Talk:Austric languages

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Haplogroups *cannot* demonstrate that languages are related, because there is *no* necessary connexion between genetic descent and language. In modern times, just consider the USA; in former times reflect on the vast expansion of just a few linguistic families (Indoeuropean, Turkic, Sino-Tibetan ...) across Eurasia, leaving just scattered fragments of previous diversity (Basque, Burushaski, Caucasian languages, Palaeosiberian languages.) At least three-quarters of my own forbears spoke languages not ancestral to my mother tongue; I'm not exceptional in a world context either.

BTW The very existence of an Altaic linguistic family is very controversial among linguists in the field, let alone whether Korean and Japanese belong to it.

Chinese "recently evolved"? Not in linguistic terms, anyway. Documented from at the early second millennium BC, and doubtless a distinct entity at some level long before some ingenious speakers devised a way of writing their language. This is actually something of a problem for Sino-Tibetan comparativists; the unity of the Tibeto-Burman part is easier to demonstrate than links between this and Sinitic, the situation being further complicated by the fact that there seem to be a lot of very early Chinese loans in surrounding languages, including "protolanguages", so that some "lookalikes" may well be *too* alike - in fact be very early loans. The Chinese have been the major cultural players in their part of the world for a very long time.

Bargainsale (talk) 23:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Surely not Murray Gell-Mann? OK he's a polymath, but ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bargainsale (talk • contribs) 22:29, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not a language expert, but should this page have a reference to Mundic as an alternative language name for Austric?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_O_%28Y-DNA%29. You can postulate genetic relationship of South-Asian languages with a high degree of certainty. They are all related, that's sure, but considering the age of Y-haplogroup O (ca. 30 000 years), proving this relationship is not easy at all. 82.100.61.114 00:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Haplogroup O, as well as all the language families believed to be associated with the carriers of Haplogroup O Y-chromosomes (including Austro-Asiatic, Austronesian, Tai-Kadai, Sino-Tibetan, Hmong-Mien, and possibly also Altaic, Korean, and Japanese) originated in China. This can be proven by the fact that even the Munda languages of Central India contain obvious loanwords from the Chinese language, which is a relatively recently evolved branch of the Sino-Tibetan stock.

As for the physical peculiarities of the Munda peoples, this has been shown to be due to the fact that only Munda patrilines are truly Austro-Asiatic (Haplogroup O2a); Munda mitochondrial DNA is entirely unrelated to Chinese or Southeast Asian mtDNA, which indicates that very few or no females accompanied the male Austro-Asiatic colonists on their diaspora from East/Southeast Asia to South Asia. Ebizur 16:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

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Feb 2018

Dear  @86.56.207.16:

• Regarding this line: "Austric[1] is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent."

1)According to Ministry of Minority Affairs Government of India, Austro-Asiatic languages are NOT Primary languages in any Indian State except in the state of Meghalaya, a state in Northeast India where 47% of the population speak Khasi language however the official language is English. Check link [1]. In all other Zones, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian or Tibeto-Burmese languages(in Northeast India) dominate.

2)If "eastern Indian subcontinent", means to include Nepal and Bangladesh as well, which I believe it does, then it becomes necessary to understand that Austric languages are far from being primary in these two countries where Indo-Aryan languages overwhelmingly dominate. Visit these Languages of Nepal, Languages of Bangladesh. That's why I edited out that part. If it is so much important, then we can addMeghalaya in the line since the language being primary there is supported by govt. source as explained above.

• Regarding this line:"...,as well as the Austroasiatic language family of mainland Southeast Asia, Northeastern and Eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh."

Austroasiatic languages are not restricted to Eastern and Northeastern India, but is also found in Central, Northern, Western and Southern Indian States. E.g. Kodaku language is spoken in Uttar Pradesh (North India), Korku  in Maharashtra (Western India), Bodo Gadaba language, Sora language in Andra Pradesh(South India). The states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh are in Central India. The states of Jharkhand and Bihar are also considered part of Central India. Since Austric languages are scattered across all Indian Zones, for the sake of NPOV, it is better not to specify a few regions. I hope you understand. Fylindfotberserk (talk) 20:04, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Dear @Fylindfotberserk: Since Austric languages are scattered – as you correctly note – across South Asia (and, of course, Mainland Southeast Asia), for the sake of NPOV, it is better not to specify a few countries. I hope you understand. –Austronesier (talk) 19:08, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Austronesier, I'm OK with this arrangement. Mentioning "eastern South Asia" is like trying to be precise but wrong at the same time. South Asia is a more neutral in this case. That's why I didn't change it in this edit. - Fylindfotberserk (talk) 10:10, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Austric and Japanese

Concerning this and previous edits by Feinoa and others before them:

The Austric family was originally proposed by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906 to include only two language families, viz. Austronesian and Austroasiatic. This represents the defining core of the Austric hypothesis until now. Later in 1930, Schmidt proposed to include Japanese within Austric, mainly because of assumed similarities between Japanese and Austronesian. While the proposal about a link between Austronesian and Japanese still enjoys some following as a separate hypothesis, later proponents of Austric do not include Japanese in their proposals. Therefore, it is misleading to include Japanese as an intergral part of Austric in the lead and the infobox. A look at the sources cited in the article gives a clear picture:

(Y Japanese included, N Japanese not included)

NSchmidt 1906: Austronesian, Austroasiatic

YSchmidt 1930: Austronesian, Austroasiatic, Japanese

NBenedict 1942: Austronesian, Kra-Dai, Austroasiatic, (Hmong-Mien?)

NHayes 1992: Austronesian, Austroasiatic

NDiffloth 1994: Austronesian, Austroasiatic

NReid 1994: Austronesian, Austroasiatic

NStarostin 2005: Austronesian, Kra-Dai, Austroasiatic, Hmong-Mien

The tree diagram based on Starostin (2005) was also modified by Feinoa to include Japanese, which is not backed up by the source. Another source which was re-added by Feinoa is also misleading, since Benedict explicitly rejects the Austric proposal (see also Benedict 1991):

NNBenedict 1990: Austronesian, Kra-Dai, Japanese (but not Austroasiatic!).

To sum up: whatever we may think about the validity of the Austric hypothesis, it should be obvious that Japanese is not included in Austric by the majority of its proponents. To state otherwise, is misleading; to make false claims about the content of sources (as in the manipulation of Starostin's tree diagram), is even more misleading. –Austronesier (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Nice summary of what languages are included. I wonder if it should be made into a table and included in the article. Is there any basic for the consenus tree diagram?   Jts1882 | talk  16:50, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Authority	Austronesian	Austroasiatic	Kra-Dai	Hmong-Mien	Japanese
Schmidt 1906	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Schmidt 1930	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Benedict 1942	Yes	Yes	Yes	Possible	No
Benedict 1990	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	NB: Benedict 1990 is not Austric –Austronesier (talk) 18:05, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
Hayes 1992	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Diffloth 1994	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Reid 1994	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Starostin 2005	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No

@Jts1882: Thanks for your comment and the summary table. I want to rewrite the article to give a more coherent overview of the reseach history of Austric. Most supporters of the Austric hypothesis only include Austronesian (AN) and Austroasiatic (AA), which is also the classic textbook definition of Austric. Therefore the main section should cover this thread of research. The next section "Extended proposals" will then give a short overview of the few – mostly short-lived – extended hypotheses. So maybe a table will not be necessary. The article also needs a closing "Criticism" section, since Austric is not accepted by the mainstream of comparative linguists.

Good question about the "consensus" tree diagram. Apparently, there is no base to it, at least I am not aware of any scholarly publication that supports this tree. I think it is the result of a creative WP:synthesis. There is a constant flow of edits from IPs and from what seems to be a sock-factory of editors which keep on distorting and messing up articles about linguistic long-range proposals in Asia. This tree is total "nonsensus", and I will remove it once starting to expand this article. –Austronesier (talk) 19:58, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Hello, sorry about the map thing. Should I instead upload the same map but without the Japonic languages? GalaxMaps (talk) 17:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@GalaxMaps: No harm done, I understand you just visualized what was in the infobox. Sure, a modifed map would be great. I have an idea: maybe you could use dark colors for Austronesian and Austroasiatic, and light colors for Kra-Dai and Hmong-Mien, with Austronesian matching Kra-Dai, and Austroasiatic matching Hmong-Mien. The dark colors would indicate the "core members", and the matching colors would illustrate the Starostin classification. –Austronesier (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

@GalaxMaps: You still have Japanese in the map? Maybe my last answer was ambiguous, but I meant, yes, without Japonic. –Austronesier (talk) 12:22, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Yes, even though Japonic seems unrelated to the other languages, it’s still mentioned enough times that leaving it out felt weird to me. Though i definitely made it clear that its not commonly associated (hence the extremely desaturated colour).GalaxMaps (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I will remove the map. No scholar in the last 90 yrs has associated Japanese with Austric. With all due respect to Wilhelm Schmidt, but this part of his research is obsolete and a footnote in the history of comparative linguistics. Among non-scholars I can only think of WP editors like the fringe-pushing long-time abuser User:Satoshi Kondo and the likewise disruptive User:Feinoa, both blocked now. –Austronesier (talk) 07:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Austric and Ainu

Doesn't the proposal of the Ainu language falling into Austric also figure into this debate? I know that it was mentioned in an earlier version of this article, but now all mention of the proposal seems to have been deleted. Apparently no reason is given for this in the article or this discussion page either. -Ano-User (talk) 04:42, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@Ano-User: That's Bengston's proposal to include Nihali and Ainu. It was deleted here[2] by a sock of LTA WorldCreaterFighter, and I have overlooked to restore it after I had cleaned up all the OR, SYNTH and POV-pushing by that sock. It's an isolated proposal by a non-specialist in East Asian languages, but Bengtson is a notable long-range comparatist, so his proposal is worth at least a passing mention. –Austronesier (talk) 07:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I see now. Apologies, I was just a bit confused as to what happened as I haven't been following the thread for a while, and not to mention the fact that Japanese is mentioned while Ainu is not.

@Ano-User: No need for apologies, in fact I forgot to thank you for bringing this up. Mentioning a long-abandoned hypothesis, but leaving out a fresh one (whatever its merits) is definitely not balanced. –Austronesier (talk) 08:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Ostapirat (2018)

This paper supports a genetic link between Hmong–Mien and Austroasiatic, and is even open to a further link between Austro-Tai (credibly argued for by Ostapirat) and Austroasiatic (after Reid), which means, IMHO, that this macrofamily proposal (the traditional Austric hypothesis) can definitely be taken as a serious hypothesis now, because Ostapirat is certainly an authority in this field, and his support of a deep link between Austro-Tai, Austroasiatic and Hmong–Mien as plausible and worth investigating further (pending improved reconstructions of Proto-Austroasiatic) has considerable weight. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:41, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

References

Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:41, 6 August 2024 (UTC)