Rumpun bahasa Tai-Kadai mengandung banyak bentuk yang mirip dengan rumpun bahasa Austronesia yang ditemukan sejak Schlegel pada tahun 1901.[1] Kemiripan ini dianggap terlalu banyak untuk dijelaskan sebagai kemiripan kebetulan.[2] Pertanyaan kemudian adalah apakah kemiripan kedua bahasa tersebut disebabkan kontak bahasa (yaitu, meminjam) atau turunan umum (yaitu., hubungan silsilah).
Blust, Robert. (2014). "The Higher Phylogeny of Austronesian and the Position of Tai-Kadai: Another Look". In The 14th International Symposium on Chinese Languages and Linguistics (IsCLL-14).
Carr. M. (1986). Austro-Tai *Tsum(b)anget 'spirit' and Archaic Chinese *[XmwângXmwet] Galat: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: zho (bantuan) 恍惚 'bliss'. Tōkyō: Tōkyō Gaikokugo Daigaku.
Chamberlain, James R. (2016). "Kra-Dai and the Proto-History of South China and Vietnam". Journal of the Siam Society, 104, 27-76.
Li, Hui (李辉) et al. (2008). "Paternal genetic affinity between Western Austronesians and Daic populations". BMC Evolutionary Biology, 8, 146. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-146
Luo, Y.-X. (2008). Sino-Tai and Tai-Kadai: Another Look. In A. V. N. Diller, J. A. Edmondson, & Y.-X. Luo (Eds.), The Tai-Kadai Languages (pp.9–28). New York, NY: Routledge.
Ostapirat, Weera. 2005. "Kra–Dai and Austronesian: Notes on phonological correspondences and vocabulary distribution." Laurent Sagart, Roger Blench & Alicia Sanchez-Mazas, eds. The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. London: Routledge Curzon, pp.107–131.
Sagart, Laurent. (2005b). "Tai-Kadai as a subgroup of Austronesian". In L. Sagart, R. Blench, & A. Sanchez-Mazas (Eds.), The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics (pp.177–181).
Schmidt, Wilhelm. (1906) Die Mon-Khmer Völker, ein Bindeglied zwischen Völkern Zentralasiens und Austronesiens. Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn.
Thurgood, Graham. (1994). "Tai–Kadai and Austronesian: the nature of the relationship." Oceanic Linguistics 33.345-368.