Austroasiatic

• Austro-Asiatic

Borrowed from German Austroasiatisch, austroasiatisch, coined by Wilhelm Schmidt, from Latin auster (“south”) + German asiatisch (“Asian”).

Austroasiatic (comparative more Austroasiatic, superlative most Austroasiatic)

1. Of the Austroasiatic languages, a major language family spoken in parts of Southeast Asia, India and the Nicobar Islands.
2. Australasian.
   • 1987, Bhuban Mohan Das, The Peoples of Assam, page 168:

     This haemoglobin variant emerged in an Austroasiatic people and subsequently diffused throughout southeast Asia and then to other places.