Austric hypothesis
| Austric | |
|---|---|
| (controversial) | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Southeast Asia, South Asia, Taiwan, Madagascar |
| Linguistic classification: | proposed language family |
| Subdivisions: | |
| Glottolog: | None |
Map of the Austric languages.
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Austric is a large hypothetical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the Austroasiatic language family of mainland Southeast Asia, Eastern India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The hypothesis of a genetic relationship between these two language families is not widely accepted among linguists.
Related proposals include Sino-Austronesian (Laurent Sagart) and Austro-Tai (Paul K. Benedict).
The Austric superfamily was first proposed by the German missionary Wilhelm Schmidt in 1906. He showed phonological, morphological, and lexical evidence to support the existence of an Austric superfamily, but the lexical evidence was considered to be tenuous by the larger linguistic community. Consequently, the Austric hypothesis has never gained wide acceptance. In 1942, Paul K. Benedict extended the Austric hypothesis to include the Tai–Kadai languages and the Hmong–Mien (Miao–Yao) languages.
Despite the tenuous lexical evidence, the relationship of Austronesian with either Austroasiatic or Tai–Kadai has many proponents to this day, mostly on morphological grounds. Some believe that recently discovered morphological similarities between Nicobarese and Austronesian constitute solid proof of a genetic relationship. Other researchers are still searching for the missing lexical link between Austronesian and Austroasiatic or Tai–Kadai. A good summary of the present state of the Austric hypothesis may be found in Reid 2005.
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