Mon-Khmer

(mōn′kmĕr′)

A subfamily of the Austroasiatic language family that includes Mon, Khmer, and other languages of Southeast Asia.

Mon′-Khmer′ adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Mon-Khmer

(Languages) a family of languages spoken chiefly in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Assam; probably a member of the Austro-Asiatic phylum

adj

(Languages) of or belonging to this family of languages

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Mon-Khmer

(ˈmoʊnˈkmɛər, -kəˈmɛər)

n.

a language family of Southeast Asia, a branch of the Austroasiatic family, that includes Mon, Khmer, and many other languages of southeast Asia.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

Mon-Khmer - a branch of the Austro-Asiatic languages

Austro-Asiatic, Austro-Asiatic language, Munda-Mon-Khmer - a family of languages spoken in southern and southeastern Asia

Annamite, Vietnamese, Annamese - the Mon-Khmer language spoken in Vietnam

Khmer - the Mon-Khmer language spoken in Cambodia

Mon - the Mon-Khmer language spoken by the Mon

Mentioned in ?

References in periodicals archive ?

Their inhabitants, and more precisely the Mon-Khmer speaking groups who are the only uplanders seen as indigenous across this region, are generally considered to be former lowland populations who were displaced by the immigration of more technologically advanced peoples--such as Tai-speaking groups in the case of Laos and Thailand.

Of myths and metallurgy: archaeological and ethnological approaches to upland iron production in 9th century CE northwest Laos

In his chapter, Nicolas Revire carefully records all the traces of the Old Mon, hybrid Mon-Khmer, Pali and Sanskrit inscriptions that indicate Buddhist cults centred on rituals for merit (punna) and donations (dana), and geared to tuning the adept's "conditioned" karmic balance for the next life.

Before Siam: Essays in Art and Archaeology

The longhouse--the characteristic residential structure throughout most (but not all) of Borneo--appears nowhere else in the AN world except with one or two Sumatran groups, and among Chamic speakers in Vietnam and Cambodia who have been in intimate contact for centuries with their Mon-Khmer neighbors, some of whom also construct them (Lebar, Hickey, and Musgrave 1964).

Longhouses and nomadism: is there a connection?

Finally, a comparison with Mon-Khmer data could have shed a different light on some of Wolff's reconstructions.

John U. Wolff, Proto-Austronesian phonology with glossary

Ethnic groups (2005 Census identified 49 ethnic groups): Tai-Kadai language family (6 ethnic groups)--65% Austro-Asiatic (Mon-Khmer and Viet-Muong) language family (30 ethnic groups)--24% Hmong-Yao (2 ethnic groups)--8%; Tibeto-Burman (8 ethnic groups)--3%; other ethnic groups (including Vietnamese and Chinese)--0.9%.

Background note: Laos

It was first noticed by French travelers and missionaries in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries, and early opinion placed it erroneously in the Mon-Khmer family, although the French comparativist Andre-Georges Haudricourt, in a series of articles beginning in 1958, soon demonstrated that Saek is a Tai dialect--more specifically, and surprisingly given its geographic location, that it is a member of the Northern Tai dialect group.

William J. Gedney's Concise Saek-English English-Saek Lexicon

The other neighbor, Cambodia, speaks Khmer which is a Mon-Khmer language.

Studying Vietnamese in Vietnam

Some specific chapter topics covered include local drift and areal convergence in the restructuring of MSEA languages, the Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area, and morphological functions among Mon-Khmer languages.

Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art

While much of Burma's complex ethnic history remains unknown, four main ethnographic lines of descent are recognized: Mon-Khmer, Burman/Rakhine, Shan/Tai and Tibeto-Burman.

The diverse faces of Burma

Little research has yet been done on this question, but it is likely that there have been at least two layers each of Austroasiatic (Mon-Khmer) and Austronesian input--as also suggested long ago by Blagden (1894).

The peculiar history of the ethnonym "Temiar"

Ethnic groups: Tai-Kadai language family (6 ethnic groups)--66.2%; Austro-Asiatic (Mon-Khmer and Viet-Muong) language family (30 ethnic groups)--22.8%; Hmong-Yao (2 ethnic groups)--7.4%; Tibeto-Burman (8 ethnic groups)--2.7%; other ethnic groups (including Vietnamese and Chinese)--0.9%.