Talk:Bahnaric languages
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The Bahnaric family is one of the largest and most diverse Austroasiatic branches: it is composed of at least 30 distinct languages spoken by approximately 700,000 people, mostly hill-tribes, living in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It is a very old family that has become typologically diverse as it split into sub-branches. Some Bahnaric languages share less than 40% of basic vocabulary, which indicates an historical separation of around 3000 years. It appears that in ancient times Bahnaric split into three principal branches that we can identify on the basis of unique phonological developments. In addition to the internal history of each branch, there were also complex overlapping external influences as variously the Chams, Khmer, Thais/Laos and Vietnamese have ruled over and fought over Bahnaric territory. The story of the development of the Bahnaric languages is thus a complex tale that we are only now beginning to properly understand. As the languages are all unwritten until modern times, and most are only partly known from fieldwork, comparative reconstruction is necessarily incomplete, but it is now yeilding useful and more or less reliable results.
According to my classification (http://www.anu.edu.au/~a108009), the Bahnaric languages are related as follows:
* West Bahnaric:
Jru', Nyaheun, Oi, Laveh, Brao etc.
* North Bahnaric:
Sedang, Hrê, Rengao, Jeh, Halang etc.
* Central Bahnaric:
West Central: Kasseng, Taliang, Yaeh
North Central: Alak
East Central: Cua
South Central: Tampuon; Bahnar; South Bahnaric
Both the West and North Bahnaric sub-branches are relatively young dialect chains, within which the languages are quite close and obviously related. On the other hand Central Bahnaric is more internally diverse, with the languages spread out over widely separated communities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 150.203.229.195 (talk • contribs) 03:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
