World Language Map

Austroasiatic languages map

154 Austroasiatic languages are on the map, most of them in Laos, Vietnam and India. It divides into 12 main branches, the largest being Bahnaric (36 languages). The best-known members include Vietnamese, Central Khmer and Santali. Only this family is drawn; tap the map to list every language at a spot.

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The filter only changes what is drawn. Tap the map to list every language at a spot, whichever family is shown. You can also pick any family from its own page.

Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

The Austroasiatic family at a glance

  • 154languages
  • 88drawn as areas
  • 66shown as points
  • 12main branches

Colours on the map mark the ten largest families; this page’s filter shows Austroasiatic alone. Areas are generalisations from published atlases and overlap with the areas of other families.

Biggest Austroasiatic languages

By approximate speaker counts from Wikidata, each with its source and year on its own page.

  1. Where is Vietnamese spoken? (about 76 million speakers)
  2. Where is Central Khmer spoken? (about 16.6 million speakers)
  3. Where is Santali spoken? (about 7.2 million speakers)
  4. Where is Mundari spoken? (about 1.5 million speakers)
  5. Where is Ho spoken? (about 1.5 million speakers)
  6. Where is Northern Khmer spoken? (about 1.4 million speakers)
  7. Where is Muong spoken? (about 1.1 million speakers)
  8. Where is Mon spoken? (about 850,000 speakers)
  9. Where is Khasi spoken? (about 843,000 speakers)
  10. Where is Korwa spoken? (about 570,000 speakers)

Branches of Austroasiatic

The second level of the Glottolog family tree.

  • Bahnaric (36)
  • Khasi-Palaung (27)
  • Mundaic (22)
  • Aslian (18)
  • Katuic (15)
  • Vietic (9)
  • Khmuic (9)
  • Pearic (6)
  • Nicobaric (5)
  • Mangic (3)
  • Monic (2)
  • Khmeric (2)

Where Austroasiatic languages are spoken

Countries with the most Austroasiatic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

All 154 Austroasiatic languages, A to Z

Questions about Austroasiatic languages

How many Austroasiatic languages are there?

154 living Austroasiatic languages are on this map, in the Glottolog classification. They fall into 12 main branches, the biggest being Bahnaric (36 languages). Other classifications group languages differently, so totals vary.

Where are Austroasiatic languages spoken?

Laos (52), Vietnam (48), India (31), Thailand (27), China (24) and Cambodia (18) have the most Austroasiatic languages, with the number of languages in brackets.

What are the biggest Austroasiatic languages?

By the approximate speaker counts Wikidata holds: Vietnamese (about 76 million), Central Khmer (about 16.6 million) and Santali (about 7.2 million). These figures differ between sources and years.

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