One of the ethne speaking in a language belonging to the Mon-Khmer group is represented by Palaung (Deang). Their number exceeds 600 thousand people. Greater part of them is living in the northern regions of Myanmar (Burma) and only about 20 thousand on the territory of Yunnan Province, PRC. They belong to s.c. Mountain Khmer, because they are close to this ethnic group by the main ethnographical characteristics and by language as well. Among the ancestors of Palaung the people of Pu must be point out. This people had the contacts with ancient Chinese states of Yin and Zhou in the Bronze Age, then they were conquered by Shu (one of the Three Kingdoms) and from the middle of 1st Millennium AD they began to establish their own states (princedoms) in the region to the West of Iravadi River. Gradual migration of Palaung (and their ancestors Pu) from the territory of modern provinces of Sichuan and Guizhou to the South (first to Yunnan and then to Northern Myanmar) corresponded with general movement of Austro-Asiatic peoples from the basin of Middle and Lower Yangzi River to South-East Asia.
讲蒙高棉语的民族之一是德昂族。他们的人数超过60万人。其中大部分人生活在缅甸北部地区，只有2万人居住在中国云南省境内。他们属于山高棉人，因为他们在主要的民族志特征上都与这个民族很接近。在德昂族的祖先中，必须指出濮族人。他们在青铜器时代就与中国古代的殷国和周国有过接触，后来被三国之一的蜀国征服，从公元1千中叶开始在伊洛瓦底河以西地区建立自己的国家。德昂族从近代川黔两省境内向南方（先到云南，再到缅甸北部）的逐渐迁移，与其他民族人从长江中下游流域向东南亚的总体迁移相吻合。