Rục is a
Vietic
The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, spoken by the Vietic peoples in Laos and Vietnam. The branch was once referred to by the terms ''Việt–Mường'', ''Annamese–Muong'', and ''Vietnamuong''; the term '' ...
language spoken by the
Ruc people of
Tuyên Hóa district,
Quảng Bình province, Vietnam. ''Rục'' literally means 'underground spring', and is a critically endangered language spoken by a small ethnic group that practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle until the late 20th century.
History
Ruc speakers were hunter-gatherers until the late 1970s, when they were relocated into sedentary villages by the Vietnamese government. The 1985 Soviet-Vietnamese Linguistic Expedition found that there were no more than 200 Ruc people. Half of the Ruc died from a
cholera epidemic in the late 1980s. Today, the Ruc live together with the
Sach in villages close to the Laotian border.
[ Ruc settlements include Yên Hợp and Phú Minh.
]
Phonology
Unlike Vietnamese
Vietnamese may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia
** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam.
* Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam
** Overse ...
, Rục allows for presyllables with a minor vowel, such as ''cakuː4'' 'bear' (cf. Vietnamese ''gấu''). Rục is notable for preserving many prefixes that have been lost in Vietnamese, including prefixes (such as *k.-) in archaic Chinese loanwords that are crucial for the reconstruction of Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
References
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Vietic languages
Languages of Vietnam
Endangered Austroasiatic languages