Palaungic languages
| Palaungic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | Indochina |
| Linguistic classification | Austroasiatic
|
| Glottolog | east2331 (East Palaungic) west2791 (West Palaungic) |
 | |
The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages form a branch of the Austroasiatic languages.
Most of the Palaungic languages lost the contrastive voicing of the ancestral Austroasiatic 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
Diffloth & Zide (1992)
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).
- Western Palaungic (Palaung–Riang)
- Eastern Palaungic
Some researchers include the Mangic languages as well, instead of grouping them with the Pakanic languages.
Sidwell (2010)
The following classification follows the branching given by Sidwell (2010, ms).[2]
Sidwell (2014)[6] proposes an additional branch, consisting of:
References
- ^ http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/svantesson1991hu.pdf
- ^ Three Austroasiatic branches and the ASJP (Fig. 23)
- ^ Hall, Elizabeth. 2010. A Phonology of Muak Sa-aak. M.A. thesis, Payap University.
- ^ a b http://ic.payap.ac.th/wp-content/uploads/linguistics_students/Myint_Myint_Phyu_Thesis.pdf
- ^ a b http://ic.payap.ac.th/wp-content/uploads/linguistics_students/Wendy_Chamberlain_Thesis.pdf
- ^ Sidwell, Paul. 2014. "Khmuic classification and homeland". Mon-Khmer Studies 43.1:47-56
Further reading
- Gordon, Darren. (2013) ''A selective Palaungic linguistic bibliography. Mon-Khmer Studies vol. 42 Mahidol University and SIL International.
- Cheeseman, Nathaniel; Elizabeth Hall and Darren Gordon. (2015) Palaungic Linguistic Bibliography with Selected Annotations. Mon-Khmer Studies vol. 44 pages i-liv.
- Sidwell, Paul. 2015. The Palaungic Languages: Classification, Reconstruction and Comparative Lexicon. München: Lincom Europa.
External links
- http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
- http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-6714-B@view Palaungic languages in RWAAI Digital Archive