Austric languages

Austric
(controversial)
Geographic
distribution		 Southeast Asia, South Asia, Taiwan, Madagascar, East Asia
Linguistic classification proposed language family
Subdivisions
Glottolog None

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Map of the Austric languages.

Austric is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the Austroasiatic language family of mainland Southeast Asia, Eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The hypothesis of a genetic relationship between these two language families is not widely accepted among linguists.

Related proposals include Sino-Austronesian (Laurent Sagart) and Austro-Tai (Paul K. Benedict).

History

The Austric superfamily was first proposed by the German missionary Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906. He showed phonological, morphological, and lexical evidence to support the existence of an Austric superfamily, but the lexical evidence was considered to be tenuous by the larger linguistic community. Consequently, the Austric hypothesis has never gained wide acceptance. In 1942, Paul K. Benedict extended the Austric hypothesis to include the Tai–Kadai languages and the Hmong–Mien (Miao–Yao) languages.

Despite the tenuous lexical evidence, the relationship of Austronesian with either Austroasiatic or Tai–Kadai has many proponents to this day, mostly on morphological grounds. Some believe that recently discovered morphological similarities between Nicobarese and Austronesian constitute solid proof of a genetic relationship. Other researchers are still searching for the missing lexical link between Austronesian and Austroasiatic or Tai–Kadai. A good summary of the present state of the Austric hypothesis may be found in Reid 2005.

Linguistic tree of Austro-Tai languages

Murray Gell-Mann, Ilia Peiros, and Georgiy Starostin maintain that the Austric hypothesis is less well supported than several other linguistic macrofamilies, including Sino-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, and Afroasiatic since "no detailed proto-Austric glossaries or equally detailed tables of correspondences between the various daughter branches of Austric have been produced."[2] An expanded Greater-Austric has been suggested to include the Ainu languages and possibly the Nihali language though this is currently not a mainstream view.[3] In contrast to these older proposals subsumed under the label Austric, an exclusive relationship of Austronesian with the Ongan languages (but not other Andamanese languages) has been suggested (Blevins 2007). Echoing part of Benedict's version of the Austric proposal, Kosaka (2002) argued specifically for a Miao–Dai family.[4] In 2015 Alexander Vovin found striking similarities between proto-Japanese and Southeast Asian languages that do not exist in any other Northeast Asian language.[5]

Because of noteworthy similarities between Korean, Austronesian, Japanese and other Southeast Asian languages some linguists suggest a relation between Korean and the Austric family.[6]

A 2015 analysis using the Automated Similarity Judgment Program resulted in the Japonic languages being grouped with the Ainu and then with the Austroasiatic languages.[7]

Classification schemes

The following classification scheme, proposed by Paul K. Benedict, is the most commonly accepted one. Hmong–Mien languages are occasionally included, but are often rejected from the Austric superfamily.

Austric 


 Hmong–Mien  (?)


 Austroasiatic 


 Tai–Kadai 


 Austronesian 

 Japanese-Ryukyuan-Ainu 






Sergei Starostin, however, splits Austric into two main branches. The Austric branch would be considered to be most closely related to Dené–Caucasian, forming a Dene-Daic super-family:[8]

Austric 



  Hmong–Mien 

 Austroasiatic 



 Austro-Tai 


 Tai–Kadai 


 Austro-Japanese 


 Austronesian 

 Japanese-Ryukyuan-Ainu 





Distributions

Distribution of Tai–Kadai 
Distribution of Austroasiatic 
Distribution of Hmong–Mien languages 
Distribution of Austronesian languages 

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kim, Chin-Wu (1974). The Making of the Korean Language. Center of Korean Studies, University of Hawai'i.
  2. ↑ Gell-Mann, Murray; Peiros, Ilia; Starostin, George (2009). "Distant Language Relationship: The Current Perspective" (PDF). Journal of Language Relationship. 1: 13–30.
  3. ↑ Bengtson, John (2010). "The "Greater Austric" Hypothesis" (PDF).
  4. ↑ Kosaka, Ryuichi (2002). "On the affiliation of Miao-Yao and Kadai: Can we posit the Miao-Dai family" (PDF). Mon-Khmer Studies. 32: 71–100.
  5. ↑ Alexander, Vovin,. "Proto-Japanese beyond the accent system". Current Issues in Linguistic Theory.
  6. ↑ Kim, Chin-Wu (1974). The Making of the Korean Language. Center of Korean Studies, University of Hawai'i.
  7. ↑ Gerhard Jäger, "Support for linguistic macrofamilies from weighted sequence alignment." PNAS vol. 112 no. 41, 12752–12757, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1500331112. Published online before print September 24, 2015.
  8. ↑ van Driem, George (2005). "Sino-Austronesian vs. Sino-Caucasian, Sino-Bodic vs. Sino-Tibetan, and Tibeto-Burman as default theory" (PDF). In Yadava, Yogendra P. Contemporary Issues in Nepalese Linguistics. Linguistic Society of Nepal. pp. 285–338. ISBN 978-99946-57-69-8. (see page 309)

Relevant papers

  • Benedict, Paul K. 1976. Austro-Thai and Austroasiatic. In: Philip N. Jenner, Laurence C. Thompson, and Stanley Starosta, eds., Austroasiatic Studies, Part I, pp. 1–36. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
  • Blazhek, Vaclav. 2000. Comments on Hayes "The Austric Denti-alveolar Sibilants". Mother Tongue V:15-17.
  • Blevins, Juliette (2007). "A Long Lost Sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands". Oceanic Linguistics 46 (1): 154–198.
  • Blust, Robert. 1996. Beyond the Austronesian homeland: The Austric hypothesis and its implications for archaeology. In: Prehistoric Settlement of the Pacific, ed. by Ward H.Goodenough, ISBN 978-0-87169-865-0 DIANE Publishing Co, Collingdale PA, 1996, pp. 117–137. (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 86.5. (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society).
  • Blust, Robert. 2000. Comments on Hayes, "The Austric Denti-alveolar Sibilants". Mother Tongue V:19-21.
  • Diffloth, Gerard F. 1989. What Happened to Austric? Mon–Khmer Studies XVI-XVII:1-9.
  • Diffloth, Gerard. 1994. The lexical evidence for Austric so far. Oceanic Linguistics 33(2):309-321.
  • Fleming, Hal. 2000. LaVaughn Hayes and Robert Blust Discuss Austric. Mother Tongue V:29-32.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 1992. On the Track of Austric, Part I: Introduction. Mon–Khmer Studies XXI:143-77.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 1997. On the Track of Austric, Part II: Consonant Mutation in Early Austroasiatic. Mon–Khmer Studies XXVII:13-41.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 1999. On the Track of Austric, Part III: Basic Vocabulary Correspondence. Mon–Khmer Studies XXIX:1-34.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 2000. The Austric Denti-alveolar Sibilants. Mother Tongue V:1-12.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 2000. Response to Blazhek's Comments. Mother Tongue V:33-4.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 2000. Response to Blust's Comments. Mother Tongue V:35-7.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 2000. Response to Fleming's Comments. Mother Tongue V:39-40.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 2001. On the Origin of Affricates in Austric. Mother Tongue VI:95-117.
  • Hayes, La Vaughn H. 2001. Response to Sidwell. Mother Tongue VI:123-7.
  • Reid, Lawrence A. 1994. Morphological evidence for Austric. Oceanic Linguistics 33(2):323-344.
  • Reid, Lawrence A. 1996. The current state of linguistic research on the relatedness of the language families of East and Southeast Asia. In: Ian C. Glover and Peter Bellwood, editorial co-ordinators, Indo-Pacific Prehistory: The Chiang Mai Papers, Volume 2, pp . 87-91. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 15. Canberra: Australian National University.
  • Reid, Lawrence A. 1999. New linguistic evidence for the Austric hypothesis. In Selected Papers from the Eighth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, ed. by Elizabeth Zeitoun and Paul Jen-kuei Li, pp. 5–30. Taipei: Academia Sinica.
  • Reid, Lawrence A. 2005. The current status of Austric: A review and evaluation of the lexical and morphosyntactic evidence. In The peopling of East Asia: putting together archaeology, linguistics and genetics, ed. by Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas. London: Routledge Curzon.
  • Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1906. Die Mon–Khmer-Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens [The Mon–Khmer Peoples, a Link between the Peoples of Central Asia and Austronesia]. Archiv für Anthropologie, Braunschweig, new series, 5:59-109.
  • Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1930. Die Beziehungen der austrischen Sprachen zum Japanischen [The Connections of the Austric Languages to Japanese]. Wien Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik 1:239-51.
  • Shorto, H. L. 1976. In Defense of Austric. Computational Analyses of Asian and African Languages 6:95-104.
  • Sidwell, Paul. 2001. Comments on La Vaughn H. Hayes' "On the Origin of Affricates in Austric". Mother Tongue VI:119-121.
  • Van Driem, George. 2000. Four Austric Theories. Mother Tongue V:23-27.
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