| Abstract: |
Tlhe author suggests an affiliation between the Hoabinhian population and the large Austric language family proposed by W. Schmidt in 1906. The author has dwelt further on the development of language from Proto-Viet-Muong to Common Viet-Muong. It can be assumed that a large part of Dongsonian population spoke Common Viet-Muong. As for the PreDongsonian populations, the author thinks they spoke an Austroasiatic language close to Proto-Viet-Muong. He holds also that most of the prehistoric cultures in the mountain regions of Central Viet Nam and in the Dong Nai River Valley belonged to Austroasiatic speaking populations. Archaeologists are now beginning to realise the relationships between the Sa Huynh Culture and the Cham culture of historical times. If this is correct then the Sa Huynh Culture surely belonged to a population using an Austronesian language. According to the author, the coast of Viet Nam was already inhabited by Austronesian speakers as early as the Neolithic.
|
