     east asian languages belong to several language families that are generally believed to be genetically unrelated, but share many features due to interaction. in the mainland southeast asia linguistic area, chinese varieties and languages of southeast asia share many areal features, tending to be analytic languages with similar syllable and tone structure. in the first millennium ad, chinese culture came to dominate east asia. literary chinese was adopted by scholars in vietnam, korea and japan, and there was a massive influx of chinese vocabulary into these and other neighbouring languages. the chinese script was also adapted to write vietnamese, korean and japanese. == language families ==  the languages of southeast asia and east asia belong to several language families. the austroasiatic languages include vietnamese and khmer, as well as many other languages spoken in areas scattered as far afield as malaya and eastern india, often in isolated pockets surrounded by the ranges of other language groups. most linguists believe that austroasiatic languages once ranged continuously across southeast asia and that their scattered distribution today is the result of the subsequent arrival of other language groups. one of these groups were the taiâkadai languages such as thai, lao and shan. these languages were originally spoken in southern china, where the greatest diversity within the family is still found, and possibly as far north as the yangtze valley. as chinese civilization expanded southward from the north china plain, many taiâkadai speakers became sinicized, but some migrated to southeast asia. with the exception of zhuang, most of the taiâkadai languages still remaining in china are spoken in isolated upland areas. the miaoâyao or hmongâmien languages also originated in southern china, where they are now spoken only in isolated hill regions. many hmongâmien speakers migrated to southeast asia in the 18th and 19th centuries, triggered by the suppression of a series of revolts in guizhou. the austronesian languages are believed to have spread from taiwan to the islands of the indian and pacific oceans, as well as some areas of mainland southeast asia. the chinese languages are usually included in the sino-tibetan family, which also includes tibeto-burman languages spoken in tibet, southwest china, northeast india, burma and neighbouring countries. to the north are the [[turkic 
East_Asian_culture Languages_of_Southeast_Asia Linguistic_typology