Palaungic languages

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The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung-Wa languages form a branch of the Austro-Asiatic languages.

Most of the Palaungic languages lost the contrastive voicing of the ancestral Austro-Asiatic consonants, with the distinction often shifting to the following vowel. In the Wa branch, this is generally realized as breathy voice vowel phonation; in Palaung-Riang, as a two-way register tone system. The Angkuic languages have contour tone — the U language, for exmple, has four tones, high, low, rising, falling, — but these developed from vowel length and the nature of final consonants, not from the voicing of initial consonants.

[edit] Classification

The Palaungic family includes at least three branches, with the position of some languages as yet unclear. Lamet, for example, is sometimes classified as a separate branch.

Palaung-Riang: Shwe (Gold Palaung, De'ang), Pale (Silver Palaung), Rumai, Riang, Yinchia, ? Lamet
? Danau (perhaps in Palaung-Riang)
Angkuic: Angku, Hu, Mok, Samtao, U (Pouma)
Waic: Blang, La, Lawa, Paraok (Wa proper), Phalok (Khalo)