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Hakha Chin, or Laiholh, is a Kuki-Chin language spoken by 446,264 people, mostly in Myanmar.[1] The total figure includes 2,000 Zokhua and 60,100 Hakha speakers.[1] The speakers are largely concentrated in Chin State in western Burma and Mizoram in eastern India, with a small number of speakers in southeastern Bangladesh.

Hakha Chin
Laiholh
Native to	Burma, India, Bangladesh[1]
Ethnicity	Chin
Native speakers	(130,000 cited 1991–2001)[2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Kuki-Chin Central Hakha Chin
Writing system	Latin Burmese
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cnh
Glottolog	haka1240
ELP	Hakha Chin

Distribution

The Hakha Chin (Lai) speakers are largely in Chin State, Burma and Mizoram in Northeast India, with a small number of speakers in southeastern Bangladesh. Nowadays, more than fifty thousand Hakha Chin speakers are living in western countries such as United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Germany and as well as Australia and New Zealand.^{[citation needed]}

Mutual intelligibility

Hakha Chin serves as a lingua franca in most parts of Chin State and is a native language in Hakha, Thantlang, and parts of Matupi. Derived from the same Lai dialect and sharing 85% of their phonology, Falam Chin speakers can easily communicate with Hakha speakers. As the capital of Chin State, Hakha provides government employment and business opportunities to people living elsewhere in Chin State. These people live here temporarily or permanently, and their families eventually learn how to speak Lai holh (Hakha).

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".[3] 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.[4]

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	voiced	m	n			ŋ
	voiceless	m̥	n̥			ŋ̊
Plosives	tenuis	p	t	ʈ		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d			(ɡ)
Central affricates	tenuis		t͡s
	aspirated		t͡sʰ
Lateral affricates	tenuis		tɬ
	aspirated		tɬʰ
Fricatives	voiceless	f	s				h
	voiced	v	z
Approximants	voiced	w	l		j
	voiceless		l̥
Trills	voiced		r
	voiceless		r̥

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 glottalized [mˀ, nˀ, ŋˀ, lˀ, rˀ].[5]

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.[4] 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.[6] 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.[4]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		ɔ
Open		a

In final position, /e/ can be heard as [ɛ].[5]

The Hakha language also features diphthongs.[4]

	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.[1] The Hakha-Chin people are largely members of the Lai tribe. In India, they are a Scheduled Tribe, which means the government recognizes them as a distinct people. As they mostly live in hilly or even mountainous remote areas, most Hakha-Chin speakers rely on swidden agriculture.[1] Hakha-Chin speakers are predominantly Christian.[1]

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 Lawngtlai, Lunglei, and Aizawl districts of Mizoram as well as the southernmost tip of Assam.[1] In India, the language is also known as Lai Pawi and Lai Hawlh and is taught in some primary schools. Most of its younger speakers in India are literate.[1]

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

• Lai languages
• Lai people

References

External links

• Online English to Chin (Hakha) Dictionary with Audio Pronunciations
• English to Haka Chin Online Dictionary

На других языках

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[de] Hakha Chin

Hakha Chin ist eine Sprache, die vom Volk der Chin aus dem Westen Myanmars gesprochen wird.

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- [en] Hakha Chin language

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[ru] Чинский язык

Чинский язык (также хака, баунгше, лай) — язык, распространённый в Южной Азии, на котором говорит от 100 000[2] до 300 000 человек[3] (Ethnologue приводит цифру 125 000 человек[1]). Общее число говорящих включает 2000 говорящих на диалекте зокуа и 60 100 носителей языка лай[1].

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