Dehong Dai

9.9

A language spoken by the Dai people in southwest Yunnan, China

noun

: Dehong Dai

Many ethnic Dai people in Yunnan speak Dehong Dai as their first language.

Examples

The Dehong Dai language has a rich tradition of folk tales and poetry.
Linguists study Dehong Dai to understand the evolution of the Tai language family.
The Dehong Dai language is rich in cultural history.
Many people in Yunnan speak Dehong Dai fluently.
Linguists study Dehong Dai to understand the evolution of the Tai language family.
Many ethnic Dai people in Yunnan speak Dehong Dai as their first language.
The Dehong Dai language has a rich tradition of folk tales and poetry.

Surface Forms

Dehong Dai singular

Dehong Dais plural

Morphology

Dehong + Dai

This is a proper-name for a language variety built from two proper nouns (the place name 'Dehong' and the ethnonym 'Dai'), and those constituents are not general English vocabulary or semantically transparent to a B1 learner. Because understanding the term requires specific world knowledge about a region and an ethnic group rather than composition of familiar words, the meaning cannot be reliably derived and is therefore opaque.

Etymology

Dehong Dai comes from the name of the region Dehong and the people called Dai who live there in southwest Yunnan, China, and so it means the 'Dai' language of that area.