trùn

Vietnamese

Etymology

From Proto-Vietic *p-luːn ~ *p-ruːn, from Proto-Mon-Khmer *(b)ruun.

A cognate, but not a descendant, of attested Northern Middle Vietnamese form blun, whence modern Northern form giun, now also the common written form. The unattested Central-Southern Middle Vietnamese form can be projected back as *blùn.

Due to the shift /n/ > /ŋ/ from Huế southwards, this word is usually pronounced identically to trùng, which is the Sino-Vietnamese reading of 蟲／虫 (“insect, bug”), creating a homophonous pair of false cognates.

Pronunciation

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [t͡ɕun˨˩]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʈun˦˩]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [ʈʊwŋ͡m˨˩]

• Audio (Saigon):

  (file)

Noun

(classifier con) trùn • (𧉙)

1. (Central Vietnam, Southern Vietnam) worm (more specifically an earthworm)

Derived terms

• trùn quế