The East Asian languages are a

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...

(alternatively ''

macrofamily In historical linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily or phylum, is a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families (also isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ...

'' or ''superphylum'') proposed by Stanley Starosta in 2001. The proposal has since been adopted by

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch linguist associated with the University of Bern, where he is the chair of Historical Linguistics and directs the Linguistics Institute. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Grammar ...

Classifications

Early proposals

Early proposals of similar linguistic macrophyla, in narrower scope: *''Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Kra-Dai, Tibeto-Burman'':

August Conrady August Conrady (Chi. 孔好古) (28 April 1864, Wiesbaden - 4 June 1925, Leipzig) was a German sinologist and linguist. From 1897 he was professor at the University of Leipzig. Conrady first studied classical philology, comparative linguistics and ...

(1916, 1922) and Kurt Wulff (1934, 1942) *''Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien'':

Paul K. Benedict Paul King Benedict (; July 5, 1912 – July 21, 1997) was an American anthropologist, mental health professional, and linguist who specialized in languages of East and Southeast Asia. He is well known for his 1942 proposal of the Austro-Tai ...

(1942),

Robert Blust Robert A. Blust (; ; May 9, 1940 – January 5, 2022) was an American linguist who worked in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. He was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Blu ...

(1996),

Ilia Peiros Ilia Peiros (full name: Ilia Iosifovich Peiros, Илья Иосифович Пейрос; born 1948) is a Russian linguist who specializes in the historical linguistics of East Asia. Peiros is a well-known scholar in the Moscow School of Compa ...

(1998) *''Austroasiatic, Austronesian, Kra-Dai, Tibeto-Burman, Hmong-Mien'': Stanley Starosta (2001) Precursors to the East Asian proposal: *''Austro-Tai'' (Kra-Dai and Austronesian):

Gustave Schlegel Gustaaf Schlegel (30 September 184015 October 1903) was a Dutch sinologist and field naturalist. E. Bruce Brooks (9 June 2004)Gustaaf Schlegel, Sinology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, retrieved 17 September 2011 Life and career Gustaaf S ...

(1901, 1902), Weera Ostapirat (2005) *''Austric'' (Austroasiatic and Austronesian): Wilhelm Schmidt (1906),

Lawrence Reid Lawrence Andrew Reid (often known as Laurie Reid) is an American linguist who specializes in Austronesian languages, particularly on the morphosyntax and historical linguistics of the Philippine languages. Education Reid graduated with an MA in ...

(1994, 2005)

Starosta (2005)

Stanley Starosta's (2005) East Asian proposal includes a "Yangzian" branch, consisting of

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...

and Hmong–Mien, to form an East Asian superphylum. However, Starosta believes his proposed Yangzian to be a direct

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

of Sino-Tibetan rather than Austronesian, which is more distantly related to Sino-Tibetan as a sister of Sino-Tibetan-Yangzian. He concludes Proto-East Asian was a

disyllabic A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...

(CVCVC) language spoken from 6,500 to 6,000 BCE by

Peiligang culture The Peiligang culture was a Neolithic culture in the Yi-Luo river basin (in modern Henan Province, China) that existed from 7000 to 5000 BC. Over 100 sites have been identified with the Peiligang culture, nearly all of them in a fairly comp ...

and

Cishan culture The Cishan culture (6500–5000 BC) was a Neolithic culture in northern China, on the eastern foothills of the Taihang Mountains. The Cishan culture was based on the farming of broomcorn millet, the cultivation of which on one site has been d ...

millet Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets a ...

farmers on the

North China Plain The North China Plain or Huang-Huai-Hai Plain () is a large-scale downfaulted rift basin formed in the late Paleogene and Neogene and then modified by the deposits of the Yellow River. It is the largest alluvial plain of China. The plain is border ...

(specifically the Han River,

Wei River The Wei River () is a major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It is the largest tributary of the Yellow River and very important in the early development of Chinese civilization. The source of the Wei River is close to ...

, and central

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

areas). *East Asian ** Austronesian ***(various Formosan branches) ***Extra-Formosan **** Tai–Kadai ****

Malayo-Polynesian The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southea ...

**Sino-Tibetan-Yangzian ***

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

***Yangzian ****

**** Hmong–Mien Starosta (2005) proposes the following Proto-East Asian morphological affixes, which are found in

Proto-Tibeto-Burman Proto-Tibeto-Burman (commonly abbreviated PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Tibeto-Burman languages, that is, the Sino-Tibetan languages, except for Chinese. An initial reconstruction was produced by Paul K. Benedict and since refined ...

and

Proto-Austronesian Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify ...

, as well as in some morphologically conservative Austroasiatic branches such as Nicobaric. * *m(V)- 'agent of V-ing' * *-Vn 'patient of V-ing' * *sV- 'instrument of V-ing' * *n(V)- 'perfective'

van Driem (2012)

The following tree of East Asian superphylum (macrofamily) was proposed by

in 2012 at the 18th Himalayan Languages Symposium, held at the

Benares Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916. ...

.van Driem, George. 2013.
East Asian ethnolinguistic phylogeography
", ''Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics'', 7 (1): 135-188. *East Asian **

Austro-Tai The Austro-Tai languages, sometimes also Austro-Thai languages, are a proposed language family that comprises the Austronesian languages and the Kra–Dai languages. Related proposals include Austric ( Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906) and Sino-Austron ...

*** Kradai *** Austronesian **

**Himalayan-Yangtzean *** Trans-Himalayan **** Sino-Bodic **** Burmo-Qiangic **** Brahmaputran **** Gongduk, etc. ****

Kiranti The Kirati people, also spelled as Kirant or Kiranti, are a Sino-Tibetan ethnic group. They are peoples of the Himalayas, mostly the Eastern Himalaya extending eastward from Nepal to North East India (predominantly in the Indian state of Sikkim ...

, etc. ***Yangtzean **** Hmong–Mien Geographic distributions of Y chromosome haplogroups O in East Asia

According to van Driem, the linguistic evidence for the East Asian languages matches the genetic evidence from Y-DNA Haplogroup O. (Further information:

Father Tongue hypothesis The Father Tongue hypothesis proposes that humans tend to speak their father's language. It is based on the discovery, in 1997, of a closer correlation between language and Y-chromosomal variation than between language and mitochondrial DNA varia ...

)

Larish (2006, 2017)

According to Michael D. Larish, the languages of Southeast and East Asia descended from one proto-language (which he calls "Proto-Asian"). Japonic is grouped together with

Koreanic Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean, but is distinct enough to be considered a separate language. Alexander Vovin suggests that the Yukjin dialec ...

as one branch of the Proto-Asian family. The other branch consists of the Austronesian,

, Kra-Dai, Hmong-Mien and

Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages ...

. *East Asian **Japano-Koreanic *** Japonic ***

**Austro-Asian *** Austronesian ***

*** Kra-Dai *** Hmong-Mien ***

Vocabulary comparison

Below is a comparison of basic vocabulary items for proto-languages of all 5 East Asian language families. ;Sources *

: Matisoff (2015) * Proto-Hmong-Mien: Ratliff (2010) *

Proto-Austroasiatic Proto-Austroasiatic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austroasiatic languages. Proto-Mon–Khmer (i.e., all Austroasiatic branches except for Munda) has been reconstructed in Harry L. Shorto's ''Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary'', while a ...

: Sidwell & Rau (2015) *

: Blust & Trussel (2020) *

Proto-Tai Proto-Tai is the reconstructed proto-language (common ancestor) of all the Tai languages, including modern Lao, Shan, Tai Lü, Tai Dam, Ahom, Northern Thai, Standard Thai, Bouyei, and Zhuang. The Proto-Tai language is not directly atteste ...

: Pittayaporn (2009) * Proto-Hlai: Norquest (2007) *

Proto-Kra Proto-Kra is the reconstructed ancestor of the Kra languages. It was reconstructed in 2000 by Weera Ostapirat in his Ph.D. dissertation. Lower-level reconstructions Ostapirat (2000) provided preliminary phonological reconstructions for severa ...

: Ostapirat (2000)Ostapirat, Weera. 2000.
Proto-Kra
." ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'' 23 (1): 1-251.

Distributions

Notes and references

External links

Papers on the East Asian languages by George van Driem
{{Eurasian languages Proposed language families