Classifying the Austroasiatic languages: History and state of the art

166 Pages·6.832 MB·English

by  Sidwell Paul.

Figures
Figure 2.1: Przylusky’s (1924) listing of six Mon-Khmer groups......................................35
Figure 2.2: Map of Austroasiatic languages by Przyluski (1924)......................................36
Figure 2.3: Maspero’s “Famille Mon-Khmer” (1929)......................................................36
Figure 2.4: Austroasiatic languages by Pinnow (1959).....................................................39
Figure 2.5: Austroasiatic languages by Pinnow (1963, 278).............................................40
Figure 2.6: Austroasian languages by Shafer (1965).........................................................43
Figure 2.7: Mon-Khmer sub-groupings by Thomas & Headley (1970).............................45
Figure 2.8: Mon-Khmer sub-groupings by Matras & Ferlus (1971; 1972).......................46
Figure 2.9: Austroasiatic sub-groupings listed by Diffloth (1974)....................................47
Figure 2.10: Austroasiatic languages by Headley (ms., reproduced in Headley 1976)....50
Figure 2.11: Mon-Khmer classification by Diffloth (1991b, citing an unidentified 1979
paper)............................................................................................................58
Figure 2.12: Austroasiatic classification by Diffloth (2005)..............................................58
Figure 2.13: Mon-Khmer languages by Sidwell (2005).....................................................62
Figure 3.1: Corresponding Aslian classifications (Matisoff’s Fig.1, 2003:9)...................67
Figure 3.2: Bahnaric classification by Thomas (1966)......................................................74
Figure 3.3: Bahnaric classification by Thomas & Headley (1970)...................................74
Figure 3.4: Bahnaric classification by Gregerson et al. (1976)........................................76
Figure 3.5: Bahnaric classification by Thomas (1979)......................................................77
Figure 3.6: Bahnaric classification by Smith (1981) (modified to remove non-Bahnaric
elements)..........................................................................................................78
Figure 3.7: Classification of Bahnaric languages by Diffloth (1991a)..............................79
Figure 3.8: Bahnaric classification by Diffloth & Zide (1992)..........................................80
Figure 3.9: Classification of Bahnaric languages by Diffloth (2005) (extracted from
larger diagram)...............................................................................................81
Figure 3.10: Classification of Bahnaric languages by Chazée (1999; 1995), citing
Diffloth (1989) as the source (note displacement of sub-branch labels in
the original)....................................................................................................81
Figure 3.11: Classification of North-West Bahnaric languages by Theraphan Luang-
Thongkum (2001)...........................................................................................82
Figure 3.12: Bahnaric classification by Luang-Thongkum (2002)....................................82
Figure 3.13: Classification of Bahnaric languages by Jacq & Sidwell (2000)..................84
Figure 3.14: Classification of Bahnaric languages by Sidwell (2002) (redrawn from
original for clarity)........................................................................................84
Figure 3.15: Katuic languages by Thomas (1966).............................................................87
Figure 3.16: East Katuic classification by Thomas (1967)................................................88
Figure 3.17: Katuic languages by Thomas & Headley (1970)).........................................88
Figure 3.18: So-Souei languages by Ferlus (1974)............................................................89
Figure 3.19: Katuic stammbaum suggested by Smith’s (1981) lexicostatistics.................90
Figure 3.20: Katuic sub-groups by Miller & Miller (1996)...............................................91
Figure 3.21: Katuic classification by Peiros (1996)..........................................................92
Figure 3.22: Katuic classification by Theraphan L-Thongkum (2001)..............................92
Figure 3.23: Katuic classification by Sidwell (2005).........................................................93
Figure 3.24: Lexicostatistical matrix and stammbaum for five Khasian languages,
by Sidwell.....................................................................................................103
Figure 3.25: Development of Khmer dialects (Ferlus 1992)............................................107
Figure 3.26: Khmuic languages by Filbeck (1978:25).....................................................108
ii
Figure 3.27: Khmuic languages by Chazée (1999) citing Diffloth & Proschan..............109
Figure 3.28: Nyah Kur dialects from Diffloth (1984).......................................................114
Figure 3.29: Proposed Monic stammbaum.......................................................................114
Figure 3.30: Munda language relationships by Pinnow (1959).......................................119
Figure 3.31: Munda language relationships by Zide (1969)............................................119
Figure 3.32: Munda sub-groups by Bhattacharya (1975)................................................120
Figure 3.33: Munda language relationships by Bhattacharya (1975).............................120
Figure 3.34: Munda language relationships by Zide & Zide (1976)................................121
Figure 3.35: Munda classification revised by Anderson (2001)......................................121
Figure 3.36: Palaung-Wa classification by Schmidt (1904).............................................127
Figure 3.37: Palaungic languages listed by Diffloth (1974)............................................128
Figure 3.38: Palaungic classification by Shafer (1952, 112)...........................................128
Figure 3.39: Pinnow’s West-Untergruppe (=Palaungic) (1959).....................................129
Figure 3.40: Mitani’s (1977) classification of Palaung dialects......................................129
Figure 3.41: Classification of Waic dialects by Diffloth (1980)......................................130
Figure 3.42: Palaungic classification by Diffloth & Zide (1992).....................................131
Figure 3.43: Palaungic classification by languages by Chazée (1999; 1995), citing
Diffloth (1989) as the source........................................................................131
Figure 3.44: Palangic classification by Peiros (2004, 40-41).........................................132
Figure 3.45: Mangic classification by Peiros (2004, 39).................................................132
Figure 3.46: Pakanic classified with Palangic by Diffloth (2005)...................................133
Figure 3.47: Pearic classification by Headley (1985)......................................................135
Figure 3.48: Pearic classification by Peiros (2004, 24)...................................................136
Figure 3.49: Pearic classification by Isara Choosri (2007, 99).......................................136
Figure 3.50: Pearic classification by Sidwell...................................................................137
Figure 3.51: List of Vietic languages by Ferlus (1974)....................................................140
Figure 3.52: Vietic (“Viet-Muong”) languages by Ferlus (1979) (highlighting the
position of Thavưng)....................................................................................141
Figure 3.53: Synthesis of various Vietic lexicostatistical studies.....................................144
Figure 3.54: Vietic languages by Hayes (1992)...............................................................144
Figure 3.55: Vietic classification by from Chazée (1999), citing Diffloth (1989) as the
source...........................................................................................................145
Tables
Table 1.1: Branches of Austroasiatic...................................................................................3
Table 2.1: Mason’s Talaing-Kole comparisons (Mason 1854, 282–283)............................7
Table 2.2: Comparison of numerals by Forbes (1881, 49).................................................13
Table 2.3: Comparison of numerals by Blagden (1894, 15)..............................................15
Table 2.4: Austroasiatic classification by Schmidt (1906, 25)...........................................22
Table 2.5: Austroasiatic numeral cognates from Przylusky (1924:386)............................34
Table 2.6: Austroasiatic numeral cognates from Przylusky (1924:386)............................34
Table 2.7: Summary of lexicostatistical results of Thomas (1966)....................................44
Table 2.8: Lexicostatistical matrix by Huffman (1978).....................................................48
Table 3.1: Aslian lower numerals by Blagden (1906, 455)................................................66
Table 3.2: Lexicostatistical tables from Gregerson, Smith and Thomas (1976)................75
Table 3.3: Bahnaric lexicostatistical matrix by Thomas (1979)........................................77
Table 3.4: Katuic component of Smith’s (1981) lexicostatistical matrix of 45 languages 90
Table 3.5: Katuic lexicostatistical matrix by Migliazza (1992).........................................91
Table 3.6: “Lexical similarity chart” by Brighthill et al. (2007, 17)................................102
Table 3.7: Comparative Khasi-Amwi data from Weidert (1975, 2-3).............................104
Table 3.8: Data from Brightbill et al. (2007)...................................................................104
Table 3.9: Historical stages of Khmer..............................................................................107
Table 3.10: Khmuic languages by Proschan (1996).........................................................109
Table 3.11: Nyah Kur dialects from Theraphan L-Thongkum (1984).............................113
Table 3.12: Census if India data for Nicobars
(www.andaman.org/NICOBAR/book/history/Britain/Hist-Britain.htm).....124
Table 3.13: Pearic lexicostatistical matrix by Thomas & Headley (1970).......................135
Table 3.14: Pearic lexicostatistical matrix by Martin (1974)...........................................135
Table 3.15: Hayes (1982, 218) lexicostatistical data for four Vietic languages
(his “Figure 2. Vocabulary Comparison and Cognate Percentages”)...........143
Table 3.16: Lexicostatistical matrix of four Vietic and three Katuic(*) languages by
Nguyễn Văn Lợi (1993)................................................................................143
Table 3.17: Chamberlain’s “Fig.1. Suggested Vietic Subgroups”(2003, 422)................145

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Plates
Plate 1: Fragment of “A Language Map of India” by Cust (1878) (with Mon-Anam in
yellow and Munda in orange)...............................................................................11
Plate 2: Fragment of “Map of languages of Further India” by Cust (1878), with Mon-
Anam languages (in yellow).................................................................................12
Plate 3: Fragment of Grierson’s (1903) map of Dravido-Munda languages......................17
Plate 4: Fragment of Grierson’s (1903) map of Indo-Chinese languages..........................18
Plate 5: From top left, clockwise: Map of Austroasiatic languages (Schmidt 1906: facing
p.25); Map of Austric languages (Schmidt 1906:facing p.70); Map of
Austroasiatic languages (fragment of Schmidt [1926] Karte I: Die Sprachen von
Europa und Asian)................................................................................................23
Plate 6: Map of Austroasiatic languages (fragment of Schmidt [1926] Karte III: Die
austische Sprachfamilie in Austrasien, Indonesien, Ozeanien) and Karte VII:
Übersichtskarte der Sprachen des Erdreises)........................................................24
Plate 7: Map of ‘Mon-Annan family’ and related languages (Blagden 1906, 442)...........27
Plate 8: Map of ‘Mon-Annan dialects of Eastern Indo-China’ (Blagden 1906, 440).........28
Plate 9: Pages 8-9 of Grierson (1919).................................................................................31
Plate 10: Fragment of “Map indicating the Locations in Austroasiatic and Pronominalized
Himalayan Languages are spoken in India” (Grierson 1927).............................32
Plate 11: Map of Austroasiatic languages by Pinnow (1959)............................................41
Plate 12: Shorto (ms.) lexicostatistical matrix based on 50-word list, 17 languages
(M=Mon, Khm=Khmer, Kuy, Sre, Chr=Chrau, Biat, Bah=Bahnar,
KY=KammuYuan, Th=Thin, Pal=Palaung, RL-RingLang, LawaU, Khs=Khasi,
Vn=Vietnamese, Ks=Kensiu, Tem=Temiar, Sl=Semelai, Nic=Nicobarese)......52
Plate 13: Shorto (ms.) Mon-Khmer stammbäume, from lexicostatistics extending the 146
word list of Benjamin (1976) (top) and from lexicostatistical analysis of
Huffman’s (ms.) 20 MK languages data (below)................................................53
Plate 14: Map of Mon-Khmer languages (Diffloth 1979)..................................................56
Plate 15: Austroasiatic classification by Diffloth (1980), cited by Matisoff (1991) (top)
and (1989), cited by Chazée (1999) (below).......................................................57
Plate 16: Lexicostatistical matrix of Austroasiatic languages (Peiros 1998) (top) and
Austroasiatic classification by Peiros (1998) (below).........................................60
Plate 17: Austroasiatic classification by Peiros (2004)......................................................61
Plate 18: Clockwise from left: Aslian classification by Diffloth (1976, 80), showing detail
of Senoic (Central) sub-branch based upon historical phonology; Nico-Monic
branch of Austroasiatic, extracted from Diffloth (2005); Aslian classification by
Benjamin (Benjamin 1976, 59 & 66: his Figures 4b,3 & 2 respectively)...........68
Plate 19: Aslian classification by Peiros (2004, 35)...........................................................69
Plate 20: “Sketch map showing the distribution of the Languages of the Aborigines of the
Malay Peninsula” (Skeat and Blagden 1906, facing p.386)................................70
Plate 21: Map of Aslian languages (Diffloth 1975, 8).......................................................71
Plate 22: Map of Aslian languages (Benjamin 2004).........................................................72
Plate 23: Classification of Bahnaric languages by Peiros (2004).......................................85
Plate 24: Fragment of map from Ferlus (1974) (edited to remove non-Bahnaric elements
for clarity)............................................................................................................86
Plate 25: Katuic lexicostatistical matrix by Miller & Miller (1996)..................................94
Plate 26: Katuic classification by Peiros (2004).................................................................95
Plate 27: Fragment of map from Ferlus (1974) (edited to remove non-Katuic elements
for clarity)............................................................................................................96
Plate 28: Map of Katuic languages by Sidwell (2005, 4)...................................................97
Plate 29: Fragment of “A Language Map of India and its Border Lands” (Cust 1878)
(top) and “Map showing the area in which the Khassi language and its dialects
are spoken”(Grierson 1904) (below).................................................................105
Plate 30: Map of Khasian language area by Fournier (1974) (top) and Map of Khasian
language extracted and enlarged from van Driem (2001, 280) (below)...........106
Plate 31: Khmuic languages by Peiros (2004, 39)...........................................................110
Plate 32: Map of “Kammu Dialects” by Svantesson (1983, 3) (top) and Map of “Khmu
Dialects” by Premsrirat (2002) (below)............................................................111
Plate 33: Map of Mon dialects by Diffloth (1984)..........................................................115
Plate 34: Map of Mon dialects by Jenny (2005, 262)......................................................116
Plate 35: Map of Nyah Kur dialects by Diffloth (1984)...................................................117
Plate 36: Munda language relationships by Peiros (2004)...............................................122
Plate 37: Map of Munda language relationships by Anderson (2008, 2).........................123
Plate 38: Map of Nicobaric languages after Man (1923).................................................126
Plate 39: Maps of Pearic languages by Headley (1977, 70) (top), and Isara Choosri
(2007, 7) (below)...............................................................................................138
Plate 40: Map of Pearic communities by Baradat (1941)................................................139
Plate 41: Vietic languages by Peiros (2004, 37)..............................................................142
Plate 42: Map of Vietic languages by Ferlus (1998, 27)..................................................146
Plate 43: Map by Ferlus (1989, 54)..................................................................................147
vi
1 Introduction
The present survey is intended to serve as a reference work and a somewhat modest
historiography of the field. I offer thanks to those who have helped and encouraged me to
make this compilation1, and offer my apologies to anyone who feels that their work has
been passed over. What you see here are my own research notes on the theme of
Austroasiatic classification, edited together in the hope that they may be useful to others.
Being a rather curious thing, the origins of this volume deserve some remarks. In the
first place, I had earlier intended to write a sort of companion volume to Parkin’s (1991) A
Guide to Austroasiatic Speakers and their Languages. It had always struck me that that
work had somewhat neglected the issue of classification; since by straightforwardly
reporting widely received classifications, it barely hinted at the real complexities of
geneological relations among and the languages, and the range of conflicting views to be
found in the scholarly literature. This was not remarkable; the field of Austroasiatic studies
has always lacked adequate survey works, with much of the vital literature to be found in
obscure books and hard to find journals and dissertations. The journal Mon-Khmer Studies
enjoyed a very limited distribution until it recently went online (at www.mksjournal.org),
and even the best collections, such as the two volumes of papers from the first
International Conference of Austroasiatic Languages (ICAAL) held in Hawaii (Jenner et
al. 1976) have lacked much needed programmatic overviews (the second ICAAL, held in
Mysore in 1978, did not even yield a volume).
As my own research progressed, I became more aware that the technical literature has
offered many conficting suggestions regarding classification. In that context, it seemed a
reasonable approach to say less rather than more, and I began to sympathize with the often
bland statements offered in reference works. Then, having procrastinated for too long, in
early 2008 I was approached to prepare a briefing paper for the Multitree Project
(www.linguistlist.org/multitree). For this task I assembled a fifty page report, which was
afterwards expanded upon to produce the present survey.
So what is so important about the classification Austroasiatic languages? The phylum2
spans South and Southeast Asia, with more than 150 languages over a dozen branches.
Speaker communities vary from villages of just a few dozens up to national languages such
as Cambodian and Vietnamese with millions of speakers. Much of the territory has been
divided and overlain by incoming waves of speakers of other groups (Indic, Dravidian,
Sino-Tibetan, Tai, Hmong-Mien, Austronesian), creating a vast region of ethnolinguistic
diversity. To understand exactly how this state of affairs has arisen is to reveal the history

1 I thank the following colleagues for their advice: Doug Cooper, Michel Ferlus, Robert Headley, Franklin
Huffman, Christian Bauer, Gregory Anderson, Anne Daladier; Rachel Hendery (ANU) for typesetting;
and Amelia McKenzie and staff of Asian Collections of the National Library of Australia where this book
was largely completed. The NLA’s extensive holdings, especially the Luce and Coedes collections, were
invaluable to my research. The present work was made possible by financial assistance provided by the
National Endowment for the Humanities (Washington DC); any views, findings, conclusions or
recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. All errors and omissions in this work are my own.
2 A note on terminology: here I have tried to keep consistently to the following hierarchy of terms: phylum
> family > sub-family > branch > sub-branch > language. For example: Austroasiatic > Mon-Khmer >
Eastern-Mon-Khmer> Bahnaric > North-Bahnaric > Sedang. The terms ‘division’ and ‘group’ are used
without implying specific hierarchical status.
1
2 Austroasiatic Classification
of the peopling of Southeast Asia, the emergence and spread of agriculture in the region,
and the origins of some of our most remarkable civilizations. But this history is not directly
accessible. Useful written records in SEAsia only begin from around the second half of the
first Millennium, so we are forced to turn to comparative linguistics and allied fields of
inquiry in order to infer this prehistory. Otto Blagden, writing a century ago on the
aborigines of Malaya, offered precisely this programmatic insight:
These tribes, surrounded as they are by men of different faiths and alien races who
despise them and regard them as little better than brute beasts, have no recorded
history; barely a few allusions to their mere existence are to be found in Malay
literature, and practically nothing whatever is on record that can throw any light on
their origin and antecedents. It is to their physical structure, their customs, and above
all to their languages that we must turn if we would gain any insight into their past.
(Blagden 1906, 384)
It is language classification in particular that yields preliminary useful results. The
correlation of geography and geneology permits inferences concerning homeland locations,
migration routes, contacts, and time depths, providing vital research orientation. In this
context, it is both intriguing and frustrating that, after more than a century of comparative
Austroasiatic studies, scholars have yet to present an explicitly justified and comprehensive
internal genetic classification of the phylum.
For sure, there are various proposals in print, and in unpublished sources such as
dissertations, conference presentations, and manuscripts circulating informally. But when
these disparate sources are tracked down, compared, and analysed, it becomes abundantly
clear that there is no scholarly consensus on:
 the relations between Austroasiatic branches,
 the absolute age or diversity of Austroasiatic,
 an appropriate program for addressing these issues
Consequently, the field is yet to benefit significantly from extensive multidisciplinary
research. Scholars eager to pursue the synthesis of archaeology, genetics and linguistics are
exasperated, such as recently expressed by Roger Blench:
Austroasiatic languages are the most poorly researched of all those under discussion.
Many are not documented at all and some recently discovered in China are effectively
not classified. The genetics of Austroasiatic speakers are almost unresearched.
Austroasiatic is conventionally divided into two families, Mon-Khmer (in SE Asia)
and Mun(cid:31)d(cid:31)ā (in India). Diffloth (2005, 79) now considers Austroasiatic to have
three primary branches but no evidence for these realignments has been published.
Indeed Austroasiatic classification has been dogged by a failure to publish data,
making any evaluation of competing hypotheses by outsiders a merely speculative
exercise.
(Blench 2008, 117-118)
And similar sentiments have been voiced by scholars somewhat closer to the facts:
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.
(Nagaraja In press)
These are not simply arcane matters for linguists. Other fields of inquiry are keen to
discover the facts of Austroasiatic history and are turning to the linguists for advice.
Anthropological genetics is positively booming, especially since the 1990s (e.g. since