Cuoi language

Cuói
	Thổ
	Hung
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[2]
Linguasphere	46-EAD-a

Cuói, known as Thổ in Vietnam and as Hung in Laos,^[3] 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.

Phonology

Làng Lỡ dialect

Consonants

The consonant inventory of the Làng Lỡ dialect, as cited by Michel Ferlus:^[4]

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]		[ˀɟ]
	aspirated			[tʰ]			[kʰ]
Fricative	voiceless	[f]		[s]	[ʂ]			[h]
	voiced	[β]	[v]	[ð]			[ɣ]
	glottalized			[ˀð]
Approximant				[l]	[ɽ ~ ʐ]	[j]

[ʈ] is found in Vietnamese loanwords with initial /ʈ/ (orthographic [tr])
[β ð ɣ ˀð] 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.^[4] This is a system comparable to that of Vietnamese.

Vocabulary

Datas taken from Cuoi Cham vocabulary and the Mon-Khmer Etymological Dictionary.

English	Cuối Chăm	Làng Lỡ	Vietnamese
cloud	mʌl¹	mʌn¹	mây
rain	mɐː²	mɨə¹	mưa
wind	sɒː³	juə³	gió
thunder	kʰrʌm⁴	ʂəm⁴	sấm
earth, land	tʌt⁷	tʌt⁷	đất
cave	haːŋ¹	haːŋ¹	hang
deep	kʰruː²	ʂuː²	sâu
water	daːk⁷	daːk⁷	nước
river	kʰrɔŋ¹	ʂɔːŋ¹	sông
puddle	puŋ⁶	-	vũng
mud	puːl²	vuːn²	bùn
rock, stone	taː³	δaː³	đá
bark	pɒː⁵	ʂɔː⁵⁶	vỏ
dog	cɒː³	cɔː³	chó
cultivated field	rɔːŋ⁴	ʂɔːŋ⁴	ruộng
to go	tiː²	tiː²	đi
to have	kɒː³	kɔː³	có

References

↑ Hung at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Thô at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Cuoi". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
↑ "The Vietic Branch". sealang.net.
1 2 Ferlus, Michel 2015, I.2