The Khasic or Khasian languages are a

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Austroasiatic languages 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 t ...

spoken in the northeastern Indian state

Meghalaya Meghalaya (, or , meaning "abode of clouds"; from Sanskrit , "cloud" + , "abode") is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: (a) the United Khasi Hills and J ...

and neighbouring areas of

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

Languages

Sidwell (2018: 27–31) classifies the Khasian languages as follows. ;Proto-Khasian *

War War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

(Amwi, Mnar) *Proto–Pnar-Khasi-Lyngngam ** Lyngngam (former Garo-speakers) ** Pnar (Jaintia),

Khasi Khasi may refer to: * Khasi people, an ethnic group of Meghalaya, India * Khasi language, a major Austroasiatic language spoken in Meghalaya, India * Khāṣi language, an Indo-Aryan language of Jammu and Kashmir, India See also * Khasi Hills * ...

, Maharam (Maram) Varieties called ''Bhoi'' are dialects of both Pnar and Khasi.

External relationships

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 notab ...

(2011) suggests that Khasian is closely related to

Palaungic The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages. Phonological developments Most of the Palaungic languages lost the contrastive voicing of the ancestral Austroasiatic consonants, with the disti ...

, forming a Khasi–Palaungic branch. The following eight Khasian-

isoglosses have been identified by Sidwell (2018: 32).

Lexical innovations

Sidwell (2018: 23) lists the following Khasian lexical innovations (i.e., defining lexical forms) that are found exclusively in the Khasian branch, but not in other Austroasiatic branches).

Reconstruction

Proto-Khasian and Proto-Pnar-Khasi-Lyngngam have been reconstructed by

(2018). Proto-Khasian is estimated to have originated about 2,000-2,500 years ago, with War splitting from other Khasian linguistic varieties about 1,500 years ago (Sidwell 2018: 20). Proto-Khasian morphology includes a causative *pN- prefix and verbalizing *-r- infix (Sidwell 2018: 66-67). The following reconstructed paradigmatic and closed class

morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...

s in Proto-Khasian are from Sidwell (2018: 51-67). ;Personal pronouns ;Demonstratives * *ni 'proximal' * *tu 'mesiodistal' * *taj 'distal (visible)' * *te 'mesioproximal' * *tɛ 'distal (non-visible)' ;Negators * *ʔǝm 'not' * *ham 'do not' * *ta 'not' ;Prepositions/case markers * *ha 'locative/oblique' * *ʤɔŋ 'to possess' * *da 'instrumental' * *ba (?) 'and/with' * *tV 'oblique' ;Tense/aspect morphemes * *la:j 'to go' * *dɛp 'finish' * *diʔ 'to go' * *daː 'have' * *ʤuʔ 'same' ;Morphological affixes * *pN- 'prefix' * *-r- 'verbalizer' ;Numerals

Sound changes

Sidwell (2018) lists the following

sound change A sound change, in historical linguistics, is a change in the pronunciation of a language. A sound change can involve the replacement of one speech sound (or, more generally, one phonetic feature value) by a different one (called phonetic chan ...

s from Pre-Khasian (i.e., the ancestral stage of Khasian that preceded Proto-Khasian) to Proto-Khasian. *Pre-Khasian *b- > *p-, *ɓ- > *b-

chain shift In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds as well. The soun ...

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 ...

*b- > proto-Khasian *p- **

*ɓ- > proto-Khasian *b- *Pre-Khasian *d- > *t-, * ɗ- > *d-

*d- > proto-Khasian *t- **

*ɗ- > proto-Khasian *d- *Pre-Khasian *-l > *-n/*-Ø *Pre-Khasian *-h > *-s > *-t *Pre-Khasian *-ʔ > *-Ø >, *-k > *-ʔ

*Pre-Khasian *g- > *k-

References

*Sidwell, Paul. 2011. Proto-Khasian and Khasi-Palaungic.
Journal of the South East Asia linguistics society
', Vol. 4.2, pages 144-168, December 2011. *Sidwell, Paul. 2011b.
Proto-Khasian (or -War-Khasi); reconstruction and classification
'. Presented at SEALS 21, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand. *Sidwell, Paul. 2018. ''The Khasian Languages: Classification, Reconstruction, and Comparative Lexicon''. Languages of the World 58. Munich: Lincom Europa.

External links

Khasian Languages Project
(by

) {{Languages of Northeast India