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, 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 12 ...

References

{{authority control Vietic languages Languages of Vietnam Endangered Austroasiatic languages