Austroasiatic languages - Austroasiatic people

Japanese: アウストロアジア語族 - アウストロアジアごぞく

Languages scattered from Southeast Asia to central India that are said to belong to the same family. They are broadly divided into the Mon-Khmer family (including Mon, Khmer, Vietnamese, etc.) found mainly on the Indochina Peninsula, the Munda languages scattered in northeastern and central India, and the Nicobarese languages of the Nicobar Islands. These are native languages of this region that were divided by the influx of other language families (Sino-Tibetan, Indo-European, etc.) and further changed under their influence. Originally, they consisted of monosyllabic words and two-syllable words derived using prefixes and infixes, and apparently did not have tones, but while Vietnamese is monosyllabic and has tones, the Munda languages have words of three or more syllables and do not have tones. The word order in the Munda languages is "subject-object-verb", while the others are "subject-verb-object". There are different theories about the scope and classification of the language family, and it cannot be said that it has been settled even now. ◇The name means "South Asian language family." In English it is called Austro-Asiatic.

Source: Kodansha Encyclopedia of the World's Major Languages

Japanese:

東南アジアからインド中部にかけて散在し、同じ系統に属するとされる諸言語。インドシナ半島を中心に分布するモンクメール語族（モン語・クメール語・ベトナム語などを含む）、インドの北東部と中央部に点在するムンダ諸語、ニコバル諸島のニコバル諸語に大別される。これらは、この地域の在来の言語で、それが他の諸語族（シナチベット語族・インドヨーロッパ語族など）の流入によって分断され、それらの影響下でさらに変化をとげたと考えられている。もとは単音節語と、接頭辞や接中辞を使って派生させた2音節語からなり、声調はなかったらしいが、ベトナム語は単音節語で声調をもつ一方、ムンダ諸語は3音節以上の語をもち声調はない。語順はムンダ諸語では「主語―目的語―動詞」だが、他は「主語－動詞－目的語」である。語族の範囲や分類は異説もあり、現在も定まっているとはいえない。◇名称は「南アジア語族」の意。英語でAustro-Asiatic。

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