Editing Kra–Dai languages (section)

==Origin==
[[File:Gerner Tai-Kadai migration route.png|thumb|300px|Tai–Kadai migration route, according to Matthias Gerner's ''Northeast to Southwest Hypothesis''.<ref>{{cite conference |last1=Gerner |first1=Matthias |date=2014 |title=Project Discussion: The Austro-Tai Hypothesis |conference=The 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14) |page=158 |url=http://iscll-14.ling.sinica.edu.tw/files-pdf/Papers/Session4/Gerner.pdf}}</ref>]]

James R. Chamberlain (2016) proposes that the Tai–Kadai (Kra–Dai) language family was formed as early as the 12th century BCE in the middle of the [[Yangtze basin]], coinciding roughly with the establishment of the [[Chu (state)|Chu fiefdom]] and the beginning of the [[Zhou dynasty]].<ref name="Chamberlain-Kra-Dai">Chamberlain, James R. (2016). "[https://www.academia.edu/26296118/Kra-Dai_and_the_Proto-History_of_South_China_and_Vietnam Kra-Dai and the Proto-History of South China and Vietnam]", pp. 27–77. In ''Journal of the Siam Society'', Vol. 104, 2016.</ref> The high diversity of Kra–Dai languages in southern China, especially in [[Guizhou]] and [[Hainan]], points to that being an origin of the Kra–Dai language family, founding the nations that later became Thailand and Laos in what had been [[Austroasiatic languages|Austroasiatic]] territory. Genetic and linguistic analyses show great homogeneity among Kra–Dai-speaking people in Thailand.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Srithawong|first1=Suparat|last2=Srikummool|first2=Metawee|last3=Pittayaporn|first3=Pittayawat|last4=Ghirotto|first4=Silvia|last5=Chantawannakul|first5=Panuwan|last6=Sun|first6=Jie|last7=Eisenberg|first7=Arthur|last8=Chakraborty|first8=Ranajit|last9=Kutanan|first9=Wibhu|date=July 2015|title=Genetic and linguistic correlation of the Kra-Dai-speaking groups in Thailand|journal=Journal of Human Genetics|volume=60|issue=7|pages=371–380|doi=10.1038/jhg.2015.32|issn=1435-232X|pmid=25833471|s2cid=21509343|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Although the position of Kra–Dai in relation to Austronesian is still contested, some propose that Kra–Dai and Austronesian are genetically connected. Weera Ostapirat (2005) sets out a series of regular sound correspondences between them, assuming a model of a primary split between the two; they would then be co-ordinate branches.{{sfn|Blench|2017|p=11}} Ostapirat (2013) continues to maintain that Kra–Dai and Austronesian are sister language families, based on certain phonological correspondences.{{sfn|Ostapirat|2013|pp=1–10}} On the other hand, Laurent Sagart (2008) proposes that Kra–Dai is a later form of what he calls "FATK" (Formosan Ancestor of Tai–Kadai) a branch of Austronesian belonging to the subgroup "Puluqic", developed in Taiwan, whose speakers migrated back to the mainland, to Guangdong, Hainan, and north Vietnam, around the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE.{{sfn|Sagart|2008|pp=146–152}} Upon their arrival in this region, they underwent linguistic contact with an unknown population, resulting in a partial relexification of FATK<ref group=lower-alpha name="FATK">Formosan ancestor of Tai–Kadai.</ref> vocabulary.{{sfn|Sagart|2008|p=151}} Erica Brindley (2015) supports Sagart's hypothesis, arguing that the radically different Kra-Dai history of migration to the mainland (as opposed to the Philippines for Proto-Austronesian) and extended contact with Austro-Asiatic and Sinitic speakers would make the relationship appear more distant. She also suggests that the presence of only the most basic Austronesian vocabulary in Kra-Dai makes this scenario of relexification more plausible.{{sfn|Brindley|2015|p=51}} 

Besides various concrete pieces of evidence for a Kra–Dai existence in present-day Guangdong, remnants of Kra–Dai languages spoken further north can be found in unearthed [[Chinese bronze inscriptions|inscriptional materials]] and non-Han [[Stratum (linguistics)#Substratum|substrata]] in [[Min Chinese|Min]] and [[Wu Chinese]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}

Wolfgang Behr (2002, 2006, 2009, 2017){{sfn|Behr|2002}}{{sfn|Behr|2006}}{{sfn|Behr|2009}} points out that most non-Sinitic words found in Chu inscriptional materials are of Kra–Dai origin. For example, the Chu graph for 'one, once' written as [[File:Neng2.svg|20px]] (? < [[Old Chinese|OC]] '''*nnəŋ''') in the ''E jun qijie'' 鄂君啟筯 bronze tally and in Warring States bamboo inscriptions, which represents a Kra–Dai areal word; compare Proto-Tai '''*hnïŋ''' ''='' '''*hnɯŋ''' (Siamese <sup>22</sup>nɯŋ, Dai <sup>33</sup>nɯŋ, Longzhou nəəŋ<sup>A</sup> etc.) 'one, once'.{{sfn|Behr|2017|p=12}}

In the early 1980s, Wei Qingwen (韦庆稳), a [[Zhuang language|Zhuang]] linguist, proposed that the [[Old Yue language]] recorded in the [[Song of the Yue Boatman]] is in fact a language ancestral to Zhuang.{{sfn|Holm|2013|p=785}} Wei used reconstructed [[Old Chinese]] for the characters and discovered that the resulting vocabulary showed strong resemblance to modern Zhuang.{{sfn|Edmondson|2007|p= 16}} Later, [[Zhengzhang Shangfang]] (1991) followed Wei's proposal but used Thai script for comparison, since this orthography dates from the 13th century and preserves archaisms not found in modern pronunciation.{{sfn|Edmondson|2007|p= 16}}{{sfn|Zhengzhang|1991|pp= 159–168}} Zhengzhang notes that 'evening, night, dark' bears the C tone in Wuming Zhuang ''xam<sup>C2</sup>'' and ''ɣam<sup>C2</sup>'' 'night'. The item ''raa'' normally means 'we (inclusive)' but in some places, e.g., Tai Lue and White Tai, it means 'I'.{{sfn|Edmondson|2007|p=17}} However, [[Laurent Sagart]] criticizes Zhengzhang's interpretation as anachronistic, because however archaic the Thai script is, the Thai language was only written 2,000 years after the song had been recorded; even if [[Kam–Tai languages|Proto-Kam–Tai]] had emerged by the 6th century BCE, its pronunciation would have been substantially different from Thai.{{sfn|Sagart|2008|p=143}}

[[File:Chinese plain 5c. BC with Yue-en.png|350px|thumb|right|Map of the Chinese plain at the start of the [[Warring States Period]], in the 5th century BC.]]