Lai Language Resource

Part of CoRSAL

About the Language

Hakha Lai (ISO 639-3 cnh) is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in Myanmar and Northeast India, with significant refugee populations globally, including the United States. Alternative names for the language include Lai, Chin, and Hak(h)a, among others.

About the Collection

This collection includes a series of interviews conducted by Indiana University Hakha Lai students with family and friends in the broader Indianapolis Hakha Lai community as part of the Linguistically Underserved Communities and Health (LUCAH), a project funded by a collaborative grant to UNT and Indiana University by the National Science Foundation project in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (NSF #2031052 and 2031060). The interviews were conducted under Indiana University and UNT IRB and explore how to improve communication of COVID-19 health-related information to linguistically underserved populations in the US. The interviews were conducted virtually and subsequently transcribed and translated by a team of Hakha Lai speakers and Indiana University graduate students. The resulting corpus of interlinear-glossed texts (personal accounts, interviews, conversations) on health and wellness can be used for linguistic research as well as an understanding of health literacy and health messaging for the community. Additionally, there are dictionaries (English-Lai, Lai-English) and published magazines of Lai stories and commentary.