Aslian

Aslian is the southernmost branch of the Austroasiatic family and the speech of the Orang Asli, the aboriginal peoples of the Malay Peninsula. Its languages fall into northern, central and southern groups, with Jah Hut and the extinct Kenaboi standing apart.

Scholars place the arrival of Proto-Aslian speakers from the Gulf of Thailand region before the rise of Mon power; Semai traditions of settlement go back to roughly 8000 to 6000 BC, and the languages preserve Bornean and Chamic loanwords left by Austronesian settlers who reached the peninsula three to four thousand years ago.

Once Malay sultanates formed and Islam spread, the forest peoples were classed as despised pagans and exposed to slave-raiding, so many withdrew deeper inland; their languages remained unwritten, absorbed Malay vocabulary, and survived in scattered swidden and foraging bands beyond the plains.