A collection of papers dealing with issues in the 'Mainland Austronesian Languages, Chamic, Acehnese and Moken/Moklen-not a single genetic sub-grouping but a number of related languages that have undergone parallel typological restructuring away from their Austronesian heritage, converging on a type that places them on the southern periphery of the broader Mainland Southeast Asian Linguistic Area. In prehistoric times speakers of these languages migrated to the Asian mainland from insular Southeast Asia. Over many years of independent development plus prolonged contact with mainland languages, they have shifted typologically, particularly towards reduced word structure, increased phoneme inventory, and more isolating syntax. The emphasis of the papers is on historical change, particularly in respect of lexical borrowings and the evolution of phonological systems. Contributions to this volume:

MARK BRUNELLE: 'A phonetic study of Eastern Cham register' discusses the Cham synchronic phonology in detail, complete with spectrographic and other instrumental analyses.

ANTHONY GRANT contributes two papers: 'The Effects of Intimate Multidirectional Linguistic Contact: The Case(s) of the Chamic Languages' and 'Norm-referenced Lexicostatistics and the case of Chamic' that examine issues around the extent of lexical borrowing in Chamic.

PETER NORQUEST: 'Word Structure in Chamic: Prosodic Alignment versus Segmental Faithfulness' offers an Optimality Theory approach arguing that various changes that occurred in Chamic following the historical shift to word-final stress were set in motion by phonetic lengthening of stressed syllables.

PITTAYAWAT PITTAYAPORN: 'Moken as a Mainland Southeast Asian Language' investigates in detail the historical origins of many linguistic features of Moken that have been attributed to Mon-Khmer influence, and challenges some of the arguments and assumptions made by scholars concerning these languages.

PAUL SIDWELl: 'Acehnese and the Aceh-Chamic Language Family' argues that Acehnese should not be treated as a Chamic language, but a sister tongue that separated and migrated to Sumatra before the emergence of Proto-Chamic.

GRAHAM THURGOOD and ELA THURGOOD's 'The Tones from Proto-Chamic to Tsat [Hainan Cham]: Insights from Zheng 1997 and from Summer 2004 fieldwork' illustrates the development of Tsat from non-tonal Proto-Chamic into the fully tonal (and highly sinicised) language it is today.