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On W. Schmidt's Munda-Mon-Khmer Comparisons.

(DOES AN “AUSTRIC” FAMILY OF LANGUAGES EXIST?)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

W. F. De Hevesy
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Extract

W. Schmidt has established, as is well known, a new family of human speech, termed by him the “ Austric ” family. It was constituted by joining an “ Austronesian ” and an “ Austroasiatic ” group of languages; the latter term was coined by Schmidt when he found that the Mon-Khmer and some other languages of the East are kindred to the Muṇḍa languages of India.

Schmidt's treatise on the matter was declared by some scholars to be “ masterly ”, whereas others, so Przyluski, advised reserve. As a matter of fact, the existence of an “ Austric” family of languages—the most widely diffused on earth—is actually uncontested.

That the morphology and the grammar of the Muṇḍa and the Mon-Khmer languages are quite different, is admitted by W. Schmidt himself. Thus he based the relationship upon some similarities in phonetics, on the use of infixes in both languages, and on the results he obtained by comparing words.

Type
Papers Contributed
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1930 , pp. 187 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1930

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References

page 187 note 1 In Meillet's Les Langues du Monde.

page 187 note 2 A notable one, the placing in Muṇḍa of the genitive in front instead of postponing it, like all the other compared languages, W. Schmidt tried to explain by an influence exercised by the surrounding Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman tongues.

page 187 note 3 Campbell, A., A Santali-English Dictionary, Pokhuria, 1899.Google Scholar

page 188 note 1 As was said in the introduction, we shall not examine here if milap or any other word quoted by Schmidt is really Santali or borrowed (e.g. Aryan).

page 189 note 1 No phonetic change of r to k or ṅ is known in Santali. On the other hand ṅ as terminal sound becomes often ḵ, e.g. maṅ ═ maḵ. to cut, caṅ ═ caḵ why, noṅ ═ noḵ a little, etc.

page 191 note 1 Rev. P. O. Bodding, the greatest authority for Santali, informs us that Campbell's dictionary is far from being a safe guide for a separation of the pure dentals and the cacuminals. Further the rendering of the "vowels is not always reliable.

page 195 note 1 For an interchange of Santali ć and ģ see also ćoro-ćoro ═ ģoro-ģoro dropping of water, ćumkaḵ ═ ģomkao to assemble, ćhau-ćhau ═ ģhau-ģhau in crowds, etc.

page 197 note 1 For the alteration Santali ć ═ ģ see footnote of No. 45.

page 197 note 2 For the change of ṅ (ng) to k see footnote of No. 9.

page 197 note 3 bań may be the original root; an elision of the nasals from a group of two consonants in the middle or at the end of a word is very frequent in Santali; see ćondao ═ ćodao to separate, endre ═ edre to be angry, harmand ═ harmad rascally, etc.

page 197 note 4 For the elision of the l see ćaple ═ ćape to float, ḍunḍli ═ ḍunḍi bald, sikhlau ═ sikhau to teach, etc.

page 198 note 1 For the elision of the nasal n see the footnote to No. 57.

page 199 note 1 For instance, Schmidt's No. 1 aḵ a, bow, No. 4 uń to plait, No. 10 ara a saw, No. 47 gãṭ a knot, No. 104 teń to weave, etc. (and even some analogous numerals need not be common, but may have been borrowed).