Jump to content

Cuối language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lcsnes (talk | contribs) at 15:56, 7 July 2022. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Cuói
Thổ
Native toVietnam, Laos
EthnicityThổ
Native speakers
(71,000 cited 1999 census)[1]
Dialects
  • Cuối Chăm
  • Làng Lỡ
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
tou – Tho
hnu – Hung
Glottologcuoi1242
Linguasphere46-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

Làng Lỡ dialect

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
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⟩)
  • 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 ɨə

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

References

  1. ^ Tho at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    Hung at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "The Vietic Branch". sealang.net.
  3. ^ a b Ferlus, Michel 2015, I.2

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.).
  • Nguyen, Huu Hoanh and Nguyen Van Loi (2019). Tones in the Cuoi Language of Tan Ki District in Nghe An Province, Vietnam [1]. The Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 12.1:lvii-lxvi.