Cecil Champain Lowis

“ Before this, however, the Talaings had started carving out a political destiny for themselves, their long residence in the plains having caused them to diverge widely in speech from the hill tribes of similar ancestry who lay to the east of them. Thus it is that the affinities between Talauig and the other Mon Khmer languages in Burma are somewhat remote, though not so remote as to allow of any doubt being thrown on the theory of relationship. ”

“ Geographically the Mon Khmer country lies as a whole well to the east of the Tibeto-Burman, for the most part in French Indo-China and Yunnan, and it is only a few of the westernmost Mon Khmer communities (the Takings of Lower Burma and the Was, the Palaungs and the Yangs or Rlangs of Upper Burma and the Shan States) that fall within the boundaries of the Province and the scope of the present note. The Cambodians and the Annamese have afforded scholars ample opportunity of studying the Mon Khmer problem in French territory. ”

“ When this latter movement began, some six centuries after the commencement of the Christian era, the Mon Khmers had in Cambodia and in the Talaing country of Lower Burma already attained to some measure of civilization. ”