Hlai languages


The Hlai languages are a primary branch of the Kra–Dai language family spoken in the mountains of central and south-central Hainan in China by the Hlai people, not to be confused with the colloquial name for the Leizhou branch of Min Chinese. They include Cun, whose speakers are ethnically distinct. A quarter of Hlai speakers are monolingual. None of the Hlai languages had a writing system until the 1950s, when the Latin script was adopted for Ha.

Classification

Norquest classifies the Hlai languages as follows. There are some 750,000 Hlai speakers.
  • Proto-Hlai
  • *Bouhin – 73,000
  • *Greater Hlai
  • **Ha Em 哈炎 – 193,000
  • **Central Hlai
  • ***East Central Hlai – 344,000
  • ****Lauhut – 166,000, the basis of the literary language
  • ****Qi 杞 – 178,000
  • *****Tongzha – 125,000
  • *****Zandui – 29,000
  • ***** 保亭 – 24,000
  • ***North Central Hlai – 136,500
  • ****Northwest Central Hlai – 62,500
  • *****Cun 村语 – 60,000
  • ***** 那斗 – 2,500
  • ****Northeast Central Hlai – 74,000
  • ***** 美孚 – 30,000
  • ****** 昌江
  • ******Moyfaw
  • ***** 润 – 44,000
  • ****** 白沙 – 36,000
  • ****** 元门 – 8,000
Nadou is spoken by approximately 4,000 people in the two villages of 那斗村 and 月村, in Dongfang, Hainan. Speakers refer to themselves as lai¹¹ and are officially classified by the Chinese government as ethnic Han Chinese.
Jiamao language| 加茂 is a divergent Kra-Dai language with a Hlai superstratum and a non-Hlai substratum.

Reconstruction

The Proto-Hlai language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Hlai languages. Proto-Hlai reconstructions include those of Matisoff, Thurgood, Ostapirat, and Norquest.

Phonology

The following displays the phonological features of the modern Hlai dialects:

Consonants

  • , mainly occur word-initially among various dialects. may also be realized as.
  • , mainly occur among the Xifang dialects.
  • can also occur as an allophone of.
  • ,, are pronounced as alveolo-palatal sounds,,, among other various dialects.
  • can have allophones as.
  • For a brief period of time Yuanmen distinguished and after became which soon merged with.

    Vowels

  • Among other Hlai dialects, can have allophones of.
  • Vowel sounds and are common among the Baisha and Jiamao dialects.
  • occurs among some dialects.

    History

Liang & Zhang conclude that the original homeland of the Hlai languages was the Leizhou Peninsula, and estimate that the Hlai had migrated across the Hainan Strait to Hainan Island about 4,000 years before present.