Languages of Asia Part 1 East and Southeast

Languages of Asia Part 1: East and Southeast Asia ASIAN 401 Spring 2009

Relationships Among Languages can be classified in different ways: Genetic (common ancestor) Typological (common features) Areal (common geography) 2

Genetic Relationship Languages descended from a common ancestor language belong to the same language family and are genetically related Example: The Romance languages are a family of languages descended from Latin 3

Languages Families There are five major language families of East and Southeast Asia If we add North Asia, we get one (or several) more There also some language isolates 4

Languages of Asia There are hundreds of languages spoken in Asia, by over 2 billion people You should memorize the major families, and at least two languages in each You should also know isolates 5

NORTH ASIA CENTRAL ASIA EAST ASIA SOUTH ASIA peninsular SOUTHEAST ASIA insular 6

EAST ASIA China Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, etc. ): Sino-Tibetan family Korean: Isolate Japanese: Isolate Hmong, Mien: Hmong-Mien family 7

SOUTHEAST ASIA China Burma Thailand Thai, Lao: Tai. Kadai Family Burmese: Sino. Tibetan family Vietnamese, Khmer: Austroasiatic family Malaysia Philippines Malaysian, Indonesian, Tagalog: Austronesian family Indonesia 8

NORTH ASIA Russia Mongolian: Altaic family Uighur: Altaic family China 9

Languages Families Altaic: Mongolia, China, “stans” Sino-Tibetan: China, Tibet, Burma, Himalayas Hmong-Mien: China, Vietnam Tai-Kadai: China, Thailand, Laos Austroasiatic: Cambodia, Vietnam, Burma, India Austronesian: Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Hawaii … 10

Sample Languages Altaic: Mongolian, Uighur Sino-Tibetan: Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese Hmong-Mien: Hmong, Mien Tai-Kadai: Thai, Lao, Zhuang Austroasiatic: Khmer, Vietnamese, Munda Austronesian: Malaysian, Indonesian, Tagalog 11

Altaic ~60 languages, ~350 million speakers Consists of Mongolic, Tungusic, and Turkic languages; perhaps also Japanese and Korean Mongolia, NW China, “stans”, Turkey Simple syllables, vowel harmony 12

Sino-Tibetan >300 languages, >1 billion speakers Sinitic (= Chinese) in China, hundreds of lgs in SE, W, S Asia In E and SE Asia, these languages tend to be tonal and monosyllabic 13

Hmong-Mien ~35 languages, ~10 million speakers Southern China, northern parts of SE Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Laos) Tonal, many complex consonant clusters as in mpzha ‘ear’ 14

Tai-Kadai ~60 languages, ~50 million speakers Southern China, Thailand, Laos Tonal 15

Austroasiatic >100 languages, ~100 million speakers Spoken throughout peninsular SE Asia Large numbers of vowels (> 20 in some lgs) voice register distinctions 16

Austronesian ~1000 languages, ~300 million speakers Spoken on Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Pacific islands Inclusive/Exclusive 2 nd person plural pronouns 17

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