Palaungic languages

Palaungic
Geographic distribution:	Indochina
Linguistic classification:	Austro-Asiatic Khasi–Khmuic Palaungo-Khmuic Palaungo-Pakanic Palaungic
Subdivisions:	—

The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages form a branch of the Austro-Asiatic languages.

Most of the Palaungic languages lost the contrastive voicing of the ancestral Austro-Asiatic consonants, with the distinction often shifting to the following vowel. In the Wa branch, this is generally realized as breathy voice vowel phonation; in Palaung–Riang, as a two-way register tone system. The Angkuic languages have contour tone — the U language, for example, has four tones, high, low, rising, falling, — but these developed from vowel length and the nature of final consonants, not from the voicing of initial consonants.

Classification

The Palaungic family includes at least three branches, with the position of some languages as yet unclear. Lamet, for example, is sometimes classified as a separate branch. The following classification follows that of Diffloth & Zide (1992), as quoted in Sidwell (2009:131).

• Eastern Palaungic (Palaung–Riang)
  • Palaung
    • Shwe (Gold Palaung, De'ang)
    • De'ang
    • Pale (Silver Palaung, Ruching)
    • Rumai
  • Riang
    • Riang proper, Yinchia
    • ? Danau (perhaps in Palaung–Riang)
• Western Palaungic
  • Angkuic
    • Hu ([1])
    • Kiorr
    • Kon Keu (Angku)
    • Man Met
    • Mok
    • Samtao (Samtau)
    • Tai Loi
    • U (Pouma)
  • Lametic
    • Lamet (Xmet)
    • Con
  • Waic
    • Blang
    • Lawa
      • La
      • Lawa
    • Wa
      • Paraok (Standard Wa)
      • Khalo
      • Awa

Some researchers include the Mangic languages as well, instead of grouping them with the Pakanic languages.

External links

• Palaungic languages page from Ethnologue