There have been various classification schemes for

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

n languages (see the articles for the respective language families).

Language families

The five established major language families are: *

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

* Austronesian * Hmong–Mien * Kra–Dai *

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan language. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 ...

Isolates and small families

A number of language groups in

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northeast India. It was formed from the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and India declared it as a state on 20 February 1987. Itanagar is its capital and la ...

traditionally considered to be

(

Tibeto-Burman The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak ...

) may in fact constitute independent language families or isolates (

Roger Blench Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...

2011). (See Language isolates and independent language families in Arunachal.) * Potential language isolates and independent language families in Arunachal: Digaro, Hrusish (including the Miji languagesBlench, Roger. 2015
''The Mijiic languages: distribution, dialects, wordlist and classification''
m.s.), Midzu, Puroik, Siangic, and Kho-Bwa * The two

Andamanese The Andamanese are the various indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal. The Andamanese are a designated Scheduled Tribe in Indi ...

language families:

Great Andamanese The Great Andamanese are an indigenous people of the Great Andaman archipelago in the Andaman Islands. Historically, the Great Andamanese lived throughout the archipelago, and were divided into ten major tribes. Their distinct but closely rela ...

and Ongan *

Language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...

s and languages with isolate substrata of Southeast Asia: Kenaboi, Enggano, and the

Philippine Negrito languages The Negrito peoples of the Philippines speak various Philippine languages. They have more in common with neighboring languages than with each other, and are listed here merely as an aid to identification. Classification The following languages are ...

Manide and Umiray Dumagat

Macrofamilies

Several

macrofamily A macrofamily (also called a superfamily or superphylum) is a term often used in historical linguistics to refer to a hypothetical higher order grouping of languages. Metonymically, the term became associated with the practice of trying to group ...

schemes have been proposed for linking multiple language families of Southeast Asia. None of these proposals have been accepted by mainstream comparative linguistics, though research into higher-level relationships among these languages has gained some renewed scholarly interest over the last three decades; the various hypotheses are still under investigation, and the validity of each has yet to be resolved. * Austro-Tai links the Austronesian and Kra–Dai languages. Several linguists, including

Laurent Sagart Laurent Sagart (; born 1951) is a senior researcher at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale (CRLAO – UMR 8563) unit of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Biography Born in Paris in 1951, he earned ...

, Stanley Starosta, Weera Ostapirat and Lawrence Reid,Reid, Lawrence A. (2006). "Austro-Tai Hypotheses". pp. 609–610 in Keith Brown (editor in chief), ''The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics'', 2nd edition. accept or theorize a close relationship between these families, but the specifics of the relationship remain unclear. Multiple models of the internal branching of Austro-Tai have been put forward, and Austro-Tai has been incorporated as a subgroup within some larger macrofamily schemes, e.g. in Starosta's ''East Asian'' as well as in Sagart's model of Austronesian (see below), both of which regard Kra–Dai as a subfamily within Austronesian. A few versions of Austro-Tai have included Japonic and/or the isolate Ainu as well, though these have not been met with as much acceptance. * Miao–Dai (Kosaka 2002) is a hypothesis for a family including Miao–Yao (Hmong–Mien) and Kra–Dai. * Sino-Austronesian (Sagart 2004, 2005) links Austro-Tai (''Austronesian'') with Sino-Tibetan (''Tibeto-Burman''). *

Austric The Austric languages are a proposed language family that includes the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as Kra–Dai and Austroasiatic languages spoken in Mainland Sou ...

links all of the major language families of Southeast Asia apart from Sino-Tibetan. Several variants of the Austric hypothesis have been proposed since it took shape with Paul K. Benedict's proposal (1942). Some of these also incorporate Japonic, Korean and/or Ainu. One version called the "Greater Austric" hypothesis ( Bengtson 1996) includes Ainu as well as Nihali, a language isolate of India. * The "Proto-Asian hypothesis" or "Austro-Asian" (Larish 2006) argues for lexical evidence of relationship among all of the languages typically included in Austric as well as Japanese–Korean and Sino-Tibetan.Larish, Michael D. 2006
Possible Proto-Asian Archaic Residue and the Statigraphy of Diffusional Cumulation in Austro-Asian Languages
Paper presented at the Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, 17–20 January 2006, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines. *

East Asian East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

(Starosta 2005) covers all of these families (except Japonic, Koreanic, Ainu and Nihali) as well as Sino-Tibetan. It posits Austronesian (including Kra–Dai) as the most divergent branch, coordinate with a primary branch ''Sino-Tibetan–Yangzian'' which links Sino-Tibetan with a clade called ''Yangzian'' (or ''Yangtzean''), named for the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

river, which includes Austroasiatic and Hmong–Mien. * In a different direction, the Dené–Caucasian or Sino-Caucasian hypothesis links Sino-Tibetan to

Yeniseian The Yeniseian languages ( ; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak;" Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages of Khanty and ...

and North Caucasian, the proposal later expanded to include

Na-Dene Na-Dene ( ; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included but is now general ...

Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...

and

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

. On the basis of

lexicostatistics Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...

Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguistics, historical linguist and philology, philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including hi ...

additionally hypothesized an even larger Dené–Daic macrofamily which incorporates both Dené–Caucasian and Austric as primary branches. Genetic similarities between the peoples of East and Southeast Asia have led some scholars such as

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...

to speculate about " Haplogroup O languages".

Proto-languages

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 in ...

br>
**

Proto-Malayo-Polynesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian (PMP) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which is by far the largest branch (by current speakers) of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Malayo-Polynesian is ancestral to all Austronesia ...

br>
*** Visayan languages#Reconstruction, Proto-Visayan languagebr>
*** Proto-Malayic languagebr>
*** Chamic languages#Reconstruction, Proto-Chamic languagebr>
*** Proto-Oceanic language, Proto-Oceanicbr>
**** Proto-Polynesian language, Proto-Polynesianbr>
* Proto-Kra–Dai language, Proto-Kra–Dai ** Proto-Krabr>
** Proto-Kam–Sui language, Proto-Kam–Suibr>
** Proto-Hlai language, Proto-Hlaibr>
** Proto-Tai language, Proto-Taibr>
* Proto-Austroasiatic language, Proto-Austroasiaticbr>
http://sealang.net/monkhmer/dictionary/] ** Proto-Palaungic language, Proto-Palaungic ** Proto-Khmeric ** Proto-Aslian ** Proto-Munda *

Proto-Sino-Tibetan Proto-Sino-Tibetan (PST) is the linguistic reconstruction of the Sino-Tibetan proto-language and the common ancestor of all languages in it, including the Sinitic languages, the Tibetic languages, Yi, Bai, Burmese, Karen, Tangut, and Naga. ...

Old Chinese language Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...

br>
** Proto-Tibeto-Burman language, Proto-Tibeto-Burmanbr>
*** Proto-Loloish language, Proto-Loloishbr>
*** Proto-Karenic language, Proto-Karenic * Proto-Hmong–Mienbr>
**Proto-Hmongi

** Proto-Mienic language, Proto-Mienicbr>

Comparison

The following table compares the phonemic inventories of various recently 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 ...

s of

Maps of language families

References

External links

* Hartmann, John (Professor of Thai).
Outline: Spoken and Written Languages of Southeast Asia
"

Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. It was founded as "Northern Illinois State Normal School" in 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, initially to provide the state with c ...

. * Migliazza, Brian. 2004
Southeast Asia Language Families

''Hanzangyu yuyin he cihui'' 汉藏语语音和词汇
(2017), comparative lexicon of languages in all major East Asian language families {{navboxes bottom Languages of Southeast Asia

Southeast Asian Southeast Asia is the geographical southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Australian mainland, which is part of Oceania. Southeast Asia is ...