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The Munda languages are a Language Family spoken by about nine million people in Eastern India and Bangladesh . They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic Language Family , generally placed in opposition to the Mon-Khmer Languages of Southeast Asia , which means they are distantly related to Vietnamese . The origins of the Munda languages are not known, though it is generally thought that they are Autochthonous languages of eastern India. Ho , Mundari and Santali are notable languages of this group. Munda languages influenced other Indian languages like of Jharkhand , Bengal , and Orissa , and South Munda, spoken in central Orissa and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. However, it is widely suspected that this is an oversimplification. North Munda, of which Santali is the chief language, is the more important of the two groups; its languages are spoken by about nine-tenths of Munda speakers. After Santhali, the Mundari and Ho languages rank next in number of speakers, followed by Korku and Sora. The remaining Munda languages are spoken by small, isolated groups of people and are little known. Characteristics of the Munda languages include three Grammatical Number s (singular, dual, and plural), two Gender s (animate and inanimate), a distinction between Inclusive And Exclusive First Person Plural Pronouns , and the use of either suffixes or auxiliaries to indicate Tense . In Munda sound systems, consonant sequences are infrequent except in the middle of a word. Other than in Korku, where syllables show a distinction between high and low tone, accent is predictable in the Munda languages. CLASSIFICATION Diffloth (1974) The bipartite Diffloth (1974) classification is widely cited:
Diffloth (2005) Diffloth (2005) shows a somewhat more complex picture:
:: '' Korku '' :: Kherwarian
In both cases, branches in boldface are uncontroversial groups. FURTHER READING
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