ABSTRACT
The AA phylum, comprising the Munda family of Eastern India and the Mon-Khmer family of mainland Southeast Asia, is one of the longest-established language families to inhabit this vast region. AA is therefore of crucial importance when discussing ancient population movements in the Asian continent generally. Rather than presenting a detailed review of this question, I will briefly summarise here some recent historical linguistic findings, and spell out the questions which they compel us to ask. The discussion focuses on three issues, the terminology of rice (see also Blench, Chapter 2, this volume), faunal terms and the distribution of languages.
