Defines the linguistic range of an immense, interrelated and varied area extending from eastern India to southern China, including the southeast Asian peninsula.

Defines the linguistic range of an immense, interrelated and varied area extending from eastern India to southern China, including the southeast Asian peninsula.

This volume provides accurate and reliable data from 1,159 common cognates found in 19 dialects from the Tai language family. Originally collected by noted Tai linguist, the late William J. Gedney, the data are organized into the three branches of the Tai language family, the Southwestern, the Central, and the Northern, to facilitate comparisons among the various sound systems within the individual branches and within the Tai language family as a whole. Supplementing the cognates are phonological descriptions of each of the dialects. Included among the nineteen dialects are Siamese, White Tai, Black Tai, Shan, Lue, Yay, Saek, and dialects found at Leiping, Lungming, Pingsiang, and Ningming in China. The meticulous attention paid to consonants, vowels, and tones found in each cognate will allow for further dialect studies, for the investigation of questions concerning the tripartite division of the Tai language family, and for the continuing investigation into the reconstruction of the Proto-Tai language family and its wider genetic relationships.

The Routledge Language Family Series is aimed at undergraduates and postgraduates of linguistics and language, or those with an interest in historical linguistics, linguistics anthropology and language development. With close to 100 million speakers, Tai-Kadai constitutes one of the world's major language families. The Tai-Kadai Languages provides a unique, comprehensive, single-volume tome covering much needed grammatical descriptions in the area. It presents an important overview of Thai that includes extensive cross-referencing to other sections of the volume and sign-posting to sources in the bibliography. The volume also includes much new material on Lao and other Tai-Kadai languages, several of which are described here for the first time. Much-needed and highly useful, The Tai-Kadai Languages is a key work for professionals and students in linguistics, as well as anthropologists and area studies specialists. ANTHONY V. N. DILLER is Foundation Director of the National Thai Studies Centre, at the Australian National University. JEROLD A. EDMONDSON is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Texas Arlington and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Scholars. YONGXIAN LUO is Senior Lecturer in the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne and a member of the Australian Linguistic Society.

The relation of language variation to reconstructed languages and to the methodology of reconstruction has long been neglected. In this volume, the relationship between language and variation is considered from a number of different angles, looking at evidence from various language families. In doing so, the papers in this volume address a number of interconnected issues which are of current concern in comparative and historical linguistics.

Volumes in the Trends in Linguistics. Documentation series focus on the presentation of linguistic data. The series addresses the sustained interest in linguistic descriptions, dictionaries, grammars and editions of under-described and hitherto undocumented languages. All world-regions and time periods are represented.

The thirteen papers in this volume are new contributions-in terms of fieldwork or of analysis-to the study of Kadai languages other than those of the Tai branch. The specific languages in focus are: Kam, Sui, Maonan, Mulam, Mak, Then, Ai-Cham, Be, Hlai (Li), and Lakkia.