Austroasiatic

[aw-stroh-ey-zhee-at-ik, -shee-]

noun

1. a family of languages spoken in SE Asia and the landsaround the Bay of Bengal and consisting principally of Vietnamese, Khmer, Mon, Khasi, Nicobarese, and the Munda languages.

adjective

1. of or relating to Austroasiatic.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Austroasiatic¹

First recorded in 1920–25; austro- + Asiatic

Example Sentences

They numbered some 400,000, spoke a language of the Austroasiatic family—unlike India’s mainstream Indo-European and Dravidian languages—and lay largely outside the Hindu world.

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His family belongs to an ethnic minority, the Wa, who speak an Austroasiatic language that is also widespread in parts of China.

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Those early farmers may have left another legacy: a language that developed into today’s Austroasiatic family of languages, which are scattered across Southeast Asia.

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However, Austronesian farmers could spread no farther into the Southeast Asian mainland, because Austroasiatic and Tai-Kadai farmers had already replaced the former hunter-gatherers there, and because Austronesian farmers had no advantage over Austroasiatic and Tai-Kadai farmers.

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But the language families closest to Austronesian are thought to be Tai-Kadai, Austroasiatic, and Miao-Yao.

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