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Southeast Asian languages

(Encyclopedia)Southeast Asian languages, family of languages, sometimes also called Austroasiatic, spoken in SE Asia by about 80 million people. According to one school of thought, it has three subfamilies: the Mon...

Mon-Khmer languages

(Encyclopedia)Mon-Khmer languages mōn-kəmârˈ [key], group of languages frequently considered as a subfamily of the Southeast Asian family of languages. See Southeast Asian languages. ...

Pygmy

(Encyclopedia)Pygmy or Pigmy both: pĭgˈmē [key], term used for dark-skinned people who live in equatorial rain forests and average less than 59 in. (150 cm) in height. Some studies make a distinction between Neg...

Munda languages

(Encyclopedia)Munda languages mo͝onˈdə [key], group of languages generally regarded as a subfamily of the Southeast Asian family of languages. See Southeast Asian languages. ...

Meghalaya

(Encyclopedia)Meghalaya māˌgəlāˈyə [key], state (2001 provisional pop. 2,306,069), c.8,700 sq mi (22,530 sq km), NE India, bordered on the south by Bangladesh. The capital is Shillong. Meghalaya is in the Gar...

Southeast Asia

(Encyclopedia)Southeast Asia, region of Asia (1990 est. pop. 442,500,000), c.1,740,000 sq mi (4,506,600 sq km), bounded roughly by the Indian subcontinent on the west, China on the north, and the Pacific Ocean on t...

Sino-Tibetan languages

(Encyclopedia)Sino-Tibetan languages, family of languages spoken by over a billion people in central and SE Asia. This linguistic family is second only to the Indo-European stock in the number of its speakers. It i...

Altaic

(Encyclopedia)Altaic ăltāˈĭk [key], subfamily of the Ural-Altaic family of languages (see Uralic and Altaic languages). Some scholars still consider Altaic an independent linguistic family. Spoken by over 130 m...

Malayo-Polynesian languages

(Encyclopedia)Malayo-Polynesian languages ôˌstrōnēˈzhən [key], family of languages estimated at from 300 to 500 tongues and understood by approximately 300 million people in Madagascar; the Malay Peninsula; I...

Semitic languages

(Encyclopedia)Semitic languages, subfamily of the Afroasiatic family of languages. See Afroasiatic languages. ...
 

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