Zhuang and Dong Language Family in the Eyes of Western Scholars

Western scholars generally call Zhuang-Dong language family "Tai-Ka-Dai language family". Weera Ostapirat, a Thai Chinese, pointed out in his paper Proto-Kra that the name "Tai-Kadai" commonly used by westerners is not appropriate, because in Thai, Kadai means "ladder", which will make Thais regard it as a joke. Therefore, he suggested using "Kra-Dai" instead of "Tai-Kadai". This "Kra" refers to what Paul K Benedict called "Gadai" (Buyang, gelao language, etc. ).

From19th century to the first half of 20th century, the classification of Sino-Tibetan language experienced a process from scratch, and the scope and level became clear gradually. At that time, there was basically no big difference in the understanding between eastern and western scholars, and Fang Guili was the most representative scholar. In a paper by 1937, he divided Sino-Tibetan into Chinese, Dong-Tai, Miao-Yao and Tibetan-Burmese (quoted from Gong Huangcheng in 2003, 188). Soon after, American scholar Bai Paul put forward another opinion in another important paper, arguing that Dong-Tai and Miao-Yao languages do not belong to Sino-Tibetan language family (see Benedict 1942). However, Fang Guili's point of view seems to be more dominant and will become the main way for linguists to classify Sino-Tibetan language families in the next few decades.

However, after Bai Paul published two important works in the 1970s-An Overview of Sino-Tibetan Languages (see Benedict 1972) and Australian-Thai Languages: Language and Culture (see Benedict1975)-his views were gradually accepted by major linguists, and western scholars also narrowed down. Paul Bai is an anthropologist. He believes that Zhuang Dong language and Miao Yao language do not belong to Sino-Tibetan language family, which is the concept of "Southeast Asian cultural flow" he put forward. The core of this argument is that the ethnic groups in this area were culturally equal in prehistoric times, so the cultural flow cannot be one-way. Facing the possible connection between Chinese and Zhuang-Dong and Miao-Yao languages, most domestic scholars only pay attention to the influence of Chinese on these languages, but ignore the influence of these languages on Chinese itself.

It is worth noting that the so-called "Southeast" concept of Bai Paul does not refer to Southeast Asian countries except China in the modern sense, but refers to the vast areas south of the Yangtze River in prehistoric times, including Hainan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu and Shanghai, as well as Taiwan Province Province and Indo-China Peninsula. At that time, there were a large number of ethnic groups living in these places, most of whom were non-Han people (residents of the Central Plains at that time). They had cultural and linguistic contact with different nationalities long ago. These ethnic groups include those who speak Mon-Khmer, those who use Austronesian and those who use Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman).

It was on this basis that later linguists established the concept of "Zhuang-Dong language family". The representative academic works are edmondson (1990- 199 1) and edmondson and Sorni (1997).