Cuoi language

Cuói
Cuói
Thổ
Native to	Vietnam, Laos
Ethnicity	Thổ
Native speakers	71,000 (1999 census)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Vietic Cuói; ;
Dialects	Cuối Chăm; Làng Lỡ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	aemtou
Glottolog	cuoi1242
ELP	Tum; Hung; Pong;
Linguasphere	46-EAD-a

Cuói, known as Thổ,[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.

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
Plosive	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.[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	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

Cuói at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
"The Vietic Branch". sealang.net.
Ferlus, Michel 2015, I.2