Laha () is a Kra language spoken by approximately 1,400 people out of a total population of 5,686 Laha. It is spoken in

Lào Cai Lào Cai () is a city in the Northwest region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Lào Cai Province. The city borders Bảo Thắng District, Bát Xát District, Sa Pa and the city of Hekou Yao Autonomous County, in Yunnan province of southwest ...

and

Sơn La Sơn La (; Tai Dam: ) is a city in the north-west region of Vietnam. It is the capital of Sơn La Province. It is bordered by Thuận Châu District, Mường La District, and Mai Sơn District. History In the era of the Sip Song Chau Tai, S ...

provinces, Vietnam. Laha dialects had been documented in 1986 by Russian linguists and in 1996 by American linguist Jerold A. Edmondson. Many Laha can also converse in the

Khmu language Khmu is the language of the Khmu people of the northern Laos region. It is also spoken in adjacent areas of Vietnam, Thailand and China. Khmu lends its name to the Khmuic branch of the Austroasiatic language family, the latter of which also ...

, and Laha-speaking areas also have significant Black Thai ( Tai Dam), Kháng, Ksongmul ( Ksingmul, Xinh-mun), and Hmong populations. Ostapirat (2000) considers the Laha dialects to form a subgroup of their own (Southern Kra) within the Kra branch.Ostapirat, Weera (2000).
Proto-Kra
. ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'' 23 (1): 1-251

Geographic distribution

Gregerson & Edmondson (1997) and Wardlaw (2000) report the following locations of two Laha dialects, namely the Wet Laha and Dry Laha dialects. Wet Laha (Laha Ung, ') of

and Lai Châu *Tà Mít Commune, Tân Uyên, Lai Châu,

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making it ...

(just north of the Black River) — known as the "Wet Laha". Edmondson's informant is from Bản Muot Village, Tà Mít Commune (Edmondson & Gregerson 1997). There are 8 Laha villages numbering no more than 1,000 people in Than Uyên District, Lai Châu,

. *Pha Mu and Nặm Cần Communes, Tân Uyên, Lai Châu Dry Laha (Laha Phlao) of

— around the Sông Đà and Nậm Mu Rivers *Noong Lay and Nặm Ét Communes, Thuận Châu,

(just south of the Black River; in Bản Muot, etc.) — known as the "Dry Laha" *Chiền Xòm, Liềp Tè, Noong Giông, and Nặm Ét in

*Nặm Giôn, Chiền Xàng, Chiền Dong, Pi Toong, and Mường Bú of Mường La District,

Sơn La Province ''Toxicodendron succedaneum'', the wax tree, Japanese Hazenoki tree (Sumac or wax tree), sơn in Vietnam or charão in Portuguese, is a flowering plant species in the genus '' Toxicodendron'' found in Asia, although it has been planted elsewhere ...

. Laha of Nà Tạy, Pi Toong commune is documented in Hsiu (2017).Hsiu, Andrew. 2017
Laha (Na Tay) audio word list
Zenodo.
word list
* Thuận Châu, Mường La, Quỳnh Nhai districts of

*Bản Bung and Phù Yên near

on the north bank of the Black River

Phonology

Consonants

* In both dialects, can be heard as when occurring before front vowels.

Final consonants

Both have the same final consonants, except is only in the Noong Lay dialect.

Vowels

* Vowel sounds can occur long as . Both dialects have two vowels in final position. They also may be heard as glide sounds .

References

* Benedict, Paul K. 1992.
Laha Reexamined
" In ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'', 15, no. 2: 207–218. * Diller, Anthony, Jerold A. Edmondson, and Yongxian Luo ed. ''The Tai–Kadai Languages''. Routledge Language Family Series. Psychology Press, 2008. * Gregerson, Kenneth and Jerold A. Edmondson. 1997.
Outlying Kam-Tai: Notes On Ta Mit Laha
" In the ''Mon-Khmer Studies Journal'', 27: 257–269. * Ostapira, Weera. 1995.
Notes on Laha final -l
. In ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'', vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 173–181. * Wardlaw, Terrance Randall. ''A phonological comparison between two varieties of Laha: Syllable constituents and tone in Ta Mit and Noong Lay Laha''. M.A. Thesis, The University of Texas at Arlington, 2000.

External links

ABVD: Laha (Ta Mit) word list
*https://web.archive.org/web/20131202230717/http://cema.gov.vn/modules.php?name=Content&op=details&mid=512 {{DEFAULTSORT:Laha Language Kra languages Languages of China Languages of Vietnam