| Hakha Chin | |
|---|---|
| Laiholh | |
| Native to | Myanmar,India[1] |
| Ethnicity | Chin |
Native speakers | 300,000 (2011–2024)[2] |
| Latin Mon–Burmese | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | cnh |
| Glottolog | haka1240 |
| ELP | Hakha Chin |
Hakha Chin, orLaiholh, is aKuki-Chin language spoken by nearly 300,000 people, mostly inMyanmar.[3] InMizoram, the language is recognized asPawi. The total figure includes 2,000 Zokhua and 60,100 Hakha speakers.[4] The speakers are largely concentrated inChin State in western Myanmar and Mizoram in easternIndia, with a small number of speakers in south-easternBangladesh.
The Hakha Chin (Lai) speakers are largely inChin State,Burma andMizoram inNortheast India, with a small number of speakers in south-easternBangladesh. Nowadays, more than eighty thousands Hakha Chin speakers are living in the Western countries, such asCanada,Denmark,Germany,Norway, and theUnited States, as well asAustralia andNew Zealand.[citation needed]
Hakha Chin serves as alingua franca in most parts ofChin State and is a native language inHakha,Thantlang, and parts ofMatupi. 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 useLatin script (Hakha alphabet) as their writing system.
Words in the Hakha Chin language are predominantly monosyllabic with some sesqui syllables featuring a "reduced syllable".[5] Full syllables are either open or closed with a rising, falling, or low tone.[citation needed]
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The Hakha Chin language differentiates between voiced, voiceless, and voiceless aspirated obstruents. Additionally, two sets of sonorants are realised.[6]
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 asglottalized[mˀ,nˀ,ŋˀ,lˀ,rˀ].[7]
The unattested parent language, Proto-Chin, featured a voiced velar plosiveɡ. The phoneme itself was lost in all of its daughter languages, due to a spirantisation to ɣ, which a labialisation followed afterwards.[6] 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.[8] Voiceless approximants are distinguished in writing from their voiced counterparts with a prefixed⟨h⟩.
The Hakha language features five vowels which may be long or short. Allophones occur for closed syllables.[6]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ɔ | |
| Open | a |
In final position, /e/ can be heard as [ɛ].[7]
The Hakha language also features diphthongs.[6]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | ia iu | ui ua | |
| Mid | ei eu | ɔi | |
| Open | ai au |
Hakha-Chin is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language, and negation follows the verb.
Literacy rates are lower for older generations and higher in younger generations.[9] The Hakha-Chin language uses theLatin script, unlike most languages of India and Bangladesh which useDevanagari or other Southeast Asian alphabets. Between 1978 and 1999, the Bible was translated into the language.[9]
A written script for Hakha (Lai) was created in 1891 by DJC Mcnabb.[10] Additional scripts were created in 1894 by AGZ Newland, in 1900 by Rev. Arthur E. Carson and Rev. Dr. Harry H. Tilbe, and in 1908 by Rev. Dr. Herbert Cope.[9]
The Hakha-Chin language is also known as Haka, Baung-shè, and Lai in Burma, India, and Bangladesh.[9] TheHakha-Chin people are largely members of theLai tribe. In India, they are aScheduled 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 onswidden agriculture.[9] Hakha-Chin speakers are predominantlyChristian.[9]
As of 1991, there were 100,000 Hakha-Chin speakers in Burma.[9] Dialects vary from village to village.
As of 2000, there were 1,264 Hakha-Chin speakers in Bangladesh.[9] In Bangladesh, the Senthang dialect Shonshe is spoken and it may be a language in its own right.[9]
As of 1996, there were 345,000 Hakha-Chin speakers in India, mostly in theLawngtlai,Lunglei, andAizawl districts of Mizoram as well as the southernmost tip ofAssam.[9] 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 areliterate.[9]
e25 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
| ||||
| East andSoutheast Asia |
| ||||
| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
| ||||
| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
