| Palaungic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Indochina |
| Linguistic classification: | Austro-Asiatic
|
| Subdivisions: |
—
|
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 example, 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.
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.
Some researchers include the Mangic languages as well, instead of grouping them with the Pakanic languages.