Khmuic People

The Khmuic Branch
The Khmuic branch is dominated by Khmu (sometimes ~Kmhmu, Kmhmu’ or Kamu), a huge dialect chain with more than 500,000 speakers spread across northern Laos and adjacent areas of Thailand, Vietnam and Yunnan, Khmu speakers are the second largest minority group in the Lao PDR.
Khmuic languages are usually very conservative. Their morphology preserves complicated, apparently ancient, initial clusters. These are sometimes formed by copying the word final consonant into the coda of the minor syllable, a process also found in the Aslian languages of Malaysia. Many dialects of Khmu have developed the breathy register associated with historically voiced initials.
Many excellent dictionaries and descriptions of Khmuic languages are available, most notably Suwilai Premsrirat’s 2002 multi-dialectal thesaurus of Khmu. Yet despite the wealth of language data available, as well as Khmuic’s apparent morphological and phonological conservatism. no proto-Khmuic reconstruction has yet been attempted.

Geographic distribution
The Khmuic peoples are aboriginal to Laos and surrounding areas. Most Khmuic peoples live in northern Laos and neighboring areas in Vietnam, although they can also be found in Thailand, Burma and China.