Refuting the Vieto-Katuic Hypothesis: Reconsidering Ethnohistorical Linguistic Scenarios (original) (raw)

2024, Austroasiatic Linguistics In honour of Gérard Diffloth (1939-2023)

Diffloth (1991b) first proposed this grouping (what he called “Proto-Katuic-Vietic”) primarily based on phonological evidence, while also positing that vocabulary was shared by Vietic and Katuic, though he did not provide supporting lexical data. Later, the current author (Alves 2005) proposed a few dozen lexical isoglosses shared by Vietic and Katuic. Other scholars accepted the Vieto-Katuic hypothesis in historical linguistics publications, as to be discussed in Section 2, and it has been tied to speculation about early migrations of ancestors of the Vietnamese. The hypothesis has even been noted in a chapter on prehistory in Vietnam in an English-language historical text (Kiernan’s 2017 “Việt Nam: A History of the Earliest Times to the Present”), with the idea that this early group migrated northward from the Annamite Cordillera in north-central Vietnam and bordering parts of Laos. However, (a) the historical phonological data seemed persuasive but is minimal, (b) the lexical data was more limited than that available today and was gathered through paper texts, not digital tools effective for sifting data, and (c) no archaeological evidence was presented or indeed available to support Diffloth’s assertion. In view of current available data—much more than just 20 years ago—with an overview of the phonological, morphological, lexical, and ethnohistorical aspects and weighing the evidence, the Vieto-Katuic hypothesis can no longer be considered valid. The goal of this article is not only to demonstrate how current data and methods show that the Vieto-Katuic hypothesis does not hold water. It is also aimed at pointing out that archaeological evidence strongly suggests a north-to-south movement of Austroasiatic speakers into Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA hereafter), and that the result of this event significantly complicates claims of a south to north migration of early Vietic peoples, or a homeland near central Vietnam, a claim lacking archaeological support. Also, the linguistic evidence shows that Katuic and Vietic are distinct branches within Austroasiatic and that they share features likely due to language contact with each other at various times over history, and not necessarily with substantial time depth.