The nearly thirty Palaungic or Palaung–Wa languages form a branch of 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"...

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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

Breathy voice

Breathy voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise...

 vowel phonation

Phonation

Phonation has slightly different meanings depending on the subfield of phonetics. Among some phoneticians, phonation is the process by which the vocal folds produce certain sounds through quasi-periodic vibration. This is the definition used among those who study laryngeal anatomy and physiology...

; in Palaung

Palaung language

Palaung is a Mon–Khmer language, or actually a dialect cluster, spoken by over half a million people in Burma and neighboring countries. There are three distinct varieties, Shwe , Ruching , and Rumai, each with their own dialects...

-Riang, as a two-way register tone system. The Angkuic languages have contour tone — the U language

U language

The U language is spoken by 40,000 people in the Yunnan province of China and possibly Burma. It is classified as a Mon–Khmer language in the Palaungic subbranch.-External links:* from Ethnologue...

, 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.

• Palaung–Riang

Palaung: Shwe (Gold Palaung, De'ang), Pale (Silver Palaung, Ruching), Rumai

Riang: Riang, Yinchia

? Lamet, Con

Con language

Con is a language spoken by some 1,000 people in Louang Namtha Province in north-west Laos. Its nearest relative is the more common Lamet language....

• ? Danau (perhaps in Palaung–Riang)
• Angkuic: Angku, Hu, Mok, Samtao, U
  U language
  The U language is spoken by 40,000 people in the Yunnan province of China and possibly Burma. It is classified as a Mon–Khmer language in the Palaungic subbranch.-External links:* from Ethnologue...
  
   (Pouma)
• 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

Pakanic languages

The Pakanic languages, also known as Palyu and Mangic, are a tentative recently identified branch of endangered Austro-Asiatic languages...

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External links

• Palaungic languages page from Ethnologue