Hakha Chin language
Hakha Chin | |
---|---|
Laiholh | |
Native to | Myanmar, India, Bangladesh[1] |
Ethnicity | Chin |
Native speakers | 170,000 (2011–2017)[1] |
Latin Mon–Burmese | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | cnh |
Glottolog | haka1240 |
ELP | Hakha Chin |
Hakha Chin, or Laiholh, is a Kuki-Chin language spoken by 446,264 people, mostly in Myanmar.[1] In Mizoram, the language is recognized as Pawi. The total figure includes 2,000 Zokhua and 60,100 Hakha speakers.[1] The speakers are largely concentrated in Chin State in western Myanmar and Mizoram in eastern India, with a small number of speakers in south-eastern Bangladesh.
Distribution
The Hakha Chin (Lai) speakers are largely in
Mutual intelligibility
Hakha Chin serves as a
The Chin people use Latin script (Hakha alphabet) as their writing system.
Phonology
Syllable structure
Words in the Hakha Chin language are predominantly monosyllabic with some sesqui syllables featuring a "reduced syllable".[2] Full syllables are either open or closed with a rising, falling, or low tone.[citation needed]
Consonants
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2018) |
The Hakha Chin language differentiates between voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated obstruents. Additionally, two sets of sonorants are realised.[3]
Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
central | lateral | |||||||
Nasal | voiced | m | n
|
ŋ | ||||
voiceless | m̥ | n̥ | ŋ̊ | |||||
Plosive | tenuis | p | t
|
ʈ | k | ʔ | ||
aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | ||||
voiced | b | d
|
(ɡ) | |||||
Affricate | tenuis | t͡s | tɬ | |||||
aspirated | t͡sʰ | tɬʰ | ||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | h | ||||
voiced | v | z | ||||||
Liquid | voiced | r
|
l
|
|||||
voiceless | r̥ | l̥
|
||||||
Semivowel | w | j |
Consonants allowed in syllable codas are /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, l, r, j, w/.
Consonants /m, n, ŋ, l, r/ occurring in syllable-final position may also occur as
The unattested parent language, Proto-Chin, featured a voiced velar plosive ɡ. The phoneme itself was lost in all of its daughter languages, due to a spirantisation to ɣ, which a labialisation followed afterwards.[3] Only certain loanwords, not native words, have the voiced velar plosive.
In the Hakha alphabet, ⟨h⟩ transcribes the glottal fricative in initial position, but a glottal stop in coda position.[5] Voiceless approximants are distinguished in writing from their voiced counterparts with a prefixed ⟨h⟩.
Vowels
The Hakha language features seven vowels which may be long or short. Allophones occur for closed syllables.[3]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i | u | |
Mid | e | ɔ | |
Open | a |
In final position, /e/ can be heard as [ɛ].[4]
The Hakha language also features diphthongs.[3]
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | ia iu | ui ua | |
Mid | ei eu | ɔi | |
Open | ai au |
Grammar
Hakha-Chin is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language, and negation follows the verb.
Literacy and literature
Literacy rates are lower for older generations and higher in younger generations.[1] The Hakha-Chin language uses the Latin script and reportedly the Pau Cin Hau script, unlike most languages of India and Bangladesh which use Devanagari or other Southeast Asian alphabets. Between 1978 and 1999, the Bible was translated into the language.[1]
Distribution
The Hakha-Chin language is also known as Haka, Baung-shè, and Lai in Burma, India, and Bangladesh.
Burma
As of 1991, there were 100,000 Hakha-Chin speakers in Burma.[1] Dialects vary from village to village.
Bangladesh
As of 2000, there were 1,264 Hakha-Chin speakers in Bangladesh.[1] In Bangladesh, the Senthang dialect Shonshe is spoken and it may be a language in its own right.[1]
India
As of 1996, there were 345,000 Hakha-Chin speakers in India, mostly in the
Bibliography
- Peterson, David A. (2003). "Hakha Lai" In Graham Thurgood and Randy J. LaPolla, eds. The Sino-Tibetan Languages, 409–426. London: Routledge
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Hakha Chin at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Hyman, Larry M.; VanBik, Kenneth (2004). "Directional rule application and output problems in Hakha Lai tone" (PDF). Language and Linguistics. 5 (4): 821–861.
- ^ a b c d Khoi Lam Thang (2001). A phonological reconstruction of Proto-Chin (PDF) (MA thesis). Payap University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ^ a b Lalremzani, C. (2013). Lai phonetics phonology and morphology: a descriptive study. North-Eastern Hill University.
- ^ "Pronunciation". hobugt.dk.
External links
- Online English to Chin (Hakha) Dictionary with Audio Pronunciations
- English to Haka Chin Online Dictionary
- Lai Language Resource collection of Hakha Lai language documentation in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive