Cuối language

---

title: "Cuối language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["languages-of-laos", "languages-of-vietnam", "vietic-languages"] description: "Austroasiatic language spoken in Southeast Asia" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuối_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Austroasiatic language spoken in Southeast Asia ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	Cuói
nativename	Thổ
states	Vietnam, Laos
ethnicity	Thổ
speakers
date	1999 census
ref	e18
familycolor	Austro-Asiatic
fam2	Vietic
dia1	Cuối Chăm
dia2	Làng Lỡ
lc1	tou
lc2	hnu
glotto	cuoi1242
glottorefname	Cuoi
lingua	46-EAD-a
::

|name=Cuói |altname= |nativename=Thổ |states=Vietnam, Laos |ethnicity=Thổ |speakers= |date=1999 census |ref=e18 |familycolor=Austro-Asiatic |fam2=Vietic |dia1=Cuối Chăm |dia2=Làng Lỡ |script= |lc1=tou|ld1=Tho |lc2=hnu|ld2=Hung |glotto=cuoi1242 |glottorefname=Cuoi |lingua=46-EAD-a

Cuối, also known as Thổ, is a dialect cluster spoken by around 70,000 people in Vietnam. It is also spoken by a couple thousand people 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: :{| class=wikitable style=text-align:center

+ Initial consonants of Cuối Làng Lỡ
! colspan=2
! Bilabial
! Labiodental
! Alveolar
! Retroflex
! Palatal
! Velar
! Glottal
-
! colspan=2

| | | | | | | |- ! rowspan=3| Plosive ! tenuis | | | | | | | |- ! glottalized | | | | | | | |- ! aspirated | | | | | | | |- ! rowspan=3| Fricative ! voiceless | | | | | | | |- ! voiced | | | | | | | |- ! glottalized | | | | | | | |- ! colspan=2| Approximant | | | | ~ | | | |}

• is found in Vietnamese loanwords with initial (orthographic )
• originate in the borrowing of segments from a variety of Vietnamese that existed several centuries ago.

Vowels

:{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

+ Monothongs of Cuối Làng Lỡ
!
! Front
! Central
! Back
-
! Close

| | | |- ! Close-mid/ Mid | | | |- ! Open-mid/ Open | |

| |}

::data[format=table title=""]

Diphthongs of Cuối Làng Lỡ
::

Tones

There are 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. This is a system comparable to that of Vietnamese.

Vocabulary

The data is from Cuoi Cham vocabulary recordings and the Mon-Khmer Etymological Dictionary. ::data[format=table]

English	Cuối Chăm	Làng Lỡ	Hanoian Vietnamese
cloud
rain
wind
thunder
earth, land
cave
deep
water
river
puddle		-
mud
rock, stone
bark
dog
cultivated field
to go
to have
::

References

References

1. "The Vietic Branch".
2. {{harvnb. Ferlus. 2015

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::