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<Jahai (Jehai) is an aboriginal Mon–Khmer language spoken by the Jahai people living in Taman Negeri Diraja Belum of Perak, Malaysia. The small number of speakers is increasing.

Jahai vocabulary includes a series of words for describing odors.^[3]>

Jahai
Native to	Malaysia, a few in Thailand
Ethnicity	1,800 (2008)
Native speakers	1,000 in Malaysia (2006)
Language family	Austroasiatic Aslian Jahaic Eastern Jahai
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jhi
Glottolog	jeha1242

The Jahai language is an endangered language that is spoken among the indigenous community in the montane rainforests of the Malay Peninsula. It is classified as a 6B endangered language and it estimated that the language is spoken by around 1,000 indigenous natives. Jahai belongs to the Mon Khmer language family, a sub-section of the Aslian and Austro-Asiatic language family. The language is not a written language. In recent years, there has been a movement of native Jahai speakers to assimilate themselves to the Malay community or any larger Aslian language.

Phonology

Vowels

There are 16 vowel phonemes in the Jahai language. Of these, 9 are oral and 7 are nasal. There exist 5 front vowels: /i/, /e/, /ɛ/, /ĩ/, /ɛ̃/; 6 central vowels: /ɨ/, /ə/, /a/, /ɨ̃/, /ə̃/, /ã/; and 5 back vowels: /u/, /o/, /ɔ/, /ũ/, /ɔ̃/. The two tables below display the oral and nasal vowel phonemes in the IPA chart.

ORAL

Front	Central	Back
i	ɨ	u
e	ə	o
ɛ	a	ɔ

NASAL

Front	Central	Back
ĩ	ɨ̃	ũ
	ə̃
ɛ̃	ã	ɔ̃

Consonants

There are 20 consonant phonemes in the Jahai language. There are five contrastive places of articulation and six contrastive manners. The table below displays all consonant phonemes in the Jahai language in the IPA chart.

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatar	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p b	t d	c ɟ	k g	ʔ
Nasal	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Fricative	ɸ		s		h
Lateral		l
Rhotic		r
Approximant	w		j

Syllable Structure

Syllables in Jahai maximally has a simple onset, nucleus, and simple coda or [CVC]. These syllables can be divided into light and heavy syllables. Light syllables include the form [CV] while heavy syllables include a [CVC] form, or in other words, light syllables are considered open while heavy syllables are closed. The vowel nucleus is either non-predictable prespecified (/CV/, /CVC/) or predictable and underspecified (/C/, /CVC/). These syllables can be further categorized into either half or full syllables. Half syllables do not contain a prespecified vowel nucleus /C/ while all others are full syllables: /CV/, /CC/, /CVC/. These syllable distinctions are highlighted in the chart below.

	Light		Heavy
	Half	Full
Underlying form	C	CV	CC	CVC
Surface form	CV	CV	CVC	CVC

Stress

The Jahai language has a non-contrastive stress that automatically falls on the last syllable of the word.

Tone

Research has suggested that here have not been sufficient pitch contrasts and that contrastive pairs have either contrasting vowel quality or contrastive final consonants as a replacement.

Morphology

Affixation

The process of affixation involves the creation or re-invention of a syllable, causing the prior monosyllabic form to change into disyllabic or sequisyllabic; more specifically Jahai's affixation changes syllables from half to full or from light to heavy. The affixation process of Jahai involves three unique determining factors.1. The domain of the attachment 2. The structure of the base to the attached affix 3. The degree of phonologically prespecified material in the affix. These factors form a spectrum called 'base dependence'.

Note: Different allomorphes of the same morpheme may have different modes of dependence.

The examples below portray a couple of the different prefixes.

/b-kdɨh/

b-	kdɨh
PROG	to say
'to be saying'
The prefix b- portrays tense in a progressive aspect.

/t-bəw/

t-	bəw
REL	-to be big
‘Big’
The prefix /t-/ adds relative meaning.

Underspecified Affixation/Partial Reduplication

Underspecified affixes are not fully prespecified. Due to this, Jahai copies its phonemic content from the final CVC string from the base. In other cases, affixes could be completely unspecified and are therefore composed entirely of segments from the final CVC base. Below is an example of an underspecified affix. This process is referred to as Coda Copy.

/C	C	V	C/	-->	[C	<C>	C	V	C
k	ɟ	e	ŋ		k		ɟ	e	ŋ
The affix <C> then copies the final CVC string.....
k<ŋ>ɟeŋ

Infixation

Infixation is the process of adding a morpheme that lies in the center or near center of a root.

Ex. ckwɨk ‘speech’ → c<n>kwɨk ‘act of talking’

The infix <n> is a nominaliser that “make verbs behave syntactically like ordinary nouns”

Cliticisation

Cliticisation involves bound morphemes that are attached to either clauses, phrases, or other group of words. The example below demonstrates the use of the clitic ha= which attaches in the form clitic=[clause]. In Jahai, clitics can range in their location of a word and therefore can either by hosted by the first constituent of the NP or clause, verbs, the core, or any other constituent. In this specific case, the clitic is hosted by the first section of the clause. The examples below portray a variety of clitics with different locations of attachment.

Hosted by first constituent of the clause

ha=mɔh	ʔtʔet
Q=2S.FAM	Q=2S.FAM
'Do you know?'

Hosted by a verb

wa=pi-ʔɛ̃m	wɔŋ	ʔoʔ
IRR.3S=CAUS-to.drink	child	3S
'She will suckle her baby.'

Hosted by any constituent

k=baboʔ
REL=woman
'who [is a] woman?'

Total Reduplication

Total Reduplication is the process in which the entire base of the word is copied and placed to the left of the original base.

Ex. /mεj/ ‘what’ → /mεj-mεj/ ‘whatever’

Ex. /kɟeŋ/ 'to listen' → /kɟeŋ-kɟeŋ/ 'to keep on sleeping'

Ex. /pagiʔ/ 'morning' → /pagiʔ-pagiʔ/ 'various mornings'

Syntax

Common Clauses

• The Jahai language has a basic word order of S(SUBJ:AGR) V(DIRECT OBJECT)  (OBLIQUE ARGUMENT), where the S is optional while S=AGR is not.

Common Clauses

Puŋhuluh	ʔoʔ	1ɔj
Headman	3S	to.run
‘The headman fled’

Common Clauses

ʔoʔ	tampɛr	jɛʔ
3S	to.claw	1S
‘It clawed me’

Oblique Argument

ʔoʔ	ʔεk	taɟiʔ	ba=wɔŋ
3S	to.give	knife	GOAL=child
'He Gave the knife to the child.' (elic.)

Permuted Arguments

This type of clause “does not require an obligatory preverbal subject-making pronoun”. The basic word order in common clauses can be disrupted through an "optional postverbal prepositional phrase" or other elements that can occur in between the verb and subject. (See Example 1) Or, “a noun phrase can represent the direct object in clause-initial position." (See Example 2) Below are two examples of the SVO word order in Jahai

1.

Jeʔ	jiʔ	d=jɛʔ
1S	to.refuse	CONTR=1S
‘I refuse’

2.

ʔikəʔ	jɛʔ	gj-gej
Fish	1S	IMPF-to.eat
‘I was eating fish’

Adjuncts

Adjuncts are grammatically used to alter or modify the meaning of a word. Adjuncts are not considered arguments of a verb.They usually directly precede the verb or post-arguments of the verb. Adjuncts in Jahai will never occur between the preceding subject maker or interrupt the subject maker and its preceding subject. The example below portrays an adjunct in Jahai.

ja=kajil	ba=taseʔ
IRR=to.fish	GOAL=lake
'[I] will go fishing in the lake.'

Detached Phrases

Detached Phrases occur when phrases are separated by a pause. These pauses may occur before and after the clause. These two different detached phrases can be referred to as the left-detached phrase and the right-detached phrase, both of which serve different pragmatic functions. The left-detached phrases are used for topicalization while the right-detached phrases are used to specify. Below is an example of a left-detached phrase and an example of a right-detached phrase.

Left-Detached Phrase

ʔalɛh	ʔoʔ	kul	ba=bɨʔ	ʔoʔ	ton
girl	3s	to.call	GOAL=mother	3S	that
'As for the girl, she called to her mother.'

Right-Detached Phrase

jɛʔ	bdɛl	ʔamɛŋ	duwaʔ	k<nʔ >bɨʔ
1S	to.shoot	siamang	two	CLF<UNIT>
'I shot the siamangs, two of them.'