Austro-Tai languages
Encyclopedia
Austro-Tai is a hypothesis that the Tai–Kadai and Austronesian
language families of southern China and the Pacific are genealogically related. Related proposals include Austric
(Paul K. Benedict
) and Sino-Austronesian
(Laurent Sagart
).
, and posited that Tai–Kadai and Austronesian had a sister relationship within Austric. This was not generally received well by linguists for a variety of reasons: Austric as a whole had not been demonstrated; Benedict dealt mostly with typological evidence, which could be explained as areal features; he erroneously included a number of demonstrable Chinese loans in his reconstruction; and his methods of reconstruction
were idiosyncratic and considered unreliable. For example, Thurgood (1994) examined Benedict's claims and concluded that since the sound correspondences and tonal developments were irregular, there was no evidence of a genealogical relationship, and the numerous cognates must be chalked up to early language contact.
However, the fact that many of the Austro-Tai cognates are found in core vocabulary, which is generally resistant to borrowing, continued to intrigue scholars. There were later several advances over Benedict's approach: Abandoning the larger Austric proposal; focusing on lexical reconstruction and regular sound correspondences; including data from additional branches of Tai–Kadai, Hlai and Kra; using better reconstructions of Tai–Kadai; and reconsidering the nature of the relationship, with Tai–Kadai possibly being a branch (daughter) of Austronesian.
Ostapirat (2000) reconstructed proto-Kra, one of the least-well attested branches of Tai–Kadai. In (Ostapirat 2005) he presents fifty core vocabulary items found in all five branches of Tai–Kadai, and demonstrated that half of them—words such as child, eat, eye, fire, hand, head, I, you, louse, moon, tooth, water, this, etc.—can be related to proto-Austronesian by regular sound correspondences, a connection which Reid (2006) finds convincing.
Austronesian is characterized by disyllabic roots, whereas Tai–Kadai is predominantly monosyllabic. It appears that in Tai–Kadai, the first vowel reduced
and then dropped out, leaving a consonant cluster
which frequently reduced further to a single consonant. For example, the proto-Austronesian root *qudip "live, raw" corresponds to proto-Kra (k-)Dep > Laha ktʰop and Tai dip "id." (the *-D- consonant is Ostapirat's voiced plosive of undetermined quality, probably alveolar as opposed to dental articulation ).
In proto-Tai–Kadai, there appear to have been three tones in words ending in a sonorant
(vowel or nasal consonant), labeled simply A, B, C, plus words ending in an stop consonant
, D, which did not have tone. In general, Austronesian words ending in a sonorant correspond to A, and words ending in a stop correspond to D. This accounts for most of the words. There are also a few cognates with B and C tone. From Indic borrowings it appears that tone B was originally a final h in Tai–Kadai, and some of the corresponding Austronesian roots also end in h, such as AN *qəmpah "chaff", Kam–Sui paa-B (Mulam kwaa-B), though there are few examples to go on. Tone C seems to have originally been creaky voice
or a final glottal stop. It may correspond to *H, a laryngeal consonant
of uncertain manner, in proto-Austronesian (AN *quluH "head", Thai klau-C), but again the number of cognates is too low to draw firm conclusions.
Sagart (2005) builds on this data with a newly described Kra language, Buyang
, which—like many other Kra languages
—retains the disyllabic roots characteristic of Austronesian. Some examples are:
! Root !!Buyang!!Proto-MP
|-
|"to die"||matɛ́||*matay
|-
|"eye"||matá||*mata
|-
|"head"||qaðù||*quluH
|-
|"eight"||maðû||*walu
|-
|"bird"||manùk||*manuk
|-
|"flower"||maŋà||*buŋah
|}
The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database project included both Buyang and Old Chinese
. It found what it identified in Buyang as 16 retentions in common with Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and 21 retentions in common with Proto-Oceanic (as opposed to five loans) out of a sample of 181 etyma. Old Chinese was identified as having 11 retentions in common with Proto Malayo-Polynesian and 10 retentions in common with Proto-Oceanic out of a sample of 197 Old Chinese etyma.
or Guangdong
as part of the neolithic Longshan culture
. The spread of the Tai–Kadai peoples may have been aided by agriculture, but any who remained near the coast were eventually absorbed by the Chinese.
Sagart, on the other hand, holds that Tai–Kadai is a branch of Austronesian which migrated back to the mainland from northeastern Formosa long after Formosa was settled, but probably before the expansion of Malayo-Polynesian out of Formosa. The language was then largely relexified
from what he believes may have been an Austro-Asiatic language. Robert Blust
(1999) suggests that proto-Tai–Kadai speakers originated in the northern Philippines and migrated from there to Hainan island (hence the diversity of Tai–Kadai languages on that island), and were radically restructured following contact with Hmong–Mien and Sinitic
.
However, Ostapirat maintains that Tai–Kadai could not descend from Malayo-Polynesian in the Philippines, and likely not from the languages of eastern Formosa either. His evidence is in the Tai–Kadai sound correspondences, which reflect Austronesian distinctions that were lost in Malayo-Polynesian and even Eastern Formosan. These are proto-AN *t and *C, also *n and *N, which were distinct in proto-Tai–Kadai but which fell together as *t and *n in proto-MP and Eastern Formosan; and *S, which is *s in proto-Tai–Kadai but *h in proto-MP. There are also Austro-Tai roots which are not attested from Malayo-Polynesian, such as *Cumay "bear". (Western MP has *biRuaŋ.)
Sagart proposes an Eastern Formosan–Malayo-Polynesian connection with Tai–Kadai, based on words such as proto-Tai–Kadai *maNuk and Eastern Formosan *manuk "bird", as compared to proto-Austronesian, where the word for "bird" was *qayam, and *maNuk meant "chicken", and a few other words such as *lima "five" and *-mu "thou" which have not been reconstructed for proto-Austronesian. However, Ostapirat notes Tai–Kadai retains the Austronesian *N in this word, which had been lost from Eastern Formosan and Malayo-Polynesian, and that a change in meaning from "chicken" to "bird" could easily have happened independently, for example among proto-Tai–Kadai speakers when they borrowed the mainland word *ki "chicken" (cognate with Old Chinese
*kej and Miao
/qai/).
Sagart suggests that Austro-Tai is ultimately related to the Sino-Tibetan languages
, forming a Sino-Austronesian
family. The Proto-Sino-Austronesian speakers would have originated from the Neolithic communities of the coastal regions of prehistoric North China
or East China
. Ostapirat, by contrast, sees connections with the Austro-Asiatic languages
(in Austric), as Benedict had. Reid notes that the two approaches are not incompatible, if Austric is valid and can be connected to Sino-Tibetan.
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
language families of southern China and the Pacific are genealogically related. Related proposals include Austric
Austric languages
The Austric language superfamily is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the...
(Paul K. Benedict
Paul K. Benedict
Paul K. Benedict was an American linguist who specialized in languages of East and Southeast Asia. He is well-known for his 1942 proposal of the Austro-Tai language family and also his reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan and Proto-Tibeto-Burman.-References:...
) and Sino-Austronesian
Sino-Austronesian languages
-See also:*Classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages*Austric languages*Austro-Tai languages*Dené–Caucasian languages*Austronesian languages*Sino-Tibetan languages*Old Chinese language*Tibeto-Burman languages*Haplogroup O *Languages of China...
(Laurent Sagart
Laurent Sagart
Laurent Sagart is a director of research at the Centre de recherches linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale unit of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique . Born at Paris in 1951, he earned his Ph.D. in 1977 at the University of Paris 7 and his Doctorat d'Etat in 1990 at University of...
).
Origins
The Tai–Kadai languages contain numerous similar forms with Austronesian which were noticed as far back as Schlegel in 1901. These are considered to be too many to explain as chance resemblance. The question then is whether they are due to language contact—that is, borrowing—or to common descent—that is, a genealogical relationship.The evidence
The first proposal of a genealogical relationship was that of Paul Benedict in 1942, which he expanded upon through 1990. This took the form of an expansion of his Austric phylumAustric languages
The Austric language superfamily is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the...
, and posited that Tai–Kadai and Austronesian had a sister relationship within Austric. This was not generally received well by linguists for a variety of reasons: Austric as a whole had not been demonstrated; Benedict dealt mostly with typological evidence, which could be explained as areal features; he erroneously included a number of demonstrable Chinese loans in his reconstruction; and his methods of reconstruction
Comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor, as opposed to the method of internal reconstruction, which analyzes the internal...
were idiosyncratic and considered unreliable. For example, Thurgood (1994) examined Benedict's claims and concluded that since the sound correspondences and tonal developments were irregular, there was no evidence of a genealogical relationship, and the numerous cognates must be chalked up to early language contact.
However, the fact that many of the Austro-Tai cognates are found in core vocabulary, which is generally resistant to borrowing, continued to intrigue scholars. There were later several advances over Benedict's approach: Abandoning the larger Austric proposal; focusing on lexical reconstruction and regular sound correspondences; including data from additional branches of Tai–Kadai, Hlai and Kra; using better reconstructions of Tai–Kadai; and reconsidering the nature of the relationship, with Tai–Kadai possibly being a branch (daughter) of Austronesian.
Ostapirat (2000) reconstructed proto-Kra, one of the least-well attested branches of Tai–Kadai. In (Ostapirat 2005) he presents fifty core vocabulary items found in all five branches of Tai–Kadai, and demonstrated that half of them—words such as child, eat, eye, fire, hand, head, I, you, louse, moon, tooth, water, this, etc.—can be related to proto-Austronesian by regular sound correspondences, a connection which Reid (2006) finds convincing.
Austronesian is characterized by disyllabic roots, whereas Tai–Kadai is predominantly monosyllabic. It appears that in Tai–Kadai, the first vowel reduced
Vowel reduction
In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word , and which are perceived as "weakening"...
and then dropped out, leaving a consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
which frequently reduced further to a single consonant. For example, the proto-Austronesian root *qudip "live, raw" corresponds to proto-Kra (k-)Dep > Laha ktʰop and Tai dip "id." (the *-D- consonant is Ostapirat's voiced plosive of undetermined quality, probably alveolar as opposed to dental articulation ).
In proto-Tai–Kadai, there appear to have been three tones in words ending in a sonorant
Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
(vowel or nasal consonant), labeled simply A, B, C, plus words ending in an stop consonant
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
, D, which did not have tone. In general, Austronesian words ending in a sonorant correspond to A, and words ending in a stop correspond to D. This accounts for most of the words. There are also a few cognates with B and C tone. From Indic borrowings it appears that tone B was originally a final h in Tai–Kadai, and some of the corresponding Austronesian roots also end in h, such as AN *qəmpah "chaff", Kam–Sui paa-B (Mulam kwaa-B), though there are few examples to go on. Tone C seems to have originally been creaky voice
Creaky voice
In linguistics, creaky voice , is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather tightly, becoming relatively slack and compact...
or a final glottal stop. It may correspond to *H, a laryngeal consonant
Laryngeal consonant
A laryngeal consonant is generally synonymous with a glottal consonant; that is, with , , and .Besides the glottis , the larynx includes the epiglottis and aryepiglottic folds, though epiglottal and aryepiglottal consonants are usually counted as radical rather than as laryngeal...
of uncertain manner, in proto-Austronesian (AN *quluH "head", Thai klau-C), but again the number of cognates is too low to draw firm conclusions.
Sagart (2005) builds on this data with a newly described Kra language, Buyang
Buyang language
Buyang is a Tai–Kadai language spoken in Guangnan and Funing counties, Yunnan Province, China by the Buyang people. It is important to the reconstruction of Austro-Tai as it retains the disyllabic roots characteristic of Austronesian languages. Examples are "to die", "eye", "head", and "eight"...
, which—like many other Kra languages
Kra languages
The Kra languages , also called Gēyāng in China, are a branch of the Tai–Kadai family spoken in southern China and in northern Vietnam. Out of the entire Tai–Kadai family, the Kra branch is the least studied...
—retains the disyllabic roots characteristic of Austronesian. Some examples are:
-
-
-
- {| class=wikitable
-
-
! Root !!Buyang!!Proto-MP
|-
|"to die"||matɛ́||*matay
|-
|"eye"||matá||*mata
|-
|"head"||qaðù||*quluH
|-
|"eight"||maðû||*walu
|-
|"bird"||manùk||*manuk
|-
|"flower"||maŋà||*buŋah
|}
The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database project included both Buyang and Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
. It found what it identified in Buyang as 16 retentions in common with Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and 21 retentions in common with Proto-Oceanic (as opposed to five loans) out of a sample of 181 etyma. Old Chinese was identified as having 11 retentions in common with Proto Malayo-Polynesian and 10 retentions in common with Proto-Oceanic out of a sample of 197 Old Chinese etyma.
The relationship
Among scholars who accept the evidence as definitive, there is disagreement as to the nature of the relationship. Benedict attempted to show that Tai–Kadai has features which cannot be accounted for by proto-Austronesian, and that therefore it must be a separate family coordinate with Austronesian (a sister relationship). Ostapirat concluded that these reconstructed linguistic features are spurious. However, he could not rule out the possibility that Tai–Kadai tone cannot be explained, and so leaves the question open pending further reconstruction of proto-Austronesian. He supports the consensus hypothesis of several scholars that proto-Austronesian was spoken on Formosa or adjacent areas of coastal China, and that the likely homeland of proto-Tai–Kadai was coastal FujianFujian
' , formerly romanised as Fukien or Huguing or Foukien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, and Guangdong to the south. Taiwan lies to the east, across the Taiwan Strait...
or Guangdong
Guangdong
Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the People's Republic of China. The province was previously often written with the alternative English name Kwangtung Province...
as part of the neolithic Longshan culture
Longshan culture
The Longshan culture was a late Neolithic culture in China, centered on the central and lower Yellow River and dated from about 3000 BC to 2000 BC...
. The spread of the Tai–Kadai peoples may have been aided by agriculture, but any who remained near the coast were eventually absorbed by the Chinese.
Sagart, on the other hand, holds that Tai–Kadai is a branch of Austronesian which migrated back to the mainland from northeastern Formosa long after Formosa was settled, but probably before the expansion of Malayo-Polynesian out of Formosa. The language was then largely relexified
Relexification
Relexification is a term in linguistics used to describe the mechanism of language change by which one language replaces much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, with that of another language, without drastic change to its grammar. It is principally used to describe pidgins, creoles,...
from what he believes may have been an Austro-Asiatic language. Robert Blust
Robert Blust
Robert A. Blust is a prominent linguist in several areas, including historical linguistics, lexicography and ethnology. Blust specializes in the Austronesian languages and has made major contributions to the field of Austronesian linguistics....
(1999) suggests that proto-Tai–Kadai speakers originated in the northern Philippines and migrated from there to Hainan island (hence the diversity of Tai–Kadai languages on that island), and were radically restructured following contact with Hmong–Mien and Sinitic
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
.
However, Ostapirat maintains that Tai–Kadai could not descend from Malayo-Polynesian in the Philippines, and likely not from the languages of eastern Formosa either. His evidence is in the Tai–Kadai sound correspondences, which reflect Austronesian distinctions that were lost in Malayo-Polynesian and even Eastern Formosan. These are proto-AN *t and *C, also *n and *N, which were distinct in proto-Tai–Kadai but which fell together as *t and *n in proto-MP and Eastern Formosan; and *S, which is *s in proto-Tai–Kadai but *h in proto-MP. There are also Austro-Tai roots which are not attested from Malayo-Polynesian, such as *Cumay "bear". (Western MP has *biRuaŋ.)
Sagart proposes an Eastern Formosan–Malayo-Polynesian connection with Tai–Kadai, based on words such as proto-Tai–Kadai *maNuk and Eastern Formosan *manuk "bird", as compared to proto-Austronesian, where the word for "bird" was *qayam, and *maNuk meant "chicken", and a few other words such as *lima "five" and *-mu "thou" which have not been reconstructed for proto-Austronesian. However, Ostapirat notes Tai–Kadai retains the Austronesian *N in this word, which had been lost from Eastern Formosan and Malayo-Polynesian, and that a change in meaning from "chicken" to "bird" could easily have happened independently, for example among proto-Tai–Kadai speakers when they borrowed the mainland word *ki "chicken" (cognate with Old Chinese
Old Chinese
The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at a site near modern Anyang identified as Yin, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, and date from about 1200 BC....
*kej and Miao
Miao language
Miao refers to the various languages of the Miao peoples of China. The Miao languages are part of the Hmong–Mien language family. It is written with Chinese characters or the Latin alphabet...
/qai/).
Sagart suggests that Austro-Tai is ultimately related to the Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
, forming a Sino-Austronesian
Sino-Austronesian languages
-See also:*Classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages*Austric languages*Austro-Tai languages*Dené–Caucasian languages*Austronesian languages*Sino-Tibetan languages*Old Chinese language*Tibeto-Burman languages*Haplogroup O *Languages of China...
family. The Proto-Sino-Austronesian speakers would have originated from the Neolithic communities of the coastal regions of prehistoric North China
North China
thumb|250px|Northern [[People's Republic of China]] region.Northern China or North China is a geographical region of China. The heartland of North China is the North China Plain....
or East China
Eastern China
Eastern China or East China may mean:* East China* East China Township, Michigan - East China Charter Township in Michigan, USA* ECNU - East China Normal University* Northeast China* Northeast China Plain* Southeast China-See also:...
. Ostapirat, by contrast, sees connections with the Austro-Asiatic languages
Austro-Asiatic languages
The Austro-Asiatic languages, in recent classifications synonymous with Mon–Khmer, are a large language family of Southeast Asia, also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name Austro-Asiatic comes from the Latin words for "south" and "Asia", hence "South Asia"...
(in Austric), as Benedict had. Reid notes that the two approaches are not incompatible, if Austric is valid and can be connected to Sino-Tibetan.