Proto-Palaungic is the reconstructed

proto-language In the tree model of historical linguistics, a proto-language is a postulated ancestral language from which a number of attested languages are believed to have descended by evolution, forming a language family. Proto-languages are usually unatte ...

of the

Palaungic languages The Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages are a group of nearly 30 Austroasiatic languages, with scholars disagreeing on exactly which languages to include in the classification. They are spoken in scattered pockets across an inland region of South ...

mainland Southeast Asia Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

.Sidwell, Paul. 2015.
The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon
''. München: Lincom Europa.

Homeland

Paul Sidwell Paul James Sidwell is an Australian linguist based in Canberra, Australia, who has held research and lecturing positions at the Australian National University. Sidwell, who is also an expert and consultant in forensic linguistics, is most nota ...

(2015) suggests that the

Urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...

(homeland) of Proto-Palaungic was in what is now the border region of

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

and

Sipsongpanna Xishuangbanna, sometimes shortened to Banna, is one of the eight autonomous prefectures of Yunnan Province. The autonomous prefecture for Dai people is in the extreme south of Yunnan province, China, bordering both Myanmar and Laos. Xishuangbanna ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

, China. The

Khmuic The Khmuic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic languages spoken mostly in northern Laos, as well as in neighboring northern Vietnam and southern Yunnan, China. Khmu is the only widely spoken language in the group. Homeland Paul Sidwell ...

homeland was adjacent to the Palaungic homeland, resulting in many lexical borrowings among the two branches due to intense contact. Sidwell (2014) suggests that the word for 'water' (Proto-Palaungic *ʔoːm), which

Gérard Diffloth Gérard Diffloth (13 February 1939 – 14 August 2023) was a French linguist known as a leading specialist in the Austroasiatic languages. As a linguistics professor, he was employed at the University of Chicago and Cornell University. He receiv ...

had used as one of the defining lexical innovations for his Northern Mon-Khmer branch, was likely borrowed from Palaungic into Khmuic.

Reconstructed forms

The following list of Proto-Palaungic reconstructions, organized by semantic category, is from Sidwell (2015: 100-111). ;Personal pronouns ;Demonstratives * *nɔʔ ‘this (prox.)’ * *neʔ ‘this’ * *tVj ‘that (dist.)’ ;Numerals ;Cereal cultivation ;Agriculture and village economy ;Fruits and plant products ;Domesticated animals ;Invertebrates ;Housing and infrastructure

Lexical similarities with Khmuic

Sidwell (2015) notes that Palaungic and Khmuic share many lexical items, but considers this phenomenon to be a result of

lexical diffusion Lexical diffusion is the hypothesis that a sound change is an abrupt change that spreads gradually across the words in a language to which it is applicable. It contrasts with the Neogrammarian view that a sound change results from phonetically-condi ...

due to intense

language contact Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum ...

. Sidwell (2015:112-113) lists the following Proto-Palaungic forms as having diffused from Palaungic into Khmuic. ;Palaungic > Khmuic lexical forms * *ʔɔːt ‘wipe’ * *ʔiɛk ‘armpit’ * *ɓɤs ‘carry on head/back’ * *bliɛs ‘spear’ * *cəˀŋam ‘clear, clean’ * *criːl ‘gold’ * *gɔːʔ ‘friend; relative’ * *kərɗi(ː)ŋ ‘navel’ * *kɤːŋ ‘to dig’ * *kʋɤj ‘above, upper part’ * *laj ‘to trade’ * *mɔk ‘to fell’ * *(ʰ)ɲɤk ‘sticky’ * *tjaːk ‘

sambar deer The sambar (''Rusa unicolor'') is a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent, South China and Southeast Asia that is listed as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List since 2008. Populations have declined substantially due to severe huntin ...

’ Sidwell (2015:113) lists the following Proto-Palaungic forms as having diffused from Khmuic into Palaungic. ;Khmuic > Palaungic lexical forms * *ɟɤːl ‘light in weight’ * *kla(ː)w ‘testicles’ Sidwell (2015:114) lists the following Proto-Palaungic forms that are also shared with Khmuic but not with other Austroasiatic branches, and is unsure of whether they diffused from Palaungic to Khmuic or vice versa. * *-daːk ‘palm, sole’ * *-jaːŋ ‘female’ * *kəlɔːŋ ‘seed’ * *krlaːŋ ‘planet’ * *-nuːs ‘mouth’ * *tɤːʔ ‘smoke’ * *sŋɔːʔ ‘paddy rice’

References

*Sidwell, Paul and Felix Rau (2015). "Austroasiatic Comparative-Historical Reconstruction: An Overview." In Jenny, Mathias and Paul Sidwell, eds (2015). ''The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages''. Leiden: Brill. *Sidwell, Paul
Proto Palaungic phonology: reconstructing vowel lengths and qualities in a partially restructured system
* Shorto, Harry L. Sidwell, Paul, Doug Cooper and Christian Bauer, eds. 2006. ''A Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary''. Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics. . {{Austro-Asiatic languages Palaungic languages

Palaungic The Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages are a group of nearly 30 Austroasiatic languages, with scholars disagreeing on exactly which languages to include in the classification. They are spoken in scattered pockets across an inland region of South ...

Homeland

Reconstructed forms

Lexical similarities with Khmuic

See also

References