Meaning & use
Austroasiatic
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Relating to a large family of languages spoken across parts of Southeast Asia and eastern India, including Vietnamese and Khmer.
See it in a sentence
Vietnamese and Khmer both belong to the Austroasiatic language family.
Linguists continue to debate the exact internal structure of the Austroasiatic languages.
A note on using this word
The name combines 'Austro-' (southern) with 'Asiatic,' reflecting the family's spread across southern and southeastern Asia; it should not be confused with the unrelated Austronesian family.
Another way to use it
2. noun
The Austroasiatic language family itself.
Austroasiatic includes more than 150 languages spoken by over 100 million people.
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