ABSTRACT
A linguistic connection between the Tai and AN languages has been proposed for a century (e.g. Schlegel 1901; Wulff 1942), but the best-known work advocating the hypothesis is undoubtedly that of Benedict (1942, 1975). While the hypothesis itself has proved attractive to some ethno-historians and archaeologists, the supporting linguistic evidence as put forth in Benedict’s works has not been received favourably by specialists in the field. As Diller noted:
Schlegel and Benedict base their arguments on lexical similarities and call attention to some lexical items which do appear common to Tai and Austronesian. Unfortunately for the Austro-Tai case, many additional far less convincing relationships are presented by Benedict (1975, 1990), who not infrequently resorts to loose resemblances, semantic leaps and to a practice known as ‘proto-form stuffing’ – the making up of maximal earlier forms to account for all desired modern cognate relationships.
