| Jarai | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spoken in | Vietnam, Cambodia, United States | |||
| Region | Southeast Asia | |||
| Native speakers | 332,557 (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
Austronesian
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| Writing system | Vietnam: modified Vietnamese alphabet Cambodia: None | |||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in | none, recognised as a minority language in Vietnam | |||
| Regulated by | No official regulation | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | jra | |||
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The Jarai language is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Jarai people of Vietnam and Cambodia. The speakers of Jarai number approximately 332,557. They are the largest of the upland ethnic groups of Vietnam's Central Highlands known as Degar or Montagnards.
The language is in the Chamic subgroup of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and is thus related to the Cham language of central Vietnam.
A number of Jarai also live in the United States, having resettled there following the Vietnam War.
Influenced by the surrounding Mon–Khmer languages, words of the various Chamic languages of Southeast Asia, including Jarai, have become disyllabic with the stress on the second syllable. Additionally, Jarai has further evolved in the pattern of Mon–Khmer, losing almost all vowel distinction in the initial syllable. While trisyllabic words do exist, they are all loanwords. The typical Jarai word may be represented:
(C)(V)-C(C)V(V)(C)
where the values in parentheses are optional and "(C)" in the cluster "C(C)" represents a liquid consonant /l/, /r/ or a semivowel /w/, /j/. In Jarai dialects spoken in Cambodia, the "(C)" in the cluster "C(C)" can also be the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, a phoneme used by the Jarai in Cambodia, but not attested in Vietnam. The vowel of the first sylable in disyllabic words is most often the mid-central unrounded vowel, /ə/, unless the initial consonant is the glottal stop /ʔ/. The second vowel of the stressed syllable produces a diphthong.