Daai language

Not to be confused with Mün Chin language.

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

Dai (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).

Mutual intelligibility among Nghngilo (Yang), Daa Yindu, and Mkui groups is high, but is lower among other groups. Dai 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.

Dialects

Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Dai Chin.

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

Phonology

Consonants

Dai 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

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

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

Grammar

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

Examples

Dai	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

• 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.