rùa

See also: rua, rúa, ruá, rũa, rủa, rữa, and rửa

Vietnamese

Alternative forms

(North Central Vietnam) rò

Etymology

From Proto-Vietic *ʔa-rɔː; cognate with Arem arɑː. Compare Nghệ An/Hà Tĩnh dialects rò.

The reduplicated form rùa rùa was used until rather recently, as seen in the Cách trí giáo khoa thư (革智教科書) composed in the 1920s. This form is now obsolete, which is a trend seen with other reduplicated nouns designing animals, such as nhền nhện (“spider”), bươm bướm (“butterfly”), se sẻ (“sparrow”), with the monosyllabic root (once again) becomes the dominant form.

Pronunciation

(Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [zuə˨˩]
(Huế) IPA^(key): [ʐuə˦˩]
(Saigon) IPA^(key): [ɹuə˨˩]

Noun

(classifier con) rùa • (𧒍, 𧒌, 𪛅, 𧒉, 𪛇)

turtle; tortoise
Thương thay thân phận con rùa:
Lên đình đội hạc; xuống chùa đội bia.
How pitiful is the tortoise's lot:
Up in the shrine, bearing the crane; Down in the temple bearing the stele.

Derived terms