The Kuki-Chin group of the Tibeto-Burman language family consists of upwards of 50 languages spoken mainly in western Myanmar, predominantly in Chin State and in neighboring areas of India and Bangladesh (Simons & Fennig (eds.). 2019. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 21st edn. Dallas Texas: SIL International. Online version. http://www.ethnologue.com/). In the many daughter languages of Proto–Kuki-Chin, syllable structure simplification has yielded a synchronic situation in which individual languages are spread along a cline ranging from more conservative languages, some with complex onsets and vowel length distinctions, to more innovative languages, some with no coda consonants at all. The distribution and phonetic realization of these features vary across the Kuki-Chin group, raising a number of relevant questions about the underlying phonological representations of the Kuki-Chin syllable. This paper surveys representative structures from a variety of Kuki-Chin languages in order to highlight issues in syllable structure across these little-studied languages. In doing so, we aim to both unify observations on Kuki-Chin phonology related to the syllable, and to propose research that will further elucidate its structures.

Zophei is an undescribed Tibeto-Burman language within the Kuki-Chin family. Originally spoken in the Chin Hills of Western Myanmar, approximately 4,000 Zophei-speaking refugees now live in Central Indiana. No previous research on Zophei exists. The speakers located in Indiana who identify as ethnically Zophei hail from 14 distinct villages, and it is not yet known how many dialects or languages are represented. As part of a larger effort to kick-start a research program on Zophei, the current study presents vowel spaces for two speakers, one from Tlawngrang and one from Lawngtlang. Differences with regard to the number and distribution of high vowels and diphthongs indicate that these two areas speak different varieties with markedly different phonologies. For example, where one speaker has an /ui/ diphthong the other speaker consistently has the front rounded monophthong /y/. This research contributes to our ultimate goal, which is to determine the dialectal make-up of Zophei and to develop a description of the language or languages spoken by the ethnic Zophei population in Indiana.

In this paper, we discuss our efforts to build a corpus for Laiholh, also called Hakha Chin. Laiholh is spoken in Chin State in Western Myanmar, in parts of India and Bangladesh, and in several Burmese refugee communities in the US. Indiana, for example, is home to about 25,000 Burmese refugees. The ultimate goal of our team is to contribute to the development of speech translation technology that will be of benefit, both in general and in the local community in Indianapolis. Translation tools would be of great use in local emergency rooms, schools, and businesses. In pursuing our (admittedly lofty) goals, we are building a growing community of speakers, field linguists, computational linguists, and computer scientists. As a team, we have worked to share our different skill sets and mobilize the wider community around collecting data via Mozilla’s Common Voice platform. We present here a reflection on the project thus far, the kind of description we wish had existed when we were first building this collaboration and determining preliminary project goals. We hope that other communities and language activists who are thinking about developing speech technology may benefit from hearing about our motivations, concerns, experiences, and successes.

This paper presents a preliminary 100-item Swadesh word list for Lawngtlang Zophei. Zophei or Zyphe (ISO 639-3 ZYP) belongs to the Maraic branch of Kuki-Chin within the Tibeto-Burman language family (Eberhard et. al, 2019). Lawngtlang is a Zophei village in the Southeastern corner of the Zophei-speaking area in Thantlang Township, Chin State, Myanmar. Lawngtlang Zophei is considered to be part of the Lower (western) dialects of Zophei. The word list comes from the intuitions of our co-author Zai Sung, a 22-year-old native speaker born in Lawngtlang and currently living in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This paper presents a preliminary 100-item Swadesh word list for Hnaring Lutuv. Lutuv or Lautu(ISO 639-3 CLT) belongs to the Maraic branch of Kuki-Chin within the Tibeto-Burman language family (Eberhard et. al, 2019). Hnaring is a Lutuv village in the southern part of the Lutuv-speaking area in Thantlang Township, Chin State, Myanmar The word list comes from the intuitions of our co-author Sui Hnem Par,a 21-year-old native speaker born Near Mandalay of Lutuv parents (both from Hnaring), who lived for some of her childhood in Hnaring before moving to the US.