The word for 'snake' in the Kri-Mol language of Thémarou, kob at, spoken in central Laos matches well the Jiamao word uat in Hainan. In turn, both of these show obvious connections with Bolyu mbuut in western Guangxi, Bit muut in...
moreThe word for 'snake' in the Kri-Mol language of Thémarou, kob at, spoken in central Laos matches well the Jiamao word uat in Hainan. In turn, both of these show obvious connections with Bolyu mbuut in western Guangxi, Bit muut in Phongsaly, Laos, and Green Gelao u 34 to 31 in Ha Giang, Vietnam. The next closest forms, phonologically, are to be found in near Oceania and western Polynesia such as Lakona mwat, in locations coinciding with the Lapita cultural complex. The two groups of cognates, Mainland Southeast Asia and Oceania, are closer to each other than either is to the languages of the northern Philippines, the Batanes or Taiwan from whence the Lapita culture is said to have originated. Hence a puzzle exists which this paper examines, taking into consideration evide nce from historical linguistics, archaeology, the anthropology of hunter-gatherers, and human genetics. One conclusion is that Austro-Tai or Pre-Austro-Tai groups on the East and Southeast Asian mainland ranged much further inland and southward than has been previously recognized and may have been primarily non-Negrito hunter-gatherers, predating the so-called Neolithic farmers who later, it is believed, populated Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia and Oceania.
