Daai language

Daai
Daai
Region	Myanmar
Ethnicity	Daai Chin
Native speakers	37,000 (2010)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Central Tibeto-Burman (?) Kuki-Chin-Naga Kuki-Chin Southern Daai; ; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dao
Glottolog	daai1236

Daai (also known as Daai Chin), which borders the Mün and Ütbü language groups, is a Kuki-Chin of Myanmar. It is spoken in 142 villages in Kanpetlet, Matupi, Mindat, and Paletwa townships in Chin State, Burma (Ethnologue). A written script for Daai was created in 1976 by U Khine Sho and Ms. Halga So Hart Manno.^[2]

Mutual intelligibility among Nghngilo (Yang), Daa Yindu, and Mkui groups is high, but is lower among other groups.^[3] Daai has greater than 90% lexical similarity with Daa Yindu, Yang, Mkui, Duk, and Msang, 81%–88% with Ngxang (Paletwa township) and Kheng, 80% with Shiip (Matupi township), 91%–94% with Gah/Ng-Gha (part of Mün), and 81%–87% with Mün.^[3]

Dialects

Ethnologue lists the following dialects of daai Chin.

Ngxang
Nghngilo (Yang)
Ma-Tu
Shiip
Duk-Msang
Kheng
Mkuui
Yet

Phonology

Consonants

Daai has twenty-four consonant phonemes.

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	m̥ m	n̥ n		ŋ̊ ŋ
Plosives	p pʰ b	t tʰ d		k kʰ	ʔ
Fricatives		s sʰ		x ɣ	h
Lateral Fricatives		ɬ
Approximants	w	l	j

Vowels

Daai has seven vowel phonemes, each with a phonemic length contrast.

	Front	Central	Back
	Front	Central	Unrounded	Rounded
High	i iː		ɯ ɯː	u uː
Mid	ɛ ɛː	ə əː		ɔ ɔː
Low		a aː

Grammar

Daai is an isolating or analytic language. There is no inflectional morphology at the word level; case, number, and tense are marked by clitics.

Examples

Daai	English
mthan	night
mpyong	mouth
kpyak	to destroy
pha	to arrive
Nghngaai-ktheih hmin lokti.	The mango fruits became ripe.
Mat jah mata i:ma am ngleh-ei ni.	They did not visit each other's houses.

References

^ Daai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Lian, Salai Van Cung; Salem-Gervais, Nicolas (November 2020). "How Many Chin Languages Should Be Taught in Government Schools? Ongoing developments and structural challenges of language-in-education policy in Chin State". Parami Journal of Education. 1 (1).
^ ^a ^b "Myanmar". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-10-10.

Naing Kheng. 2017. A phonological description of the Mkuui variety of Dai Chin Archived 2018-06-12 at the Wayback Machine. Master's Thesis.
Helga So-Hartmann. 2009. A Descriptive Grammar of Dai Chin. The Regents University of California.

[e18-1] Daai at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[:5-2] Lian, Salai Van Cung; Salem-Gervais, Nicolas (November 2020). "How Many Chin Languages Should Be Taught in Government Schools? Ongoing developments and structural challenges of language-in-education policy in Chin State". Parami Journal of Education. 1 (1).

[:0-3] "Myanmar". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 2016. Archived from the original on 2016-10-10.

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