Bahnaric languages

Bahnaric
Geographic distribution:	Indochina
Linguistic classification:	Austro-Asiatic Nuclear Mon–Khmer Khmero-Vietic Khmero-Bahnaric Bahnaric
Subdivisions:	Central Bahnaric North Bahnaric West Bahnaric

The Bahnaric languages are a group of about thirty Mon–Khmer languages spoken by about 700,000 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Paul Sidwell 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.^{[citation needed]}

• North Bahnaric: a dialect chain north of the Chamic languages, including
  • Sedang
  • Halang
  • Halang Doan
  • Jeh
  • Hrê
  • Rengao
  • etc.

• West Bahnaric: a dialect chain to the west of North Bahnaric, including:
  • Brao–Kavet: Lave (Brao), Kru'ng, Kravet, Sou
  • Laven
  • Nyaheun
  • Oi–The: Jeng, Oy, Sok, Sapuan, The

• Central Bahnaric: a language family divided by the Chamic languages ^[1]
  • Alak
  • Cua
  • West Central: Kassang/Taliang, Yaeh
  • South Central: to the southwest of Chamic:
    • Tampuon
    • Bahnar
• South Bahnaric languages:
  • Stieng–Chrau: Chrau,^[2] Bulo Stieng
  • Sre–Mnong: Koho, Mnong,
  • Budeh Stieng

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

Notes

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ [2]

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