The Khasic or Khasian languages are a

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Austroasiatic languages 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 ...

native to the Shillong Plateau and spoken by the Khasi, Pnar and other related ethnic groups. Most of them reside in the northeastern Indian state of

Meghalaya Meghalaya (; "the abode of clouds") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeast India. Its capital is Shillong. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the Assam: the United Khasi Hills an ...

where Khasi speakers form a plurality of the population. Smaller Khasic-speaking pockets are found in

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

Manipur Manipur () is a state in northeastern India with Imphal as its capital. It borders the Indian states of Assam to the west, Mizoram to the south, and Nagaland to the north and shares the international border with Myanmar, specifically t ...

Mizoram Mizoram is a states and union territories of India, state in northeastern India, with Aizawl as its Capital city, capital and largest city. It shares 722-kilometres (449 miles) of international borders with Bangladesh to the west, and Myanmar t ...

and

Sylhet Division Sylhet Division () is a northeastern Divisions of Bangladesh, division of Bangladesh, renowned for its lush tea gardens, rolling hills and vibrant cultural heritage. Covering an area of approximately 12,298 square kilometres, it is bordered by t ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

Languages

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

War War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

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

(2011) suggests that Khasian is closely related to Palaungic, forming a Khasi–Palaungic branch. The following eight Khasian- Palaungic 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 any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...

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 In historical linguistics, a sound change 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. The sounds invo ...

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