Cuối, also known as Thổ, is a

dialect cluster A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...

spoken by around 70,000

people The term "the people" refers to the public or Common people, common mass of people of a polity. As such it is a concept of human rights law, international law as well as constitutional law, particularly used for claims of popular sovereignty. I ...

in Vietnam. It is also spoken by a couple thousand people in

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

—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 (; 1935 – 10 March 2024) was a French linguistics, linguist who specialized in the historical phonology of languages of Southeast Asia. In addition to phonological systems, he also studied writing systems, in particular the evoluti ...

: : * 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 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.