Mon-Khmer Languages (redirected from Mon Khmer)

Mon-Khmer languages (mōn-kəmâr`), group of languages frequently considered as a subfamily of the Southeast Asian family of languages. See Southeast Asian languages.

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Mon-Khmer languages

Family of about 130 Austroasiatic languages, spoken by more than 80 million people in South and Southeast Asia. Vietnamese has far more speakers than all other Austroasiatic languages combined. Other languages with many speakers are Muong, with about a million speakers in northern Vietnam; Khmer; Kuay (Kuy), with perhaps 800,000 speakers; and Mon, spoken by more than 800,000 people in southern Myanmar and parts of Thailand. Of all the Mon-Khmer languages, only Mon, Khmer, and Vietnamese have written traditions dating earlier than the 19th century. Old Mon, which is attested from the 7th century, was written in a script of South Asian origin that was later adapted by the Burmese (see Mon kingdom; Indic writing systems). Typical phonetic features of Mon-Khmer languages are a large vowel inventory and lack of tone distinctions.

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Mon-Khmer Languages 

related languages spoken on the Indochinese Peninsula, in southern China and northeastern India, and on the Nicobar Islands. The name is derived from two ancient literary languages, Khmer (texts known from the seventh century A.D.) and Mon (texts known from the tenth century A.D.). There are about 11 million speakers (1970, estimate). The Mon-Khmer languages are divided into four branches:

(1) Southeastern (in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and southern Burma): Khmer (the official language of Cambodia), Mon, Poar, Chong, Stieng, Mnong, Sre, Ma, Chrau, Bahnar, Brao, Chru, Kui, Katu, Souei, Bru, and Pacoh.

(2) Northeastern (in Laos, Thailand, Burma, and southern China): Palaung, Wa, Kawa, Lawa, Rien, Benlun, Danaw, Khmu, and Lamet.

(3) Northwestern (Assam State in India): Khasi.

(4) Southwestern (Nicobar Islands): Nicobarese and its numerous dialects.

The Mon-Khmer languages belong to the Austroasiatic language family, which also includes the Munda languages of India, Vietnamese, and several languages of the Malay Peninsula (Semang and Senoi). Sometimes Mon-Khmer refers only to the languages of the southeastern branch.

The Mon-Khmer languages are characterized by a rich vowel system, an abundance of diphthongs, and relatively few consonants (there are no affricates and few fricatives), limited possibilities for syllable formation (no more than two consonants at the beginning of a syllable and only one consonant at the end of a syllable), and the presence of two special types of syllable, strong (independent) and weak (dependent). With rare exception, the Mon-Khmer languages have phonological tones. Word formation is primarily affixal (prefixes and infixes). Semiaffixation and compounding play a large role in many of the modern languages. The structure of the languages is of the isolating type. Grammatical features of the word are expressed analytically. Sentence relations are expressed by means of word order and special auxiliary words.

REFERENCES

Gorgoniev, lu. A. Grammatika kkhmerskogo iazyka. Moscow, 1966.
Schmidt, W. Die Mon-Khmer Volker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens. Braunschweig, 1906.
Maspero, H. “Les Langues mon-khmer.” In Les Languesdu monde, new ed. Paris, 1952.
Thomas, D. D., and R. K. Headley. “More on Mon-Khmer Subgroupings.” Lingua, 1970, vol. 25, pp. 398–418.

Iu. A. GORGONIEV