Pakanic languages
austroasiatic language branch of China
The Pakanic languages constitute a branch of two Austroasiatic languages, Bolyu and Bugan. They are spoken in Guangxi and Yunnan provinces of southern China. Mang was formerly included, but is now considered by Paul Sidwell to form its own separate branch within Austroasiatic.
Classification
Jenny & Sidwell (2015) consider Pakanic to be an independent branch of Austroasiatic.
Various classifications had previously been proposed for individual Pakanic languages. In 1990, Paul K. Benedict argued that Bolyu constitutes a separate Mon-Khmer branch. Edmondson & Gregerson (1996) listed many phonological and lexical similarities shared by Bolyu and Vietic languages. However, Gérard Diffloth later suggested that Pakanic (i.e., Bolyu and Bugan) shares an affinity with Palaungic languages and was part of a wider Northern Mon-Khmer group.
Mangic proposal
Mangic, a proposed language grouping that includes Mang as a sister to Pakanic within a unified subgroup of Austroasiatic, is recognized by Ilia Peiros (2004) and Sidwell's earlier classifications. Nguyen Van Loi also classified Mang within the Samtau group of Waic with Palaungic, although he later classified Mang as a sister of Waic (Sidwell 2009:133).
“Pakanic languages” enters the record as austroasiatic language branch of China. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Pakanic, languages and austroasiatic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137686750. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015, 1990, 1996 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pakanic languages” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.