Why don't Cambodians look like Vietnamese although they speak the same language group (Austroasiatic)?

Question

Why don't Cambodians look like southern Vietnamese although they speak the same language group (Austroasiatic)?

The Austroasiatic languages /ˌɔːstroʊ. eɪʒiˈætɪk/, also known as Mon–Khmer /moʊn kəˈmɛər/, are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China. There are around 117 million speakers of Austroasiatic languages.

Answer 1

i don't understand this arrangement, the Vietnamese group in vietnam and south china (before it was sinicized) clearly has a larger population than khmer and mon in the past and present, what is the reason that vietnamese is in the Mon-Khmer group and not vice versa.

Answer 2

There were many Austronesian people who migrated to the Khmer Empire and Indian traders who mixed with the Khmers so they will be different eventually. The Champa Kingdom thought to be the result of people from Malay (Austronesian root) and people in Dai Viet has noticed that their skin is darker than theirs. Champa and Khmer Empire were always at fight in the past so it is not surprise that there were attemps of mixing going on.

Answer 3

The hypothesis that Vietnamese and Khmer are grouped in the same language family does not necessarily mean the speakers of those languages are similar in terms of ethnicity. As such, Indians and Europeans are not necessarily similar ethnically due to the fact that they belong in the same Euro-Indian language group. If there was anything in common between/among the mentioned languages and ethnicities, that must surely have taken place a long time ago in prehistoric times. As a matter of fact, in ancient times, there had been no clear-cut boundaries between languages, ethnicities, nations, etc. Who knows what has been happening and changing during thousands or tens of thousands of years in human history? By the way, will you say that a Finn is supposed to look very different from a Swedish person because they have different language roots? In modern times, it has been proven that the modern Kinh Vietnamese share several genetic traits with Tai (Thai) and Han (Chinese) ethnicities, rather than with Mon-Khmer ethnic groups.

Answer 4

Cambodians and Vietnamese look as similar to each other as people in any two neighbouring countries do. As similar as French and Spanish, say. Not least because there are a large number of “ethnic Khmer” in Vietnam (look up Kampuchea Krom).

No one who had spent much time in Southeast Asia would conclude otherwise.

Answer 5

Read my answer here to the similar question. https://www.quora.com/Are-Vietnamese-genetically-closer-to-Chinese-or-Cambodians/answer/Chivan-San

Answer 6

According to Cambodian legend, they are descendants of the prince Kaundinya I of India and the queen of Cambodia Soma.

Cambodian girl

According to the legend of the Vietnamese people, the Vietnamese are a combination of the two tribes of the mountain fairy and the coastal dragon . In other words, a combination of Thai-Kadai and Austroasiatic/Mon-Khmer. It would like to note that Thai-Kadai are ancestors of Thailand, Laos, Zhuang (in China), Tay Nung (in Vietnam) and Austroasiatic / Mon-Khmer are ancestors of Mon (in Thailand, Laos, Myanmar), Vietic (in Vietnam), Khmer (in Cambodia) and ...

Take a look at the distribution of Thai-Kadai people, you will understand why they are called mountain fairy tribe.

Legendary kiss

In the old days, there were some Vietnamese scholars who were limited by the thinking of the times. They had no knowledge of linguistics, no knowledge of DNA... So they recorded a beautiful folk tale with quite mythical elements to explain the origin of the Vietnamese people:

Vietnamese legend says that the Dragon's father married the Fairy's mother and gave birth to one hundred eggs. One hundred eggs hatched the first 100 Vietnamese. They are the ancestors of the Vietnamese people.

Once, a Western historian asked a Vietnamese historian humorously: Why do you put this nonsense in your textbooks? Do you really believe that you were born from eggs ?

This legend has been clarified by Vietnamese historians today:

1. Father Dragon and Mother Fairy is about the union between two different tribes.

2. Father Dragon is a coastal tribe that worships crocodile totem Lạc Việt. Mother Fairy is a mountain tribe that worships bird totem Âu Việt.

3. Both crocodiles and birds are egg-laying species. So Vietnamese or Đại Việt people born from eggs are logical thinking (And today, we know for a fact that all women hide their eggs somewhere near their cute belly button).

Westerners believe they are born out of the mud and the morning breath of God, so why does it seem strange to you when the Vietnamese believe in their totem?

And look at Indians and Europeans, they speak languages of the same family Indo-European languages , but they don't really look alike. The difference between Vietnamese and Cambodian is not as far off as Europe and India. I find that they are quite similar.

Vietnamese girl