Vietnamese Ting Vit Pronunciation ti vit (Northern) ti jik (Southern) Spoken in  Vietnam Vietnamese diaspora Region Southeast Asia Total speakers 70-73 million native (includes 3 million overseas) 80+ million total Language family Austro-Asiatic Nuclear Mon-Khmer Khmero-Vietic Vieto-Katuic Vietic Viet-Muong Vietnamese Writing system Vietnamese variant of Latin alphabet Official status Official language in  Vietnam Regulated by No official regulation Language codes ISO 639-1 vi ISO 639-2 vie ISO 639-3 vie Linguasphere 46-EBA Extent of Vietnamese Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Vietnamese (ting Vit or less commonly Vit ng1) is the national and official language of Vietnam. It is the mother tongue of 86% of Vietnam's population and of about three million overseas Vietnamese. It is also spoken as a second language by many ethnic minorities of Vietnam. It is part of the Austro-Asiatic language family of which it has the most speakers by a significant margin (several times larger than the other Austro-Asiatic languages put together).citation needed Much of Vietnamese vocabulary has been borrowed from Chinese most notably Cantonese especially words that denote abstract ideas (in the same way European languages borrow from Latin and Greek) and it was formerly written using the Chinese writing system albeit in a modified format and was given vernacular pronunciation. As a byproduct of French colonial rule the language displays some influence from French and the Vietnamese writing system in use today is an adapted version of the Latin alphabet with additional diacritics for tones and certain letters. Contents 1 Geographic distribution 2 Genealogical classification 3 Language policy 4 Vocabulary 5 Phonology 5.1 Vowels 5.2 Tones 5.3 Consonants 6 Language variation 6.1 Tones 7 Grammar 8 Writing system 8.1 Computer support 9 History 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Periods of Vietnamese 9.3 Middle Vietnamese 9.4 Proto-Viet-Muong 9.5 Origin of the tones 10 Word play 11 Examples 12 See also 13 Notes 14 Bibliography 14.1 General 14.2 Sound system 14.3 Pragmatics/Language variation 14.4 Historical/Comparative 14.5 Orthography 14.6 Pedagogical 15 External links Geographic distribution

As the national language of the majority ethnic group Vietnamese is spoken throughout Vietnam by the Vietnamese people as well as by ethnic minorities. It is also spoken in overseas Vietnamese communities most notably in the United States where it has more than one million speakers and is the seventh most-spoken language (it is 3rd in Texas 4th in Arkansas and Louisiana and 5th in California2). In Australia it is the sixth most-spoken language.citation needed

According to the Ethnologue Vietnamese is also spoken by substantial numbers of people in Cambodia Canada China Cte d'Ivoire Czech Republic Finland France Germany Laos Martinique the Netherlands New Caledonia Norway the Philippines the Russian Federation Senegal Taiwan Thailand the United Kingdom and Vanuatu.3 Genealogical classification

Vietnamese was identified more than 150 years ago4 to be part of the Mon-Khmer branch of the Austro-Asiatic language family (a family that also includes Khmer spoken in Cambodia as well as various tribal and regional languages such as the Munda and Khasi languages spoken in eastern India and others in southern China). Later Mng was found to be more closely related to Vietnamese than other Mon-Khmer languages and a Vit-Mng sub-grouping was established. As data on more Mon-Khmer languages were acquired other minority languages (such as Thavng Cht languages Hung etc.) were found to share Vit-Mng characteristics and the Vit-Mng term was renamed to Vietic. The older term Vit-Mng now refers to a lower sub-grouping (within an eastern Vietic branch) consisting of Vietnamese dialects Mng dialects and Ngun (of Qung Bnh Province).5 Language policy

While spoken by the Vietnamese people for millennia written Vietnamese did not become the official administrative language of Vietnam until the 20th century. For most of its history the entity now known as Vietnam used written classical Chinese whereas written Vietnamese in the form of Ch nm was invented in the 13th century and extensively used in the 17th and 18th centuries for poetry and literature. Ch nm was used for administrative purposes during the brief H and Ty Sn Dynasties. During French colonialism French superseded Chinese in administration. It was not until independence from France that Vietnamese was used officially. It is the language of instruction in schools and universities and is the language for official business. Vocabulary The words in orange belong to the Vietnamese native vocabulary while the ones in green belong to the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary.

Like many other Asian countries as a result of close ties with China for thousands of years much of the Vietnamese lexicon relating to science and politics is derived from Chinese. At least 60% of the vocabulary has Chinese roots not including naturalized word borrowings from China although many compound words are Sino-Vietnamese composed of native Vietnamese words combined with Chinese borrowings. One can usually distinguish between a native Vietnamese word and a Chinese borrowing if it can be reduplicated or its meaning does not change when the tone is shifted. As a result of French occupation Vietnamese has since had many words borrowed from the French language for example c ph (from French caf). Nowadays many new words are being added to the language's lexicon due to heavy Western cultural influence; these are usually borrowed from English for example TV (though usually seen in the written form as tivi). Sometimes these borrowings are calques literally translated into Vietnamese (for example software is calqued into phn mm which literally means "soft part"). Phonology Main article: Vietnamese phonology Vowels

Like other southeast Asian languages Vietnamese has a comparatively large number of vowels. Below is a vowel diagram of Hanoi Vietnamese.   Front Central Back High i i u u Upper Mid e / o Lower Mid e o Low a / a a

Front central and low vowels (i e a) are unrounded whereas the back vowels (u o) are rounded. The vowels and a are pronounced very short much shorter than the other vowels. Thus and are basically pronounced the same except that 6 is long while is short the same applies to the low vowels long a a and short a.7

In addition to single vowels (or monophthongs) Vietnamese has diphthongs8 and triphthongs. The diphthongs consist of a main vowel component followed by a shorter semivowel offglide to a high front position a high back position or a central position .9 Vowel nucleus Diphthong with front offglide Diphthong with back offglide Diphthong with centering offglide Triphthong with front offglide Triphthong with back offglide i iu i iaiy i iu i u e e eo i u a i u y u i ay a au a a ai a ao a u ui u uau u ui u i o o oi The centering diphthongs are formed with only the three high vowels (i u) as the main vowel. They are generally spelled as ia a ua when they end a word and are spelled i u respectively when they are followed by a consonant. There are also restrictions on the high offglides: the high front offglide cannot occur after a front vowel (i e) nucleus and the high back offglide cannot occur after a back vowel (u o) nucleus.10 The correspondence between the orthography and pronunciation is complicated. For example the offglide is usually written as i however it may also be represented with y. In addition in the diphthongs a and a the letters y and i also indicate the pronunciation of the main vowel: ay + ai a + . Thus tay "hand" is ta while tai "ear" is ta. Similarly u and o indicate different pronunciations of the main vowel: au + ao a + . Thus thau "brass" is ta while thao "raw silk" is ta. The four triphthongs are formed by adding front and back offglides to the centering diphthongs. Similarly to the restrictions involving diphthongs a triphthong with front nucleus cannot have a front offglide (after the centering glide) and a triphthong with a back nucleus cannot have a back offglide. With regards to the front and back offglides many phonological descriptions analyze these as consonant glides /j w/. Thus a word such as u "where" phonetically would be phonemicized as /w/. Tones Pitch contours and duration of the six Northern Vietnamese tones as uttered by a male speaker (not from Hanoi). Fundamental frequency is plotted over time. From Nguyn & Edmondson (1998). Vietnamese vowels are all pronounced with an inherent tone.11 Tones differ in: length (duration) pitch contour (i.e. pitch melody) pitch height phonation Tone is indicated by diacritics written above or below the vowel (most of the tone diacritics appear above the vowel; however the nng tone dot diacritic goes below the vowel).12 The six tones in the northern varieties (including Hanoi) are: Name Description Diacritic Example Sample vowel ngang   'level' mid level (no mark) ma  'ghost' a (helpinfo) huyn   'hanging' low falling (often breathy) (grave accent) m  'but' (helpinfo) sc   'sharp' high rising (acute accent) m  'cheek mother (southern)' (helpinfo) hi   'asking' mid dipping-rising   (hook) m  'tomb grave' (helpinfo) ng   'tumbling' high breaking-rising (tilde) m  'horse (Sino-Vietnamese) code' (helpinfo) nng   'heavy' low falling constricted (short length)   (dot below) m  'rice seedling' (helpinfo) Other dialects of Vietnamese have fewer tones (typically only five). See the language variation section for a brief survey of tonal differences among dialects. In Vietnamese poetry tones are classed into two groups: Tone group Tones within tone group bng "level flat" ngang and huyn trc "oblique sharp" sc hi ng and nng Words with tones belonging to particular tone group must occur in certain positions with the poetic verse. Consonants The consonants that occur in Vietnamese are listed below in the Vietnamese orthography with the phonetic pronunciation to the right. Labial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal Stop voiceless p p t t tr t ch ct c/k k aspirated   th t voiced b Fricative voiceless ph f x s s kh x h h voiced v v gi z r d zj g/gh Nasal m m n n nh ng/ngh Approximant u/o w l l y/i j Some consonant sounds are written with only one letter (like "p") other consonant sounds are written with a two-letter digraph (like "ph") and others are written with more than one letter or digraph (the velar stop is written variously as "c" "k" or "q"). Not all dialects of Vietnamese have the same consonant in a given word (although all dialects use the same spelling in the written language). See the language variation section for further elaboration. The analysis of syllable-final orthographic ch and nh in Hanoi Vietnamese has had different analyses. One analysis has final ch nh as being phonemes /c / contrasting with syllable-final t c /t k/ and n ng /n / and identifies final ch with the syllable-initial ch /c/. The other analysis has final ch and nh as predictable allophonic variants of the velar phonemes /k/ and // that occur before upper front vowels i /i/ and /e/. (See Vietnamese phonology: Analysis of final ch nh for further details.) Language variation There are various mutually intelligible regional varieties (or dialects) the main four being:13 Dialect region Localities Names under French colonization Northern Vietnamese Hanoi Haiphong and various provincial forms Tonkinese North-central (or Area IV) Vietnamese Ngh An (Vinh Thanh Chng) Thanh Ho Qung Bnh H Tnh High Annamese Central Vietnamese Hu Qung Nam Low Annamese Southern Vietnamese Saigon Mekong (Far West) Cochinchinese Listen to this audio clip of Vietnamese (info) The first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights spoken by Nghiem Mai Phuong native speaker of a northern variety. (audio help) Listen to this audio clip of Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh reading his Declaration of Independence. Ho Chi Minh is from Nghe An Province speaking a northern-central variety. (audio help) Vietnamese has traditionally been divided into three dialect regions: North Central and South. However Michel Fergus and Nguyn Ti Cn offer evidence for considering a North-Central region separate from Central. The term Haut-Annam refers to dialects spoken from northern Ngh An Province to southern (former) Tha Thin Province that preserve archaic features (like consonant clusters and undiphthongized vowels) that have been lost in other modern dialects. These dialect regions differ mostly in their sound systems (see below) but also in vocabulary (including basic vocabulary non-basic vocabulary and grammatical words) and grammar.14 The North-central and Central regional varieties which have a significant amount of vocabulary differences are generally less mutually intelligible to Northern and Southern speakers. There is less internal variation within the Southern region than the other regions due to its relatively late settlement by Vietnamese speakers (in around the end of the 15th century). The North-central region is particularly conservative. Along the coastal areas regional variation has been neutralized to a certain extent while more mountainous regions preserve more variation. As for sociolinguistic attitudes the North-central varieties are often felt to be "peculiar" or "difficult to understand" by speakers of other dialects. It should be noted that the large movements of people between North and South beginning in the mid-20th century and continuing to this day have resulted in a significant number of Southern residents speaking in the Northern accent/dialect and to a lesser extent Northern residents speaking in the Southern accent/dialect. Following the Geneva Accords of 1954 that called for the temporary division of the country almost a million northerners (mainly from Hanoi and the surrounding Red River Delta areas) moved south (mainly to Saigon now Ho Chi Minh City and the surrounding areas) as part of Operation Passage to Freedom. About a third of that number of people made the move in the reverse direction. Following the reunification of Vietnam in 197576 Northern and North-Central speakers from the densely populated Red River Delta and the traditionally poorer provinces of Nghe An Ha Tinh and Quang Binh have continued to move South to look for better economic opportunities. Additionally government and military personnel are posted to various locations throughout the country often away from their home regions. More recently the growth of the free market system has resulted in business people and tourists traveling to distant parts of Vietnam. These movements have resulted in some small blending of the dialects but more significantly have made the Northern dialect more easily understood in the South and vice versa. It is also interesting to note that most Southerners when singing modern/popular Vietnamese songs would do so in the Northern accent. This is true in Vietnam as well as in the overseas Vietnamese communities. Regional variation in grammatical words15 Northern Central Southern English gloss ny ni or n ny "this" th ny ri vy "thus this way" y n t "that" th th y ra ra t vy "thus so that way" kia t "that yonder" ka t "that yonder (far away)" u m u "where" no m no "which" sao th no rng sao "how why" ti tui tui "I me (polite)" tao tau tao qua "I me (arrogant familiar)" chng ti by tui ti tui "we us (but not you polite)" chng tao by choa ti tao "we us (but not you arrogant familiar)" my mi my "you (thou) (arrogant familiar)" chng my by bn by ti my "you guys y'all (arrogant familiar)" n hn ngh n "he/him she/her it (arrogant familiar)" chng n bn hn ti n "they/them (arrogant familiar)" ng y ng n ng "he/him that gentleman sir" b y m n m n b n b "she/her that lady madam" c y o n c "she/her that unmarried young lady" ch y n ch "she/her that young lady" anh y eng n nh "he/him that young man (of equal status)" o r son in law - The syllable-initial ch and tr digraphs are pronounced distinctly in North-central Central and Southern varieties but are merged in Northern varieties (i.e. they are both pronounced the same way). The North-central varieties preserve three distinct pronunciations for d gi and r whereas the North has a three-way merger and the Central and South have a merger of d and gi while keeping r distinct. At the end of syllables palatals ch and nh have merged with alveolars t and n which in turn have also partially merged with velars c and ng in Central and Southern varieties. Regional consonant correspondences Syllable position Orthography Northern North-central Central Southern syllable-initial x s s s s s ch t t t t tr t t t r z d j j gi z v 16 v v syllable-final c k k k k t t t t after e k t t after t k t t after i t ch c c ng n n n n after i n n nh In addition to the regional variation described above there is also a merger of l and n in certain rural varieties: l n variation Orthography "Mainstream" varieties Rural varieties n n n l l Variation between l and n can be found even in mainstream Vietnamese in certain words. For example the numeral "five" appears as nm by itself and in compound numerals like nm mi "fifty" but appears as lm in mi lm "fifteen". (See Vietnamese syntax: Cardinal numerals.) In some northern varieties this numeral appears with an initial nh instead of l: hai mi nhm "twenty-five" vs. mainstream hai mi lm.17 The consonant clusters that were originally present in Middle Vietnamese (of the 17th century) have been lost in almost all modern Vietnamese varieties (but retained in other closely related Vietic languages). However some speech communities have preserved some of these archaic clusters: "sky" is bli with a cluster in Ho Nho (Yn M prefecture Ninh Binh Province) but tri in Southern Vietnamese and gii in Hanoi Vietnamese (initial single consonants / z/ respectively). Tones Generally the Northern varieties have six tones while those in other regions have five tones. The hi and ng tones are distinct in North and some North-central varieties (although often with different pitch contours) but have merged in Central Southern and some North-central varieties (also with different pitch contours). Some North-central varieties (such as H Tnh Vietnamese) have a merger of the ng and nng tones while keeping the hi tone distinct. Still other North-central varieties have a three-way merger of hi ng and nng resulting in a four-tone system. In addition there are several phonetic differences (mostly in pitch contour and phonation type) in the tones among dialects. Regional tone correspondences Tone Northern North-central Central Southern  Vinh  Thanh Chng H Tnh ngang 33 35 35 35 353 35 33 huyn 21 33 33 33 33 21 sc 35 11 11 13 13 13 35 hi 313 31 31 31 312 214 ng 35 13 22 nng 21 22 22 22 212 The table above shows the pitch contour of each tone using Chao tone number notation (where 1 lowest pitch 5 highest pitch); glottalization (creaky stiff harsh) is indicated with the symbol; breathy voice with ; glottal stop with ; sub-dialectal variants are separated with commas. (See also the tone section below.) Grammar Main articles: Vietnamese syntax and Vietnamese morphology Vietnamese like many languages in Southeast Asia is an analytic (or isolating) language. Vietnamese does not use morphological marking of case gender number or tense (and as a result has no finite/nonfinite distinction).18 Also like other languages in the region Vietnamese syntax conforms to Subject Verb Object word order is head-initial (displaying modified-modifier ordering) and has a noun classifier system. Additionally it is pro-drop wh-in-situ and allows verb serialization. Some Vietnamese sentences with English word glosses and translations are provided below. Mai l sinh vin. Mai be student "Mai is a student." (College student) Gip rt cao. Giap very tall "Giap is very tall." Ngi l anh n. person that be brother he "That person is his brother." Con ch ny chng bao gi sa c. classifier dog this not ever bark at.all "This dog never barks at all." N ch n cm Vit Nam thi. he only eat rice.colloquial Vietnam only "He only eats Vietnamese food." Ci thng chng em n chng ra g. focus classifier husband I (as wife) he not turn.out what "That husband of mine he is good for nothing." Ti thch con nga en. I (generic) like classifier horse black "I like the black horse." Ti thch ci con nga en. I (generic) like focus classifier horse black "I like that black horse." Writing system Main article: Vietnamese alphabet Currently the written language uses the Vietnamese alphabet (quc ng or "national script" literally "national language") based on the Latin alphabet. Originally a Romanization of Vietnamese it was codified in the 17th century by a French Jesuit missionary named Alexandre de Rhodes (15911660) based on works of earlier Portuguese missionaries (Gaspar do Amaral and Antnio Barbosa). The use of the script was gradually extended from its initial domain in Christian writing to become more popular among the general public. Under French colonial rule the script became official and required for all public documents in 1910 by issue of a decree by the French Rsident Suprieur of the protectorate of Tonkin. By the end of first half 20th century virtually all writings were done in quc ng. Changes in the script were made by French scholars and administrators and by conferences held after independence during 19541974. The script now reflects a so-called Middle Vietnamese dialect that has vowels and final consonants most similar to northern dialects and initial consonants most similar to southern dialects (Nguyn 1996). This Middle Vietnamese is presumably close to the Hanoi variety as spoken sometime after 1600 but before the present. (This is not unlike how English orthography is based on the Chancery Standard of late Middle English with many spellings retained even after significant phonetic change.) Before French rule the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script: the standard Chinese character set called ch nho (scholar's characters ): used to write Literary Chinese a complicated variant form known as ch nm (southern/vernacular characters ) with characters not found in the Chinese character set; this system was better adapted to the unique phonetic aspects of Vietnamese which differed from Chinese The authentic Chinese writing ch nho was in more common usage whereas ch nm was used by members of the educated elite (one needs to be able to read ch nho in order to read ch nm). Both scripts have fallen out of common usage in modern Vietnam and almost all citizens are unable to read ch nm in more recent years. Ch nho was still in use on early North Vietnamese and late French Indochinese banknotes issued after World War II19 but fell out of official use shortly thereafter. In modern Vietnam very few people can write Ch Nm. Most of those are teachers or people in the countryside. In China members of the Jing Minority still write in Ch Nm. Computer support The Unicode character set contains all Vietnamese characters and the Vietnamese currency symbol. On systems that do not support Unicode many 8-bit Vietnamese code pages are available such as VISCII or CP1258. Where ASCII must be used Vietnamese letters are often typed using the VIQR convention though this is largely unnecessary nowadays with the increasing ubiquity of Unicode. There are many software tools that help type true Vietnamese text on US keyboards such as WinVNKey and Unikey on Windows or MacVNKey on Macintosh. History Introduction It seems likely that in the distant past Vietnamese shared more characteristics common to other languages in the Austro-Asiatic family such as an inflectional morphology and a richer set of consonant clusters which have subsequently disappeared from the language. However Vietnamese appears to have been heavily influenced by its location in the Southeast Asian sprachbund with the result that it has acquired or converged toward characteristics such as isolating morphology and tonogenesis. These characteristics which may or may not have been part of Proto-Austro-Asiatic nonetheless have become part of many of the phylogenetically unrelated languages of Southeast Asia; for example Thai (one of the Kradai languages) Tsat (a member of the Malayo-Polynesian group within Austronesian) and Vietnamese each developed tones as a phonemic feature although their respective ancestral languages were not originally tonal.citation needed At present Vietnamese has similarities with both Chinese and French due to the influence of the French presence.citation needed The ancestor of the Vietnamese language was originally based in the area of the Red River in what is now northern Vietnam and during the subsequent expansion of the Vietnamese language and people into what is now central and southern Vietnam (through conquest of the ancient nation of Champa and the Khmer people of the Mekong Delta in the vicinity of present-day Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) characteristic tonal variations have emerged. Vietnamese was linguistically influenced primarily by Chinese which came to predominate politically in the 2nd century B.C. With the rise of Chinese political dominance came radical importation of Chinese vocabulary and grammatical influence. As Chinese was for a prolonged period the only medium of literature and government as well as the primary written language of the ruling class in Vietnam much of the Vietnamese lexicon in all realms consists of Hn Vit (Sino-Vietnamese) words. In fact as the vernacular language of Vietnam gradually grew in prestige toward the beginning of the second millennium the Vietnamese language was written using Chinese characters (using both the original Chinese characters called Hn t as well as a system of newly created and modified characters called Ch nm) adapted to write Vietnamese in a similar pattern as used in Japan (kanji) Korea (hanja) and other countries in the Sinosphere. The Nm writing reached its zenith in the 18th century when many Vietnamese writers and poets composed their works in Ch Nm most notably Nguyn Du and H Xun Hng (dubbed "the Queen of Nm poetry"). As contact with the West grew the Quc Ng system of Romanized writing was developed in the 17th century by Portuguese and other Europeans involved in proselytizing and trade in Vietnam. When France invaded Vietnam in the late 19th century French gradually replaced Chinese as the official language in education and government. Vietnamese adopted many French terms such as m (dame from madame) ga (train station from gare) s mi (shirt from chemise) and bp b (doll from poupe). In addition many Sino-Vietnamese terms were devised for Western ideas imported through the French. However the Romanized script did not come to predominate until the beginning of the 20th century when education became widespread and a simpler writing system was found more expedient for teaching and communication with the general population. A Vietnamese Catholic Nguyen Truong To sent petitions to the Court which suggested a Chinese character based syllabary which would be used for Vietnamese sounds however his petition failed. The French colonial administration sought to eliminate the Chinese writing system confucianism and other Chinese influences from Vietnam by getting rid of Ch Nm.20 Periods of Vietnamese Henri Maspero described six periods of the Vietnamese language: Pre-Vietnamese also known as Proto-Viet-Muong or Proto-Vietnamuong the ancestor of Vietnamese and the related Muong language. Proto-Vietnamese the oldest reconstructable version of Vietnamese dated to just before the entry of massive amounts of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary into the language c. 7th to 9th century AD At this state the language had three tones. Archaic Vietnamese the state of the language upon adoption of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary c. 10th century AD. Ancient Vietnamese the language represented by chu nom characters (c. 15th century) and the ChineseVietnamese glossary Hua-yi Yi-yu (c. 16th century). By this point a tone split had happened in the language leading to six tones but a loss of contrastive voicing among consonants. Middle Vietnamese the language of the VietnamesePortugueseLatin dictionary of the Jesuit missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (c. 17th century). Modern Vietnamese from the 19th century. Middle Vietnamese The writing system used for Vietnamese is based closely on the system developed by Alexandre de Rhodes for his VietnamesePortugueseLatin dictionary published in 1651. It reflects the pronunciation of the Vietnamese of Hanoi at that time a stage commonly termed Middle Vietnamese. The pronunciation of the "rime" of the syllable i.e. all parts other than the initial consonant (optional /w/ glide vowel nucleus tone and final consonant) appears nearly identical between Middle Vietnamese and modern Hanoi pronunciation. On the other hand the Middle Vietnamese pronunciation of the initial consonant differs greatly from all modern dialects and in fact is significantly closer to the modern Saigon dialect than the modern Hanoi dialect. The following diagram shows the orthography and pronunciation of Middle Vietnamese: Labial Dental/Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal Stop voiceless p p1 t t tr ch c c/k k aspirated ph p th t kh k voiced glottalized b Fricative voiceless s x h h voiced 2 d gi g/gh Nasal m m n n nh ng/ngh Approximant v/u/o w l l r y/i/ j3 1 p occurs only at the end of a syllable. 2 Not the actual symbol used. The actual symbol which is not present in Unicode has a rounded hook that starts halfway up the left side (where the top of the curved part of the b meets the vertical straight part) and curves about 180 degrees counterclockwise ending below the bottom-left corner. 3 j does not occur at the beginning of a syllable but can occur at the end of a syllable where it is notated i or y (with the difference between the two often indicating differences in the quality or length of the preceding vowel) and after // and // where it is notated . This and the /j/ it notated have disappeared from the modern language. Note that b and p p never contrast in any position suggesting that they are allophones; likewise for gi and y/i/ j. The language also has three clusters at the beginning of syllables which have since disappeared: tl /tl/ > modern tr bl /l/ > modern gi (Northern) tr (Southern) ml /ml/ > mnh /m/ > modern nh Most of the unusual correspondences between spelling and modern pronunciation are explained by Middle Vietnamese. Note in particular: de Rhodes' system has two different b letters a regular b and a "hooked" b in which the upper section of the curved part of the b extends leftward past the vertical bar and curls down again in a semicircle. This apparently represented a voiced bilabial fricative //. Within a century or so both // and /w/ had merged as /v/ spelled as v. de Rhodes' system has a second medial glide /j/ that is written and appears in some words with initial d and hooked b. These later disappear. // was (and still is) alveolar whereas d // was dental. The choice of symbols was based on the dental rather than alveolar nature of /d/ and its allophone in Spanish and other Romance languages. The inconsistency with the symbols assigned to // vs. // was based on the lack of any such place distinction between the two with the result that the stop consonant // appeared more "normal" than the fricative //. In both cases the implosive nature of the stops does not appear to have had any role in the choice of symbol. x was alveolopalatal // rather than dental /s/ as in the modern language. In 17th-century Portuguese the common language of the Jesuits s was an apicoalveolar sibilant /s/ (as still in much of Spain and some parts of Portugal) while x was a palatoalveolar //. The similarity of apicoalveolar /s/ to the Vietnamese retroflex // led to the assignment of s and x as above. Proto-Viet-Muong The following diagram shows the phonology of Proto-Viet-Muong (the nearest ancestor of Vietnamese and the closely related Muong language) along with the outcomes in the modern language212223: Labial Interdental Dental/Alveolar Palatoalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal Stop/ Affricate voiceless p > b t > t > x 1 c > ch k > k/c/q > # voiced b > b d > > ch g > k/c/q aspirated p > ph t > th k > kh voiced glottalized > m > n > nh 1 Nasal m > m n > n > nh > ng/ngh Fricative voiceless s > t > th h > h voiced 2 () > v 3 () > d () > r 4 () > gi () > g/gh Approximant w > v l > l r > r j > d 1 According to Ferlus /t/ and // are not accepted by all researchers. Ferlus 199221 had an additional sound /d/ and had the preglottalized consonant /j/ in place of the implosive consonant //. Note that the latter two sounds are not all that different as both are voiced palatal sounds and both are types of glottalic consonants. 2 The fricatives indicated above in parentheses developed as allophones of stop consonants occurring between vowels (i.e. when a minor syllable occurred). These fricatives were not present in Proto-Viet-Muong as indicated by their absence in Muong but were evidently present in the later Proto-Vietnamese stage. Subsequent loss of the minor-syllable prefixes phonemicized the fricatives. Ferlus 199221 proposes that originally there were both voiced and voiceless fricatives corresponding to original voiced or voiceless stops but Ferlus 200922 appears to have abandoned that hypothesis suggesting that stops were softened and voiced at approximately the same time according to the following pattern: /p b/ > // /t d/ > // /k / > // /s / > // /c / and /t/ > // 3 In Middle Vietnamese the outcome of these sounds was written with a hooked b representing a // that was still distinct from v (then pronounced /w/). See above. 4 It is unclear what this sound was. According to Ferlus 199221 in the Archaic Vietnamese period (c. 10th century AD when Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary was borrowed) it was // distinct at that time from /r/. The following initial clusters occurred with outcomes indicated: pr br tr dr kr gr > /kr/ > /ks/ > s pl bl > MV bl > Northern gi Southern tr kl gl > MV tl > tr ml > MV ml > mnh > nh kj > gi Note also that a large number of words were borrowed from Middle Chinese forming part of the Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary. These caused the original introduction of the retroflex sounds // and // (modern s tr) into the language. Origin of the tones Proto-Viet-Muong had no tones to speak of. The tones later developed in some of the daughter languages from distinctions in the initial and final consonants. Vietnamese tones developed as follows: Register Initial consonant Smooth ending Glottal ending Fricative ending High (first) register Voiceless A1 ngang "level" B1 sc "sharp" C1 hi "asking" Low (second) register Voiced A2 huyn "hanging" B2 nng "heavy" C2 ng "tumbling" Glottal-ending syllables ended with a glottal stop // while fricative-ending syllables ended with /s/ or /h/. Both types of syllables could co-occur with a resonant (e.g. /m/ or /n/). At some point a tone split occurred as in many other East Asian languages. Essentially an allophonic distinction developed in the tones whereby the tones in syllables with voiced initials were pronounced differently from those with voiceless initials. (Approximately speaking the voiced allotones were pronounced with additional breathy voice or creaky voice and with lowered pitch. The quality difference predominates in today's northern varieties e.g. in Hanoi while in the southern varieties the pitch difference predominates as in Saigon.) Subsequent to this the plain-voiced stops became voiceless and the allotones became new phonemic tones. Note that the implosive stops were unaffected and in fact developed tonally as if they were unvoiced. (This behavior is common to all East Asian languages with implosive stops.) As noted above Proto-Viet-Muong had sesquisyllabic words with an initial minor syllable (in addition to and independent of initial clusters in the main syllable). When a minor syllable occurred the main syllable's initial consonant was intervocalic and as a result suffered lenition becoming a voiced fricative. The minor syllables were eventually lost but not until the tone split had occurred. As a result words in modern Vietnamese with voiced fricatives occur in all six tones and the tonal register reflects the voicing of the minor-syllable prefix and not the voicing of the main-syllable stop in Proto-Viet-Muong that produced the fricative. For similar reasons words beginning with /l/ and // occur in both registers. (Thompson 197623 reconstructed voiceless resonants to account for outcomes where resonants occur with a first-register tone but this is no longer considered necessary at least by Ferlus.) Word play A language game known as ni li is used by Vietnamese speakers.citation needed Ni li involves switching the tones in a pair of words and also the order of the two words or the first consonant and rime of each word; the resulting ni li pair preserves the original sequence of tones. Some examples: Original phrase Phrase after ni li transformation Structural change i dm "(child) wet their pants" dm i (nonsense words) word order and tone switch cha hoang "pregnancy out of wedlock" hong cha "scared yet" word order and tone switch by ti "all the king's subjects" bi ty "French waiter" initial consonant rime and tone switch b mt "secrets" bt m "revealing secrets" initial consonant and rime switch The resulting transformed phrase often has a different meaning but sometimes may just be a nonsensical word pair. Ni li can be used to obscure the original meaning and thus soften the discussion of a socially sensitive issue as with dm i and hong cha (above) or when implied (and not overtly spoken) to deliver a hidden subtextual message as with bi ty.24 Naturally ni li can be used for a humorous effect.25 Another word game somewhat reminiscent of pig latin is played by children. Here a nonsense syllable (chosen by the child) is prefixed onto a target word's syllables then their initial consonants and rimes are switched with the tone of the original word remaining on the new switched rime. Nonsense syllable Target word Intermediate form with prefixed syllable Resulting "secret" word la ph "beef or chicken noodle soup" la ph l ph la n "to eat" la n ln a la hon cnh "situation" la hon la cnh loan h lanh c chim hon cnh "situation" chim hon chim cnh choan hm chanh km This language game is often used as a "secret" or "coded" language useful for obscuring messages from adult comprehension. Examples See "The Tale of Kieu" for an extract of the first six lines of Truyn Kiu an epic narrative poem by the celebrated poet Nguyn Du ) which is often considered the most significant work of Vietnamese literature. It was originally written in Nm (titled on Trng Tn Thanh ) and is widely taught in Vietnam today. See also Vietnam portal Language portal Austroasiatic languages Ch nho Ch nm Sino-Tibetan languages Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary Vietic languages Vietnamese alphabet Vietnamese literature Vietnamese morphology Vietnamese phonology Vietnamese syntax Notes Another variant ting Vit Nam is rarely used by native speakers and is likely a neologism from translating literally from a foreign language. It is most often used by non-native speakers and mostly found in documents translated from another language. Vietnamese was also known as Annamese in older literature due to is name under French colonization (see Annam). "Detailed List of Languages Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over by State: 2000" (PDF). 2000 United States Census. United States Census Bureau. 2003. http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t20/tab05.pdf. Retrieved April 11 2006.  http://www.ethnologue.com/showlanguage.aspcodevie "Mon-Khmer languages: The Vietic branch". SEAlang Projects. http://sealang.net/mk/vietic-intro.htm. Retrieved November 8 2006.  Even though this is supported by etymological comparison some linguistswho still believe that Viet-Muong is a separate family genealogically unrelated to Mon-Khmer languages. The symbol represents long vowel length. There are different descriptions of Hanoi vowels. Another common description is that of Thompson (1965): Front Central Back unrounded rounded High i i u u Upper Mid e o Lower Mid e o Low a a This description distinguishes four degrees of vowel height and a rounding contrast (rounded vs. unrounded) between back vowels. The relative shortness of and would then be a secondary feature. Thompson describes the vowel as being slightly higher (upper low) than a a. In Vietnamese diphthongs are m i. The diphthongs and triphthongs as described by Thompson can be compared with the description above: Thompson's diphthongs Vowel nucleus Front offglide Back offglide Centering offglide i iu i iai i u e e eo i u a y u i ay au a ai a ao a u ui u uau u i o o oi Thompson's triphthongs Centering diphthong Front offglide Back offglide ia i iu i a i u ua u ui u The lack of diphthong consisting of a + back offglide (i.e. ) is an apparent gap. Called thanh iu in Vietnamese Note that the name of each tone has the corresponding tonal diacritic on the vowel. Sources on Vietnamese variation include: Alves (forthcoming) Alves & Nguyn (2007) Emeneau (1947) Hong (1989) Honda (2006) Nguyn .-H. (1995) Pham (2005) Thompson (19911965) V (1982) Vng (1981). Some differences in grammatical words are noted in Vietnamese grammar: Demonstratives Vietnamese grammar: Pronouns. Table data from Hong (1989). In southern dialects v is reported to have a spelling pronunciation (i.e. the spelling influences pronunciation) of vj or bj among educated speakers. However educated speakers revert to usual j in more relaxed speech. Less educated speakers have j more consistently throughout their speech. See: Thompson (1959) Thompson (1965: 85 89 93 97-98). Gregerson (1981) notes that this variation was present in de Rhodes's time in some initial consonant clusters: ml mnh "reason" (cf. modern Vietnamese l "reason"). Comparison note: As such its grammar relies on word order and sentence structure rather than morphology (in which word changes through inflection). Whereas European languages tend to use morphology to express tense Vietnamese uses grammatical particles or syntactic constructions. 12 David G. Marr (1984). Vietnamese Tradition on Trial 19201945. University of California Press. p. 145. ISBN 0520050819. http://books.google.com/booksidFkcZnGkW-oC&pgPA145&dqvietnamese+alphabet+literature&hlen&eigngbTamwHYL98AaPrK3qDQ&saX&oibookresult&ctresult&resnum8&ved0CFMQ6AEwBw#vonepage&qvietnamese%20alphabet%20literature&ffalse. Retrieved 2010-11-28.  a b c d Ferlus Michael (1992) "Histoire abrge de l'volution des consonnes initiales du Vietnamien et du Sino-Vietnamien" Mon-Khmer Studies 20: 111125 . a b Ferlus Michael (2009) "A layer of Dongsonian vocabulary in Vietnamese" Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1: 95109 http://www.jseals.org/JSEALS-1.pdf . a b Thompson Laurence C. "Proto-Viet-Muong Phonology" Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications Austroasiatic Studies Part II (University of Hawai'i Press) 13: 11131203 JSTOR 20019198 http://jstor.org/stable/20019198 . Nguyn .-H. (1997: 29) gives the following context: "... a collaborator under the French administration was presented with a congratulatory panel featuring the two Chinese characters qun thn. This Sino-Vietnamese expression could be defined as by ti meaning all the king's subjects. But those two syllables when undergoing commutation of rhyme and tone would generate bi ty meaning servant in a French household. See www.users.bigpond.com/doanviettrung/noilai.html Language Log's itre.cis.upenn.edu/myl/languagelog/archives/001788.html and tphcm.blogspot.com/2005/01/ni-li.html for more examples. Bibliography General Dng Qung-Hm. (1941). Vit-nam vn-hc s-yu Outline history of Vietnamese literature. Saigon: B Quc gia Gio dc. Emeneau M. B. (1947). Homonyms and puns in Annamese. Language 23 (3) 239-244. Emeneau M. B. (1951). Studies in Vietnamese (Annamese) grammar. University of California publications in linguistics (Vol. 8). Berkeley: University of California Press. Hashimoto Mantaro. (1978). The current state of Sino-Vietnamese studies. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 6 1-26. Nguyn nh-Ho. (1995). NTC's VietnameseEnglish dictionary (updated ed.). NTC language dictionaries. Lincolnwood Illinois: NTC Pub. Press. ISBN; ISBN Nguyn nh-Ho. (1997). Vietnamese: Ting Vit khng son phn. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Rhodes Alexandre de. (1991). T in Annam-Lusitan-Latinh original: Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum. (L. Thanh X. V. Hong & Q. C. Trans.). Hanoi: Khoa hc X hi. (Original work published 1651). Thompson Laurence C. (1991). A Vietnamese reference grammar. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. (Original work published 1965). (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/THOMPSONLaurenceC.htm.) U ban Khoa hc X hi Vit Nam. (1983). Ng-php ting Vit Vietnamese grammar. Hanoi: Khoa hc X hi. Sound system Brunelle Marc. (2009) Tone perception in Northern and Southern Vietnamese. Journal of Phonetics 37(1) 79-96. Brunelle Marc. (2009) Northern and Southern Vietnamese Tone Coarticulation: A Comparative Case Study. Journal of Southeast Asian Linguistics 1 49-62. Michaud Alexis. (2004). Final consonants and glottalization: New perspectives from Hanoi Vietnamese. Phonetica 61) pp. 119146. Preprint version Nguyn Vn Li; & Edmondson Jerold A. (1998). Tones and voice quality in modern northern Vietnamese: Instrumental case studies. Mon-Khmer Studies 28 1-18. (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/NGUYNVnLoi.htm). Thompson Laurence E. (1959). Saigon phonemics. Language 35 (3) 454-476. Pragmatics/Language variation Alves Mark J. (forthcoming). A look at North-Central Vietnamese. In Papers from the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. Arizona State University Press. Pre-publication electronic version: http://www.geocities.com/malves98/AlvesVietnameseNorthcentral.pdf. Alves Mark J.; & Nguyn Duy Hng. (2007). Notes on Thanh-Chng Vietnamese in Ngh-An province. In M. Alves M. Sidwell & D. Gil (Eds.) SEALS VIII: Papers from the 8th annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society 1998 (pp. 19). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics The Australian National University Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Electronic version: http://pacling.anu.edu.au/catalogue/SEALSVIIIfinal.pdf. Hong Th Chu. (1989). Ting Vit trn cc min t nc: Phng ng hc Vietnamese in different areas of the country: Dialectology. H Ni: Khoa hc x hi. Honda Koichi. (2006). F0 and phonation types in Nghe Tinh Vietnamese tones. In P. Warren & C. I. Watson (Eds.) Proceedings of the 11th Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology (pp. 454459). Auckland New Zealand: University of Auckland. Electronic version: http://www.assta.org/sst/2006/sst2006-119.pdf. Luong Hy Van. (1987). Plural markers and personal pronouns in Vietnamese person reference: An analysis of pragmatic ambiguity and negative models. Anthropological Linguistics 29 (1) 49-70. Pham Andrea Hoa. (2005). Vietnamese tonal system in Nghi Loc: A preliminary report. In C. Frigeni M. Hirayama & S. Mackenzie (Eds.) Toronto working papers in linguistics: Special issue on similarity in phonology (Vol. 24 pp. 183459). Auckland New Zealand: University of Auckland. Electronic version: http://r1.chass.utoronto.ca/twpl/pdfs/twpl24/PhamTWPL24.pdf. Sophana Srichampa. (2004). Politeness strategies in Hanoi Vietnamese speech. Mon-Khmer Studies 34 137-157. (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/SOPHANASrichampa.htm). Sophana Srichampa. (2005). Comparison of greetings in the Vietnamese dialects of Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City. Mon-Khmer Studies 35 83-99. (Online version: www.sealang.net/archives/mks/SOPHANASrichampa.htm). V Thang Phng. (1982). Phonetic properties of Vietnamese tones across dialects. In D. Bradley (Ed.) Papers in Southeast Asian linguistics: Tonation (Vol. 8 pp. 5575). Sydney: Pacific Linguistics The Australian National University. Vng Hu L. (1981). Vi nhn xt v c dim ca vn trong th m Qung Nam Hi An Some notes on special qualities of the rhyme in local Quang Nam speech in Hoi An. In Mt S Vn Ngn Ng Hc Vit Nam Some linguistics issues in Vietnam (pp. 311320). H Ni: Nh Xut Bn i Hc v Trung Hc Chuyn Nghip. Historical/Comparative Alves Mark. (1999). "What's so Chinese about Vietnamese" in Papers from the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. University of California Berkeley. PDF Cooke Joseph R. (1968). Pronominal reference in Thai Burmese and Vietnamese. University of California publications in linguistics (No. 52). Berkeley: University of California Press. Gregerson Kenneth J. (1969). A study of Middle Vietnamese phonology. Bulletin de la Socit des Etudes Indochinoises 44 135-193. (Reprinted in 1981). Nguyn nh-Ho. (1986). Alexandre de Rhodes' dictionary. Papers in Linguistics 19 1-18. Shorto Harry L. edited by Sidwell Paul Cooper Doug and Bauer Christian (2006). A Mon-Khmer comparative dictionary. Canberra: Australian National University. Pacific Linguistics. ISBN Thompson Laurence E. (1967). The history of Vietnamese finals. Language 43 (1) 362-371. Orthography Haudricourt Andr-Georges. (1949). Origine des particularits de l'alphabet vietnamien. Dn Vit-Nam 3 61-68. Nguyn nh-Ho. (1955). Quc-ng: The modern writing system in Vietnam. Washington D. C.: Author. Nguyn nh-Ho. (1990). Graphemic borrowing from Chinese: The case of ch nm Vietnam's demotic script. Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology Academia Sinica 61 383-432. Nguyn nh-Ho. (1996). Vietnamese. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (Eds.) The world's writing systems (pp. 691699). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN. Pedagogical Nguyen Bich Thuan. (1997). Contemporary Vietnamese: An intermediate text. Southeast Asian language series. Northern Illinois University Center for Southeast Asian Studies. Healy Dana. (2004). Teach yourself Vietnamese. Teach yourself. Chicago: McGraw-Hill. ISBN Hoang Thinh; Nguyen Xuan Thu; Trinh Quynh-Tram; (2000). Vietnamese phrasebook (3rd ed.). Hawthorn Vic.: Lonely Planet. ISBN Moore John. (1994). Colloquial Vietnamese: A complete language course. London: Routledge. ISBN; ISBN (w/ CD); ISBN (w/ cassettes); Nguyn nh-Ho. (1967). Read Vietnamese: A graded course in written Vietnamese. Rutland Vermont: C.E. Tuttle. Lm L-duc; Emeneau M. B.; & Steinen Diether von den. (1944). An Annamese reader. Berkeley: University of California Berkeley. Nguyn ang Lim. (1970). Vietnamese pronunciation. PALI language texts: Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN -X External links Online Lessons Online Vietnamese lessons from Northern Illinois University Learn Vietnamese Your Way learn Vietnamese fast through language comparison Vietnamese Online Web Application with 40 Interactive Free Lessons An introduction to Vietnamese language from Vietnam Online Vocabulary Vietnamese Phrasebook at Wiktravel Vietnamese Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database) Swadesh list of Vietnamese basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix) Nm look-up from the Vietnamese Nm Preservation Foundation Lexicon of Vietnamese words borrowed from French by Jubinell List of Japanese-Vietnamese Kanjis by Jubinell Language Tools Vietnamese Online Keyboard This virtual keyboard permits you to type in Vietnamese with all the accents. The Vietnamese keyboard its layout is compared with US UK Canada France and Germany's keyboards. The Free Vietnamese Dictionary Project Vietnamese text to speech engine An SAPI5-compliant Vietnamese TTS engine. 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