroasiatic, the Mon-Khmer languages of Southeast Asia and the Munda languages of east-central and central India. Ethnologue identifies 168 Austroasiatic languages, of which 147 are Mon-Khmer languages and 21 are Munda languages. However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published, and it remains speculative.

Each of the subdivisions of the classification below that is written in boldface type is accepted as a valid family. However, the relationships between these families within Austroasiatic is debated. It should be noted that little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore cannot be evaluated by peer review. The classification used here is that of Diffloth (in press), which does not accept traditional Mon-Khmer as a valid unit.

Munda languages (India)

Koraput (7 languages)
Core Munda languages

Kharian-Juang (2 languages)
North Munda languages

Korku (1 language)

Kherwarian (12 languages)

Khasi-Khmuic languages

Khasian (3 languages) of eastern India and Bangladesh.
Palaungo-Khmuic languages

Khmuic (13 languages) of Laos and Thailand.

Palaungo-Pakanic languages

Pakanic or Palyu (2 languages) of southern China

Palaungic (21 languages) of Myanmar, southern China, and Thailand, plus Mang of Vietnam.

Core Mon-Khmer languages

Khmero-Vietic languages

Vieto-Katuic languages

Viet-Muong or Vietic (10 languages) of Vietnam and Laos, includes the Vietnamese language, which has the most speakers of any Austroasiatic language. These are the only Austroasiatic languages to have highly developed tone systems.

Katuic (19 languages) of Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Khmero-Bahnaric languages

Bahnaric (40 languages) of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Khmeric languages

The Khmer language of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Pearic (6 languages) of Cambodia.

Nico-Monic languages

Nicobarese languages (6 languages) of the Nicobar Islands, a territory of India.

Asli-Monic languages

Aslian (19 languages) of peninsular Malaysia and Thailand.

Monic (2 languages) includes the Mon language of Myanmar and the Nyahkur language of Thailand.

There are in addition several unclassified languages of southern China.da:Austroasiatiske sprog de:Austroasiatische Sprachen es:Lenguas austroasiáticas fr:Langues austroasiatiques ko:오스트로아시아어족 id:Bahasa Austro-Asia lt:Austroazinės kalbos hu:Ausztroázsiai nyelvcsalád nl:Austroaziatische talen fi:Austroaasialaiset kielet vi:Hệ ngôn ngữ Nam Á zh:南亚语系