Cuoi language

Cuói, known as Thổ in Vietnam and as Hung in Laos,[2] is a dialect cluster spoken by around 70,000 Thổ people in Vietnam and a couple thousand in Laos, mainly in the provinces of Bolikhamsai and Khammouane.

Cuói
Hung (hnu) Thổ (tou)
Native to	Vietnam, Laos
Ethnicity	Thổ
Native speakers	71,000 (1999 census)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Vietic Cuói
Dialects	Cuối Chăm Làng Lỡ Pong (Toum, Liha, Phong)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: hnu – Hung tou – Thô
Glottolog	cuoi1242
Linguasphere	46-EAD-a

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant inventory of the Làng Lỡ dialect, as cited by Michel Ferlus:[3]

Initial consonants of Cuối Làng Lỡ

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		[m]		[n]		[ɲ]	[ŋ]
Stop	tenuis	[p]		[t]	[ʈ]	[c]	[k]	[ʔ]
	glottalized	[ɓ]		[ɗ]		[^ʔɟ]
	aspirated			[t^h]			[k^h]
Fricative	voiceless	[f]		[s]	[ʂ]			[h]
	voiced	[β]	[v]	[ð]			[ɣ]
	glottalized			[^ʔð]
Approximant				[l]	[ɽ ~ ʐ]	[j]

• [ʈ] is found in Vietnamese loanwords with initial /ʈ/ (orthographic [tr])
• [β ð ɣ ^ʔð] originate in the borrowing of segments from a variety of Vietnamese that existed several centuries ago.

Vowels

Monothongs of Cuối Làng Lỡ

	Front	Central	Back
Close	[i]	[ɨ]	[u]
Close-mid/ Mid	[e]	[ə]	[o]
Open-mid/ Open	[ɛ]	[ʌ̆] [ă] [a]	[ɔ]

Diphthongs of Cuối Làng Lỡ	iə	ɨə	uə	eə	oə

Tones

There're eight tones in the Làng Lỡ. Tones 1 to 6 are found on sonorant-final syllables (a.k.a. 'live' syllables): syllables ending in a vowel, semi-vowel or nasal. Tones 7 and 8 are found on obstruent-final syllables (a.k.a. 'stopped' syllables), ending in -p -t -c -k.[3] This is a system comparable to that of Vietnamese.

Vocabulary

The data is from Cuoi Cham vocabulary recordings and the Mon-Khmer Etymological Dictionary.

English	Cuối Chăm	Làng Lỡ	Vietnamese
cloud	mʌl^1	mʌn^1	mây
rain	mɐː^2	mɨə^1	mưa
wind	sɒː^3	juə^3	gió
thunder	k^hrʌm^4	ʂəm^4	sấm
earth, land	tʌt^7	tʌt^7	đất
cave	haːŋ^1	haːŋ^1	hang
deep	k^hruː^2	ʂuː^2	sâu
water	daːk^7	daːk^7	nước
river	k^hrɔŋ^1	ʂɔːŋ^1	sông
puddle	puŋ^6	-	vũng
mud	puːl^2	vuːn^2	bùn
rock, stone	taː^3	δaː^3	đá
bark	pɒː^5	ʂɔː^56	vỏ
dog	cɒː^3	cɔː^3	chó
cultivated field	rɔːŋ^4	ʂɔːŋ^4	ruộng
to go	tiː^2	tiː^2	đi
to have	kɒː^3	kɔː^3	có

References

1. Hung at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Thô at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. "The Vietic Branch". sealang.net.
3. Ferlus, Michel 2015, I.2 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFFerlus,_Michel2015 (help)

Further reading

• Ferlus, Michel (2015). Hypercorrections in the Thổ dialect of Làng Lỡ (Nghệ An, Vietnam): an example of pitfalls for comparative linguistics (Ph.D.).CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Nguyen, Huu Hoanh and Nguyen Van Loi (2019). Tones in the Cuoi Language of Tan Ki District in Nghe An Province, Vietnam . The Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 12.1:lvii-lxvi.