Munda in Early NW India

[Rick Mc Callister]

	Isn't Vietnamese a real outlier among Austro-Asiatic?
	If so, then wouldn't Khmer and Austro-Asiatic languages from
Thailand and Burma be more relevant to any argument re: phonology?

>        "Language X" is precisely the (unsolvable) problem.  I would guess
>that it, or its relatives, lie behind the retention of voiced aspirates in
>Indic and the appearance, by fortuitous reanalysis, of voiced aspirates in
>Munda.  But this can never be more than a guess.
>        Retroflexes are not part of the proto-AustroAsiatic sound system.
>(Neither are voiced aspirates.)  I have never heard of them occurring in
>Vietnamese, though I cannot swear that they do not.

>Dr. David L. White

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701