Cuói, known as Thổ, is a

dialect cluster A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

spoken by around 70,000

Thổ people The Thổ ethnic group (also Keo, Mon, Cuoi, Ho, Tay Poong) inhabits the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam, mainly Nghệ An Province southwest of Hanoi. Many Thổ speak the Cuoi language, Tho language, which is closely related to Vietnamese ...

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 Michel Ferlus (born 1935) is a French linguist whose special study is in the historical phonology of languages of Southeast Asia. In addition to phonological systems, he also studies writing systems, in particular the evolution of Indic scripts in ...

: : * 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

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. This is a system comparable to that of Vietnamese.

Vocabulary

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