Daai language should not be confused with Mün Chin language.
| Dai | |
| Region: | Myanmar |
| Ethnicity: | Dai Chin |
| Speakers: | 37,000 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Tibeto-Burman |
| Fam3: | Central Tibeto-Burman (?) |
| Fam4: | Kuki-Chin-Naga |
| Fam5: | Kuki-Chin |
| Fam6: | Southern |
| Iso3: | dao |
| Glotto: | daai1236 |
| Glottorefname: | Dai Chin |
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.[1] 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.
Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Dai Chin.
Dai has twenty-four consonant phonemes.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Plosives | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Fricatives | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Lateral Fricatives | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Approximants | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ |
Dai has seven vowel phonemes, each with a phonemic length contrast.
| Front | Central | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Low | pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ | ||||
Dai is an isolating or analytic language. There is no inflectional morphology at the word level; case, number, and tense are marked by clitics.
| 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. |