The Bahnaric languages are a group of about thirty Mon–Khmer languages spoken by about 700,000 people in Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

, Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

, and Laos

Laos

Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...

. Paul Sidwell

Paul Sidwell

Paul Sidwell is a researcher and director at the Centre for Research in computational Linguistics and the Australian National University. Sidwell is a leading specialist in Mon-Khmer languages, especially the Katuic and Bahnaric branches.-Publications:...

 notes that Austroasiatic/Mon–Khmer languages are lexically more similar to Bahnaric and Katuic the closer they are geographically, independently of which branch of the family they belong to, but that Bahnaric and Katuic do not have any shared innovations that would suggest that together they form a branch of the Austroasiatic family.
Internal diversity suggests that the family broke up about 3000 years ago.

• North Bahnaric: a dialect chain north of the Chamic languages
  Chamic languages
  The Chamic languages, also known as Aceh–Chamic and Achinese–Chamic, are a group of ten languages spoken in parts of Cambodia, Vietnam, and Hainan, classified as Malayic languages in the Austronesian language family....
  
  , including
  • Sedang
    Sedang language
    Sedang is an Austro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern Laos and the Kon Tum Province in south central Vietnam. The Sedang language is the most populous of the North Bahnaric language group, which are known for their range of vowel phonations.-Consonants:...
    
    
  • Halang
    Halang language
    Halang, also known as Salang, is a Bahnaric language of the Mon–Khmer branch of the Austroasiatic language family. It is spoken in the southern Laotian province of Attapu by approximately 4000 people and in the neighboring Kon Tum Province of Vietnam by approximately 13,500 people .In more specific...
    
    
  • Halang Doan
    Halang Doan language
    Halang Doan is a language spoken by more than four thousand people on either side of the Laotian–Vietnamese border. There are some 2,346 speakers in Attopu Province, Laos, and another couple of thousand in Kon Tum Province, Vietnam....
    
    
  • Jeh
    Jeh language
    Jeh is a language spoken by more than fifteen thousand people in Vietnam. There are also several thousand speakers in the provinces of Xekong and Attapu in Laos....
    
    
  • Hrê
  • Rengao
    Rengao language
    Rengao is a North Bahnaric language. It is spoken in parts of south and central Vietnam. A 1973 survey indicated that there were around 15,000 native speakers...
    
    
  • etc.

• West Bahnaric: a dialect chain to the west of North Bahnaric, including:
  • Brao–Kavet: Lave (Brao), Kru'ng, Kravet, Sou
  • Laven
    Laven language
    Laven is a Mon–Khmer language of Laos....
    
    
  • Nyaheun
  • Oi–The: Jeng
    Jeng language
    Jeng is a Mon–Khmer language spoken by over seven thousand people in Attopu Province, southern Laos....
    
    , Oy
    Oy language
    Oy is a Mon–Khmer language of Laos. 80% of speakers are monolingual....
    
    , Sok, Sapuan, The

• Central Bahnaric: a language family divided by the Chamic languages
  • Alak
    Alak language
    Alak is a language spoken by some 4,000 people in southern Laos, especially in the Provinces of Salavan and Sekong . It is closely related to the language spoken by the Bahnars of Vietnam....
    
    
  • Cua
  • West Central: Kassang/Taliang, Yaeh
  • South Central: to the southwest of Chamic:
    • Tampuon
      Tampuan
      The Tampuan are an indigenous ethnic group living in northeast Cambodia. Numbering about 25,000, the Tampuan people live in the mountainous Southern and Western portions of the Cambodian province of Ratanakiri. They have their own language of the Mon–Khmer language family...
      
      
    • Bahnar
      Bahnar language
      The Bahnar language is a Central Bahnaric language. It has nine vowel qualities and phonemic vowel length....
      
      
• South Bahnaric languages:
  • Stieng–Chrau: Chrau
    Chrau language
    Chrau is a Bahnaric language spoken by some 22,000 people in southern Vietnam. Unlike most languages of Southeast Asia, Chrau has no lexical tone, though it does have significant sentence intonation.-External links:*...
    
    , Bulo Stieng
  • Sre–Mnong: Koho, Mnong
    Mnong language
    The Mnong language belongs to the Mon–Khmer language family. It is spoken by the different groups of Mnong in Vietnam and a Mnong group in Cambodia. Four major dialects exist: Central, Eastern and Southern Mnong , and Kraol . Within a dialect group, members do not understand other dialects...
    
    ,
  • Budeh Stieng

Kassang is a Bahnaric language (Sidwell 2003), though Ethnologue lists it as Katuic.

Further reading

• Jacq, P., & Sidewell, P. (2000). A comparative West Bahnaric dictionary. Languages of the world, 21. München: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 3895865583
• Sidwell, P. (2000). Proto South Bahnaric: a reconstruction of a Mon–Khmer language of Indo-China. Pacific linguistics, 501. Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. ISBN 0858834448
• Keller, C. E. (1976). A grammatical sketch of Brao, a Mon–Khmer language. Grand Forks, N.D.: Summer Institute of Linguistics, University of North Dakota Session. OCLC: 2915938
• Smith, K. D. (1972). A phonological reconstruction of Proto-North-Bahnaric. Language data : Asian-Pacific series, no. 2. Santa Ana, Calif: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
• Thomas, D. D. (1967). Chrau grammar; a Mon–Khmer language of Vietnam.

External links

• Bahnaric languages (2003)
• Bahnaric family tree on Ethnologue
  Ethnologue
  Ethnologue: Languages of the World is a web and print publication of SIL International , a Christian linguistic service organization, which studies lesser-known languages, to provide the speakers with Bibles in their native language and support their efforts in language development.The Ethnologue...