Jarai (/dʒəˈraɪ/; Vietnamese: Cho-Rai, Chor, Chrai, Djarai, Gia-Rai, Gio-Rai, Jorai or Mthur; Khmer: ចារ៉ាយ, Charay [caːraːj]) is a Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Jarai people of Vietnam and Cambodia.

They are the largest of the upland ethnic groups of Vietnam's Central Highlands known as Degar or Montagnards, and 25 per cent of the population in the Cambodian province of Ratanakiri.

Đào Huy Quyền (1998)[3] lists the following subgroups of Jarai dialects and their respective locations.

Additionally, Jarai has further evolved in the pattern of Mon–Khmer, losing almost all vowel distinction in the initial minor syllable.

[4] At the beginning of the 20th century, during the period of French Indochina, colonisers introduced a writing system for Jarai based on the Vietnamese alphabet.

Unlike systems like those to write Maori, Latvian and other languages, the Jarai orthography adds diacritics to mark short vowels, namely the breve: ⟨ĭ ĕ ă ŏ ŭ ơ̆ ư̆⟩.