Talk:Austro-Tai peoples

Even though Austro-Tai often refers to the language proposal, anthropologists have also used the term to describe the people. Any linguistic linkage would also involve cultural and social linkages. — Stevey7788 (talk) 03:58, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

There is no "people". The linguistic linkage may be spurious: if that is determined, would the cultural and social linkages evaporate? If this were an anthropological construction, that would be a different matter, but it's not: it's a linguistic proposal, reified as an anthropological fiction. What, anthropologists are incapable of seeing the connections between peoples until a linguist comes along and points it out to them, and when the linguist changes his mind, all the anthropological evidence just disappears? — kwami (talk) 08:08, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Today, Austro-Tai is generally not considered to be spurious. There are plenty of anthropological papers written by credible anthropologists such as Roger Blench - see one of his papers for instance. The linkage is currently accepted by many mainstream linguists such as Robert Blust and Jerold Edmondson. That being said, I think it's best if this article is allowed to be on Wikipedia again. Yes, it might be sort of controversial, but there should be at least a vote/poll on this. This is fairly large article with a lot of valuable information that shouldn't be taken off right away (at least copy some of it into other articles?). — Stevey7788 (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

No, there isn't. Blust and others speak of a linguistic proposal. "Austro-Tai peoples" sounds like a coherent concept, but it's not: it's just the various peoples who happen to speak Austro-Tai languages. There's no reason to lump them together except for the linguistics, which may be abandoned tomorrow. An article on the supposed peoples is a dishonest, or at least very ignorant, presentation. Now, if Blust were to reconstruct the culture of the speakers of proto-Austro-Tai, their religion or where they lived, that would be a different matter, but AFAIK he hasn't. And in any case that's not what this article was about. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Re-discuss

@kwami: Last night's discussion reminded me of this page, a pretty extreme case of reification. Steve had put a lot of sweat into it, and I feel a bit bad if we discuss this page without him (he got blocked earlier this year for assumedly being entangled in some k.o. shit). Nevertheless I fully agree that the concept of "Austro-Tai peoples" is absolutely premature at the current stage of research, and will remain utterly far-fetched even if the linguistic "Austro-Tai" proposal eventually becomes generally accepted (of which I am pretty sure based on the amazing and no-nonsense work by Ostapirat). The content of this page is mostly OR-ish WP:synthesis.

Linguistic arguments for Austro-Tai are solid, but Blench's extra-linguistic evidence is hillarious. All material and immaterial stuff can spread by diffusion. If it was part of "Austro-Tai" culture, AT languages should reflect a common term for it, with regular sound correspondences. None of which Blench has presented. So I'd propose to collapse and redirect this page to Austro-Tai languages. –Austronesier (talk) 12:16, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. Ethnographic theories needs to be able to stand on their own two feet. Linguistic evidence can appear in the family article if there's nothing other than that. — kwami (talk) 16:19, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@Austronesier: So what about KD being a branch of AN vs a sister family? Or is the evidence not yet there to tell? — kwami (talk) 16:45, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

@kwami: Thanks for executing the merge! Ostapirat opts for the sister family solution; personally, I agree with that, since the proposals nesting KD within AN are either untenable (Sagart) or solely based on an assumed migration scenario without presenting any substantial evidence (Blench, as usual). Btw, thank you also for removing the Japonic bunk from the lead. Hope it won't be reintroduced by one of the zillion WCF socks. But the lead now looks rather pitiful like a World Vision flyer, so I will expand it a bit. –Austronesier (talk) 18:28, 8 September 2019 (UTC)