Language Families: Eurasia (II)

Covering the southern half of the Indian subcontinent, scattered regions of northern India and Pakistan, and part of Sri Lanka, is the Dravidian language family. The principal member is the Tamil language, while Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam are other important members. All four of these are official languages within the Republic of India, in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala, respectively. Tamil is also official in Sri Lanka and Singapore. No relationship between the Dravidian languages and other language families have been demonstrated yet, but several theories link Dravidian to the Elamite isolate of ancient Iran, and to several other language families of Eurasia in a macrofamily (a proposed collection of already-established families) called Nostratic. Jain scriptures and some Hindu scriptures have appeared in many of the Dravidian languages, and the Tamil language has one of the oldest continuous literary traditions in Asia.
Along the edge of the Himalayan range can be found two small language isolates. One is Burushaski, spoken in the northern edge of Pakistan between the Afghan border on the west and the disputed regions of Jammu and Kashmir on the east. One theory links Burushaski to a small Siberian family called Yeniseian; others propose links to the Sino-Tibetan languages of East Asia, to the Caucasian languages, or to all of these. The other Himalayan isolate is the Kusunda language of Nepal; some linguists have proposed a relationship to the languages of New Guinea, but this has been met with skepticism. A third Indian isolate, spoken further south in Madhya Pradesh state, is Nihali (also called Kalto), which has not yet been well studied.
Moving back to Siberia, we find a series of small families which have not been conclusively linked to other Eurasian languages. One is the Yukaghir family, which, as mentioned earlier, is often linked with Uralic. The family's two members, Tundra Yukaghir and Forest Yukaghir, are spoken in far northeastern Siberia, both on the Arctic coast and inland. Another small family is Chukotko-Kamchatkan (also called Chukchi-Kamchatkan). One branch, Chukchi, is spoken in the farthest tip of Northeast Asia, across the Bering Strait from Alaska, and includes Chukchi, Koryak, and Alutor (a fourth member, Kerek, recently became extinct). The other branch, Kamchatkan, is spoken on the Kamchatka peninsula to the northeast of Japan and includes the Itelmen language (also known as Kamchadal). Some linguists have proposed a connection with the Eskimo-Aleut languages of North America, but this has yet to be demonstrated. Finally, there are two isolates spoken along the Northeast Asian Pacific coast. One is Nivkh (or Gilyak), spoken on Sakhalin island to the north of Japan, and on adjacent portions of mainland Russia. The other is Ainu, the aboriginal language of at least the northern Japanese islands before the arrival of ancestral Japanese speakers. Ainu today is confined to the northern island of Hokkaido and to parts of southern Sakhalin; historically the Ainu language and culture was suppressed by the Japanese authorities, but this policy has recently changed and now steps are being taken to protect the language.
The final language family in Siberia, Dené-Yeniseian, is remarkable for including members in both Siberia and North America, a fact which has only recently been demonstrated. The Yeniseian branch of the family is spoken in the north-central part of the Russian Federation, along the Yenisei river, and today includes only the Ket language (other members such as Yugh, Kott, Assan, Arin, and Pumpokol, are now extinct). The other branch of the family, Na-Dené, is found across northwestern North America and the U.S. southwest.
South of Sakhalin and Kamchatka, and southeast of the Tungusic-speaking regions, are found two very large language groups: Korean and Japanese. The Korean language is considered an isolate (and, at more than 80 million speakers, is the most-spoken isolate in the world), as no links to other Eurasian languages have been conclusively demonstrated. However, a large minority of linguists posit a relationship between Korean and the Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic languages, thus including Korean in the Altaic hypothesis. Many of the same linguists, as well as others who reject Altaic, consider a relationship between Korean and Japanese likely also. Japanese was once considered and isolate as well, but is now considered to be part of a small family called Japonic; the other members of the family are a series of small language communities known as Ryukyuan that are spoken on the Ryukyu islands between Kyushu and Taiwan, including the island of Okinawa. No links between Japonic and other language families have been proven, but, as mentioned above, many linguists consider a link to Korean likely, and others include Japonic along with Korean in the Altaic hypothesis, thus giving so-called Macro-Altaic 5 primary branches (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic). The most widely-accepted link to Japonic, however, is with an extinct language once spoken in Korea and adjacent regions of China and Russia known as Goguryeo. For example, place names attributed to the Goguryeo language appear to have components related to Japanese words and morphemes. Other extinct languages of the region, known mostly from Chinese chronicles, included the Buyeo, Dongye, Okjeo, and Baekje languages; the possible relationships between these languages, and with Goguryeo, Korean, and Japonic, are still being worked out.
Japanese is the language of the Shinto religion, Japan's native spiritual system. Many important Buddhist works have also appeared in both Japanese and Korean.
Dominating most of East Asia is the Sino-Tibetan language family, whose principal member, Mandarin, is the most-spoken language in the world. Mandarin is just one of the languages that makes up the Chinese (or Sinitic) branch of the family; others include Cantonese, Wu (sometimes called Shanghainese), Hakka, Min, and Jin. The rest of the family is composed of the Tibetan and Burman branches. Tibetan includes Classical and Modern Tibetan, as well as a variety of minority languages spoken throughout western China and in adjacent areas of Pakistan, India, and Nepal. The Tibetan Dzongkha language is the official language of the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. The Burman languages include Burmese, the official language of Myanmar/Burma, as their principal member, but also include a large number of minority languages in eastern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, southern and central China, and scattered parts of Southeast Asia. Tibetan and Burman are usually considered to form a single branch of the Sino-Tibetan family, known as Tibeto-Burman, but as the independence of the Chinese branch has recently been called into question, the internal configuration of Sino-Tibetan is subject to change.
Proposed links between Sino-Tibetan and other families include a link to the Austronesian, Austro-Asiatic, Hmong-Mien, or Tai-Kadai families of Southeast Asia, or to a combination of these. Other proposed connections have been made to the Dené-Yeniseian family (in which Sino-Tibetan is considered Dené-Yeniseian's closest relative), and to Burushaski, which itself has also been linked to Dené-Yeniseian.
Chinese, in its several forms, has been an important cultural and religious language of East Asia for thousands of years. Confucian teachings were originally in Chinese, as were the Taoist scriptures. Chinese has also been an important language of Buddhism. Finally, Tibetan is the principal language of Tibetan Buddhism and of the Lamas.
Three diverse but compact language families are found in mainland Southeast Asia, apart from the Tibeto-Burman languages of Myanmar. The largest of these is a family called Austro-Asiatic, which includes Vietnamese as its principal member. Cambodian is another important member of the family. The remaining Austro-Asiatic languages are minority languages in most of Vietnam, parts of Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, and in scattered regions of Bangladesh and eastern India. Judging by patterns of vocabulary and other historical evidence, in fact, Austro-Asiatic languages likely predate both Indo-European and Dravidian languages in the Indian subcontinent, and an Austro-Asiatic language may have been spoken by the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. Vietnamese has historically been under heavy Chinese influence, which can been seen in the large number of Chinese loanwords in its vocabulary.
The Tai-Kadai family (sometimes called Daic) is another important family of the region, its principal members being Thai and Laotian (or Lao). As with Austro-Asiatic, the remainder of the Tai-Kadai languages are spoken by minority groups in various parts of Southeast Asia, and also in southern China, where the large Zhuang minority is found. The Tai-Kadai languages show influence from Sanskrit and Pali, reflecting long periods of Hindu and Buddhist cultural influence from India. Thai and its relatives were once considered part of Sino-Tibetan, but this was later found to be incorrect.
The third family is composed completely of minority languages, and is known as Hmong-Mien (or sometimes Miao-Yao). These minority groups are found in isolated areas across southern China, as well as in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. Many Hmong people were displaced by the Vietnam war and so immigrated to the United States and other nations. The Hmong-Mien speakers likely represent the indigenous inhabitants of southern China before the expansion of Sino-Tibetan speakers into the area; one theory also proposes that the tonality of many East Asian languages originated in Hmong-Mien, as ancient Hmong-Mien speakers adopted Sino-Tibetan, Austro-Asiatic, or Tai-Kadai languages over time.
The final language family of Eurasia is also one of the largest in the world, both in terms of number of languages and in number of speakers. This is the Austronesian family, which covers a huge part of the globe, stretching from Madagascar at its western extreme to Easter Island at its eastern extreme. The Austronesian family is composed of up to ten subfamilies (linguists differ on the exact number), all but one of which are found on the island of Taiwan, where they are known as the Taiwanese Aboriginal Languages. The remaining branch of the family, known as Malayo-Polynesian, has over 1,000 members - the only other recognized language family with over 1,000 member languages is Niger-Congo in Africa. Several Malayo-Polynesian languages are large national languages, such as Malaysian, Indonesian, and Tagalog (all three of which are closely related). Other smaller national languages of the family include Malagasy in Madagascar, and Fijian, Samoan, Tongan, Tuvaluan, and Marshallese in the Pacific. Many other Malayo-Polynesian languages have regional status, such as Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, and Minangkabau in Indonesia; Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon, and Waray-Waray in the Philippines; Maori in New Zealand; Hawai'ian in Hawai'i; Tahitian in French Polynesia; and many others. The majority of the Malayo-Polynesian languages are minority languages in the countries of the region, from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines, to Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia, New Caledonia, and various remote islands in the South Pacific.
The relationships between Sino-Tibetan, Hmong-Mien, Austro-Asiatic, Tai-Kadai, and Austronesian remain under investigation. One proposal that has received attention is a link between Tai-Kadai and Austronesian; others instead link Austro-Asiatic with Austronesian, while some consider all three, as well as Hmong-Mien, but not Sino-Tibetan, to constitute a macrofamily. Still others place one or more of the four Southeast Asian families closer to Sino-Tibetan. For the time being, however, no solid links among any of these five East Asian families have been convincingly demonstrated.