Munda & the Austric language group

[Peter D Banos]

On Mon, 11 Mar 1996, Yvette C. Rosser wrote:

> "Most tribal groups in Central India speak Munda languages, which some
> linguists classify as members of the Austro-Asiatic branch of the Austric
> language group, which also includes the Malayo-Polynesian languages, which
> range from Hawaii to New Zealand. (Father W.Schmidt first posed this
> theory)."
> 
> My question is, is there reliable research on this linguistic connection or
> is it a discredited theory?  Thanks for your help.

Yvette,
I believe that the idea of a Munda/Mon-Khmer relationship, and a more 
distant link with Malayo-Polynesian, is generally accepted; proposed 
connections with Vietnamese and Thai are more controversial, but they are 
serious and not crank proposals. If no one gets to it sooner I'll try to 
look up some references.
However the Australian aboriginal languages, which you asked about 
originally, are a different story entirely, no one I can think of 
believes that they are traceably related to anything. 
(I was tempted to reply to your original post with a reference to Prof. 
Jan _Gonda_, but I see that others on the list are better at that sort of 
humor than I.)

						-Peter D. Banos
						pdb1 at columbia.edu