Seminar Series: Abstract

11.00
September 11 2009
Seminar Room C

Is there a Northern Mon-Khmer sub-branch? Measuring the diversity of the Austroasiatic languages
Paul Sidwell, Linguistics RSPAS

The Austroasiatic phylum consists of a dozen or so recognised banches, with varying views as to how these banches may or may not group into families or sub-families. An important aspect of this problem is the long standing identification of a "Northern Mon-Khmer" grouping that includes at least the Palaungic languages, and optionally also the Khmuic, Khasian, Mangic, Vietic or even Munda languages. The solution of this question is vitally important to understanding the history of Austroasiatic, but has been difficult to properly investigate for various reasons. In particular, we have lacked adequate language documentation, and failed to adequately pursue comparative reconstruction.

In this seminar I discuss my reconstruction of proto Palaungic (in progress) and the comparison of Palaungic with other branches mentioned above. My preliminary results strongly suggest that Palaungic and Khasian probably do sub-group, but beyond this it is difficult to find any basis for nested sub-grouping among Austroasiatic branches. Such a result further supports my recent claims that the centre of Austroasiatic diversity is found in Indo-China.

An abstract with a map can be viewed here.