Vietnamese Chinese
What Makes Chinese so Vietnamese?

An Introduction to Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies

(Ýthức mới về nguồngốc tiếngViệt)

dchph

Chapter Twelve

XII) How sound changes have come about

Languages changed. Sound change in languages is the fact. The changes occurred faster in ancient times but become slower, drastically much slower, in our time where electronic media avail to disseminate information widely and uniformly even with new short forms of jargons in electronic texting. It is self-evident and there is no doubt about it. How have sound changes come about?

Sound changes can be regular or irregular as, for our purposes, as we have seen in the cases of Sino-Vietnamese and Sintic Vietnamese vocabularies as cited in the previous chapters. According to Witold Mańczak's "Irregular sound change due to frequency in German" in Recent Development in Historical Phonology (p. 309):

In brief, the theory of irregular sound change due to frequency can be presented as follows. There is a synchronic law according to which the linguistic elements which are more often used are smaller than those which are less often used. There is a kind of balance between the size of linguistic elements and their frequency. Anyhow, the size of linguistic elements is not stable. As a result, the size of words may change considerably as the comparison of some Old and New High German words [...]

There are four crieria which allow us to recognize that regular sound change due to frequency is involved:

(1) If a frequency dictionary for a given language and for a given epoch exists, we may use it, since the majority of words showing an irregular change due to frequency (about 90%) belong to the thousand words most frequently used in the given language.

(2) In addition to irregular sound change due to frequency, there are other irregular sound changes, namely assimilations, dissimilations, metatheses, and expressive and overcorrect forms. [...]

(3) If in a given language, a morpheme, word, or group of words occurs in a double form (regular or irregular), irregular sound change due to frequency is characterized by the fact that the irregular form is usually used more often than the regular ones. [...]

(4) If the irregular sound change due to frequency occurs within a paradigm, it may be recognized by the fact that only the more commonly used forms are subject to it, whereas the forms used less frequently remain regular. [...]

Paradigm can appear in a variety of forms and that could be of Sturtevant's paradox, as quoted by Raimo Anttila's "The accceptance of sound change by linguistic structure" in Recent Development in Historical Phonology (p. 43) that sound change is regular and causes irregularities, analogy is irregular and produces regularity. Besides, other factors are also parts of acting factors that contribute to form other species of paradigm. For example, competence and performance are two among other factors. According to Wolfgang Dressler's "How much does performance contribute to phonological change?" in Recent Development in Historical Phonology (p. 145):

1.1. In opposition to traditional views that language change starts in performance (parole), generative grammarians have equated linguistic change with change in competence. [...]

1.2. According to Antitila (1972:128 and later studies) "most changes seem to be triggered by performance". Performance contains variation due to imperfect control, to imperfect articulatory organs, to memory restrictions, slips of the tongue or of the ear, the error such as involuntary contaminations, variation due to fluctuations in attention and to inadvertence, to confusions, to playfulness, etc., and individual "biophonetic" characteristics (see Trojan 1975), which cannot be described by rules. [...]

In performance hypotheses sound change is said to be (always or most of the time) the result of random vacillations and gradual fluctuations, to be imperceptible, to be due to ease of articulation or to individual tendencies, to result from the inability of the individual to produce exactly the sounds which he hears, to be due to stylistic fluctuations, to be of a statistical nature, etc. [...]

2. Sound change due to loans (from a substratum, superstratum, or adstratum) is probably the case where possible origins or phonological change can be more easily ascertained. Imperfect application of phonological rules of the target language by speakers of the source language (cf. Fasching 1973) is often seen as due to lack of competence in the target language, or more precisely performance errors. However, we must distinguish between confusion errors which can not be directly traced back to a model in the source language on the one hand, and transpositions of parts of the competence in the source language on the other. [...]

3.1. (Non-analogical) contaminations in speech errors are rather different from blends in language diachrony (see Dressler 1976a) [...]

According to Paul (1920:160-2) diachronic contamination nearly always occurs between words which are either etymologically related or suppletive or antonymous, which is not the case at all in speech errors (see Dressler 1976a ss 13) [...]

Most, if not (nearly) all historical blends are either of an analogical nature (and not phonological contaminations such as many errors) or are consciously coined or are due to interference between the two dialects, [...]

3.2. Non-contaminatory slips of the tongue (cf. Meringer – Mayer 1895, Meringer 1908, Gromkin 1973) are generated by syntagmatic (more rarely dissimilatory) anticipation and preservation, assimilatory increment, and dissimilatory loss. [...]

3.3. Perceptual errors are very complex and cannot possibly give rise to "sound laws". [...] Systematic mis-perception of phonemes of allophones either occur as contact phenomena (i.e. interferences of competence, see 2) or in language disturbances such as aphasia (i.e. disturbance or loss of competence). [...]

4. Child-language acquisition is thought to be the principle source of phonological change by most linguists nowadays. If a process of child language (such as A. Meillet's French example [入] ~ [ǐ] or the final devoicing of obstruents) is said to initiate phonological change, then it is a question of general and systematic substitutions, reflecting the (older) child's competence, and this even in the case of incipient lexical diffusion.

All paradigms of how sound change has come about according to the theoretical experts as such sum up pretty much of our argumentation throughout this paper. Now let's go to the specifics of the sound change from Chinese to Vietnamese loanwords.

My last comment for this section is not to comment at all but to note that the sypnosis are to embolden myself, figuratively, with those bold ideas of the authors offered in the quotation above, especially the item 3.3.

A) In search of sound change patterns

To better understand the phenomenom, synchronically and diachronically, the readers should first, at the very least, distinguish the sound change paradigms between Sino-Vietnamese and Sinitic-Vietnamese lexemes and recognize that their induced-drift shifts follow patterns of different models even if they originated from the same Chinese words, especially those produced with incompetency that might have caused the most drastic changes. Most of the time Chinese loanwords have been accentuated with a substratum of older layers of prior Ancient Chinese lexicons, not excluding basic vocabulary probably evolved from the same source or, in other words, being cognates as we have seen previously in Shafer's basic Sino-Tibetan wordlists. The underlined rationalization of this guideline is based on both historical records of ten centuries long of the Han's occupation of the Annamese land and apparent linguistic evidence of many Chinese loanwords that have entered the Vietnamese language. This sound change phemomenon evolved manifolds by drift and shift semantically and syntactically by leaps and bounces synchronically along the path of diachrony as pointed out above.

Another principle we all should follow in this research is that, overall, Chinese and Vietnamese etymological work particularly should be treated like that of translation in terms of semantics because the sound changes have been the products of such behaviors with association of sound to concepts and vice versa. As a matter of fact, what we are actually dealing with in this case is their equivalent concepts instead of word to word glossary. Specifically, a Chinese character that appears in a Vietnamese word may also serve as a syllabic stem in other word formation in Vietnamese, hence, its etymon, a Chinese cognate to those cited Vietnamese words despite of its recurring frequency. For instance, 順 shùn (SV thuận) in 順便 shùnbiàn (sẵntiện, luôntiện) to denote the concept of 'conveniently' apparently is an etymon for both 'sẵn' (available) and 'luôn' (conveniently) while 順 in 順利 shùnlì (suônsẻ) 'smoothly' and 孝順 xiàoshùn (hiếuthảo) 'filial piety' further gives rise to 'suôn' (smoothly) and 'thảo' (devotion), for each of which can stand alone but with specific syllabic morphemes because both 'suônsẻ' and 'hiếuthảo' are binoms where only 'hiếu' is a word-syllable which can be use independently. We will return to these morpheme-syllable-word concept later, which is called 'tiếng' in Vietnamese.

While searching for Vietnamese of Chinese origin, restricting ourselves only to one-to-one relationship will certainly limit the ability to find as many Chinese roots as possible since those SInitic-Vietnamese words, i.e., of Chinese origins, may appear in different forms and guises. Let us, therefore, not be so rigid in our approach, such as keeping insisting on strict correspondences like Sinitic-Vietnamese word 成 chéng (SV thành) to be the one and only for 'sẵn' (ready), since, being so, we will miss 成 chéng as 'vâng' (yes) or 'xong' (finished), and in 現成 xiànchéng ~ 'sẵnsàng' (ready) where 現 xiàn has become 'sẵn' while 成 chéng becomes 'sàng', a reflective duplicate morpheme which cannot be used alone. Similarly, meanwhile, the two words 'vâng' and 'xong' could be of other sources, say, 行 xíng (okay) and 完 wán (done), respectively.

Let us examine the following expanded examples with dissyllabic words, partially structured with either a Sino-Vietnamese or Sinitic-Vietnamese element or both of each type. Dissyllabic forms arbitrarily chosen herein demonstrate best those phonetic discrepancies or homo-organic symnonyms as described, phonetically. just like the Chinese concept of 諧聲 xiésheng, e.g., both 見 and 現 in Han's epoch could be used to mean 'appear'. Note that the Vietnamese usage of all these words might have changed a little or a lot under the factorization of one or more combined mechanisms of contraction, syncope, metathesis, in reverse order, localization, innovation, derivation, association, dissimilation, corruption, contamination, adaption, etc. In short, the new sound change may also be utilized to coin new words or add new meanings which likely have steered, either slightly or far apart, away from their original meaning even though most of the time there exist exact correspondences concurrently, phonetically and semantically, pointing directly to some equivalents in Chinese, mostly because they were late loanwords, such as

suônsẻ [ < SV thuậnlợi 順利 shùnlì 'smoothly'; VS suôn + VS sẻ | Also, 'trótlọt' (uneventfully) || Note: sound change by 'competence and performance' from Chinese vernacular, probably having occurred during the Ming dynasty 16th century onward. This is a case of derivation. ],
hiếuthảo [ < SV hiếuthuận 孝順 xiàoshùn 'filial piety'; SV 'hiếu' + VS 'thảo' || Note: a case of metathesis of the syllable /t'wɐn6/ > /thaw3/ with the fallen ending /-n/ being dropped with replacement of-w and rising tone.],
tốttính [ Note: an invert of tínhtốt being originated from SV đứctính 德性 déxìng where 'đức' is associated with 'tốt' (good). It a case of innovation. ],
rác [ < VS rácrưới 垃圾 lāji 'garbage' || Note: a case of syncope. Interestingly, this word is originally from "Shanghainese" of Wu dialect whch had entered Mandarin first and only then became a Vietnamese word. ],
mai [ < VS mainầy 明兒 míngr => /mír/ || Note: a case of contraction. ],
tìnhyêu [ < SV áitình # 愛情 àiqíng ‘love’; SV tình + VS yêu || Note a case of 'localization' by putting lexemes or syllables in reverse order, having occurred some time during the Tang Dynasty when dissyllabicity began to profilerate and stablize. ],
ưathích [ Also, VS 'yêuđương' (love) < VS 'yêuthích' < SV áiđái 愛戴 àidài ‘like’; VS ưa, yêu + thích || Note: a case of association of 疼愛 téng'ài (also, 'yêuthương') ],
ănnói [ < SV ngônngữ < 言語 yányǔ 'speech' \ @ 言 yán ~ 'ăn' 唵 ān (am), @ 語 yǔ ~ 'nói' = 話 huà (SV thoại) || Note: a case of association and assimilation. ],
nóinăng [ < SV ngônngữ < 語言 yǔyán 'speech' \ @ 語 yǔ ~ 'nói' = 話 huà (SV thoại), @ 言 yán ~ 'năng' (reduplicative) || Note: a case of localization by reduplication. ],
lờilẽ [ < SV ngữtừ < # 語辭 yǔcí 'speech' \ @ 語 yǔ ~ 'lẻ' 理 lǐ SV 'lý' (reduplicative), @ 辭 cí ~ 'lời' || Note: a case of innovation and assimilation by reduplication. ],
thơtừ [ < SV thưtừ 書辭 shūcí; cf. SV thơtín 書信 shūxìn ‘mail’ (also, variant 'thưtín') || Note: a case of innovation with new coinage, and down the road in its development giving birth to the whole new concept, plausibly 'sáchvở' (books and letters). ],
thợmộc [ < #木匠 mùjiāng ‘carpenter’; VS thợ + SV mộc | Note: a case of corruption of sound change. ],
một căn gáctrọ [ < 'một căn' 一間 yī jiān (SV nhất gian) + 'gác' 閣 gé (SV các) 'pavillion' + 'trọ' 宿 sù (SV túc) ‘lodging’; all is built with Chinese elements where 'căngác' became a dissylabic word, which mirrors the paradigm of VS 'cănphòng' 房間 fángjiān (room). || Note: a case of adaption. ],
bọnngười [ < 'một bọn người' < SV nhất bang nhân 一幫人 yī bāng rén 'the gang' || Note: another case of adaption. Cf. 四人幫 sìrénbāng: SV 'Tứnhânbang' (the Gang of Four) ],
giấcmộng [ < 'một giấc mộng' < SV nhất trường mộng 一場夢 yī chăng mèng 'a dream' || Note: another case of adaption. ],.

Similarly, the list can go on with other assimilative changes such as

cuộctình [ SV tìnhtrường 情場 qíngchăng 'love story' (See elaboration on 場 chăng for other plausible variants.) ],
cuộcđời [ SV thếcuộc 世局 shìjú 'world' ],
bỏcuộc [ SV phácục 破局 pòjú 'give up' ],
rốtcuộc [ SV kếtcuộc 結局 shìjú 'world' ],
cuộcsống [ SV sinhhoạt 生活 shēnghuó 'life' ],
côngcuộc [ SV côngtác 工作 gōngzuò 'task' (See elaboration below.) ],
côngviệc [ SV côngvụ 公務 gōngwù 'official business' ],
làmviệc [ SV cánhoạt 幹活 gànhuó 'work' ],
bậnviệc [ SV manghoạt 忙活 mánghuó 'busy' ],
nóidối [ SV giảthoại 假話 jiăhuà 'a lie' ],
phảitrái [ SV thịphi 是非 shìfēi 'wrong and right' ],

Just like the development of other Chinese dialects that shows the path of linguistic evolution of a living language – that their speakers had gone through after they became parts of the later Han Chinese (漢人, Han or Chinese for short) nearly two and a half millennia ago following the fall of the Qin Dynasty – undoubtedly, the becoming of the modern Vietnamese language seems to be similar to them for its having continuously and gradually formed over the time as it appears today. It is the ultimate result of inevitable cause and effect interactions between some ancient aboriginal substrate language and those dialects brought to the ancient Annamese land substantially for a very long period of time not only by the Chinese conquerors and their army, disgruntled emigrants, disgraced officials in exile, but also contributed by local officials and scholars, their native wives, and the like, all having been of different mixed-race stocks, all factorized into the perception of competency and frequency that have caused sound change irregularities.

Based on some of what appear to be cognates in the basic stock of both Chinese and Vietnamese, we could also safely speculate that their common share of basic words had been already widely used within the Vietmuong group before the emergence of other deviates from the Ancient Chinese as more contacts with the Han's colonialists and new emigrants from the far north. For the massive Middle Chinese words that the ancient Annamese had acquired from Middle Chinese untill the end of the Tang Dynasty account for the extant Sino-Vietnamese. (see Bernhard Kargren. 1954. Conpendium of Phonetics in Ancient and in Archaic Chinese)

The view that the ancient VIetnamese, or Vietic branch of the Vietmuong subfamily, evolved from the same ancestral Yue linguistic source as that of Cantonese is still debated by many renown scholars based on the fact that the two languages on the surface share much of glosses the Middle Chinese and less in the basic stratum of which the northern Manandarin, surprisingly, filled in the gap where the Cantonese lacks, which would support the genetic affiliation of the ancient Annamese with the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family as argued in the previous chapters to account for what is called by the term 'Sinitic-Vietnamese'. You may recall that the proto-Vietmuong – descendant of an indigenous speech spoken by the LacViet (雒越 LuoYue) and then Aulac (歐雒 Ouluo) people prior to its having broken apart and diverged into different branches – had already long existed along with what would be later known as Jyetwa (粵話) or Cantonese long before the colonial era when 'the Han conquistadors' set their foot on the ancient Annamese land (安南) that was known as Giaochi (交趾 Jiaozhi) at the time. Recall that Annam was situated further to the southwest far away from Phiêngngung (番禺 Fanyu), the center of the NamViet Kingdom (NanYue 南越王國), where the ancestral Cantonese was spoken, which would partly explain why Cantonese, like Annamese, being originally an Yue language but classified as of the "Sino-Tibetan" linguistic family as well, shares only a limited amount of its substratum basic words with Vietnamese, e.g., 'xơi' 食 /shik8/ (eat), 'uống' 飲 /jaam3/ (drink), 'ốm' and 'ỉa' 屙 /o5/ (used for both concepts of 'illness' and 'discharge excrement'), 'đéo' or 'đụ' 屌 diăo (SV điệu) /tjew3/ (fuck), etc.

Just like what archeaologists view on artifacts found from excavations from the Đôngsơn of Thanhhoá Province where they found many items that dated with span of time varying from 400 B.C. to 100 A.D. (see Bernhard Karlgren. 1945), the onset of incipient vocabularies after the Han colonists had occupied Annam of many Sinitic-Vietnamese words would eventually made a round trip finding their way back having been re-packaged under different forms of speech used by native speakers in the China South (華南), that is, lexical variants of Old Chinese and of any periods thereafter found concurrently in use in Vietnamese such as

猫 māo (cat) for SV 'mẹo',
為 wèi (elephant) for SV 'vi' (do, for, etc.) and VS 'voi' [ doublet 豫 yú ('elephant' in archaic Chinese) vs. modern Chinese 象 xiàng ],
虎 hǔ (tiger) for SV 'hổ' and VS 'cọp'
甝 hán (white tiger) for VS 'hùm',
唐 táng for VS 'đường' (road) and the replaced 道 dào (SV đạo) or doublet 途 tú (SV đồ),
川 chuān SV 'xuyên' for VS 'dòng' (stream) and 江 jiāng for SV 'giang' and VS 'sông' (river),
房 fáng (room) for SV 'phòng' and VS 'buồng', etc.

Under the Han domination, the split of the Vietmuong group into the aforementioned Viet and Muong branches had their languages dispersed in different directions following numerous migrating paths of their speakers, many to mountainous hideouts or others to the coastline settlements. (A) The linguistic divergence had given rise to the early Vietic sub-family by itself and birth of its descendant language was later known as Annamese, an admixture of the native and the Western Han (西漢) linguistic elements, including basic vocabulary as attested in the classics of the Han Dynasty, e.g.,

'Liu', 'axe', 'conquer' 劉 líu (SV 'Lưu' surname, VS 'rìu', 'lấy'),
'Yue', 'axe' 戉,鉞,粵 Yuè (SV 'Việt'='越 Yuè', VS 'rựa'),
'copper', 'bronze' 銅 tóng (SV 'đồng', VS 'thau'),
'wheeled machine', 'chariot', 'carriage' 車 chē (SV 'xa', VS 'cỗ' vs. 'cộ' vs. 'xe'),
'indigo' 藍 lán (SV 'lam', VS 'chàm'),
'earthnut', 'fall' 落 luò (SV 'lạc', VS 'rơi'),
'net fishing', 'fishing net' 羅 luó (SV 'la', VS 'chài', 'lưới'),
'bamboo basket', 'bamboo fish trap' 籮 luó (VS 'rỗ' and 'rọ'), etc.

The similarity among those basic words as such between Vietnamese and Chinese is the subject of investigation of this paper hitherto with evidences of their cognateness as has been discussed throughout as is. Unfortunately we have not found any historical records written in native 'Vietnamese scripts' before the 15th century, let alone the 939 A.D. Usually the earlier history of Annam has been extracted and adapted from Chinese records as it started to rule the Annamse land from 111 B.C. to 939 A.D., that is, a continuation from as well as an integral part of Chinese history (H). For that reason, we can comfortably survey the Sinitc-Vietnamese etymology within the framework of ancient Chinese linguistic records such as the 13th century Annam Dịchngữ dictionary (Vương Lộc. 1995) to reconstruct an overall picture of how the archaic Vietic language had vaguely sounded like prior to its blend with Ancient Chinese more than two millennia ago.

Importantly, understanding how additional thousands of other cultural and scholarly Sino-Vietnamese loanwords have slipped into the daily speech of the common speakers of contemporary spoken language is essential to appreciate what role Mandarin has become as an inseparate part of the modern Vietnamese development. It is certainly not a matter of speculation on how they have neaked in the daily casual speech of the mass. That is, Sino-Vietnamese popularity is truly another aspect in studying Vietnamese historical linguistics that needs to be put together on a grander scale. As a matter of fact, nobody can say a complete sentence nowadays without using Sino-Vietnamese, thus, Sintic-Vietnamese words. Politically, hence linguistically, scholars and officials in the ancient southern prefecture of Annam, as anybody else in other parts of the Middle Kingdom, must have learnt and used the official language of the imperial court; hence, therefrom comes the name 'mandarin' (官話 quanthoại). That would better explain why the later period of Middle Chinese, i.e., Mandarin of the Tang Dynasty, had entered Vietnamese en masse under the form that would be known as Sino-Vietnamese as they appear today. (C)

As to discrepancies in the Sino-Vietnamese usage by the Vietnamese speakers with what is spoken by the three other major southern Chinese dialects, along side of what appears in Chinese historical phonological records, such as rhyming books of the Tang and Song dynaties, there appear minor phonetic dissimilarities that makes each language stand apart and unintelligible to each other as that has been the results of multi-tiered and multi-staged sound changes from the Ancient- to Middle-Chinese to all aforementioned languages and their subdialects. Their phonology has been synchronically manifold, including variants of both colloquial and literary forms, that resulted in each Chinese character to have had at least 2 different sets of pronunciations, coloquial and literary pronunciation. It is noted that those ancient Cantonese, Fukienese, including the Wu languages such as Shanghainese and Shaoxingnese, originally of the Yue language south of the Yangtze River of which many of basic words were found in aboriginal strata by Austroasiatic specialists since the early 20th century. They all went through the process of Sinicization mainly because their topology remained a part of the greater China since the Han Dynasty until present an that sole factor would thus institutionally crown them all with the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family. (V)

In fact, despite of those lexical similarities among Chinese dialects with ancient Annamese and modern Vietnamese the latter two should not be considered as a Chinese dialect before or after 939 A.D., the year that its speakers threw off the Chinese colonial yokes in the Annamese land. Phonetically, the formation of the current pronunciation of the Vietnamese language could have gradually evolved over a long span of timeline diachronically being accentuated with northern vernacular forms brought into the Annamese prefecture by different emigrants from the North throughout loingperiods to have penetrated in every lexical layer in each colonial stage. Such a factor would explain why in Vietnamese there exist many forms and expression so similar to Mandarin, a living language of the Chinese mainland's northeners of all times, which can be attested in and verified with those classical Chinese nvels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, the Water Margin, Dream of Red Chambers, , etc, all written in "vernacular language" (白話文 Baihuawen), started sometime during the Yuan Dynasty in the 12th century till the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century, respectively, a bit similar to a northern dialect. (Wang Li, et al., Ibid. 1956. pp. 46, 82, 98)

In terms of competency and performance depending on their lexical acquisition and usage, those ancient forms later might have to compete against newer and more prestigious ones, i.e., the scholarly Sino-Vietnamese from Middle Chinese as having been articulated in some learned circles. Meanwhile, in general population, the northern Vietnamese speakers tend to use more Sino-Vietnamese lexicons while those in the south use more Sinitic-Vietnamese vocabulary stock in their language, which, nevertheless, still did not prevent the Sinitic-Vietnamese domain from absorbing more vernacular Mandarin. In contemporary scenario, however, both regions are still increasingly using the modern Chinese terms with Sino-Vietnamamese pronunciation, for example, "thịphạm" 示範 shìfàn (demonstrate), "soáica" 帥哥 shuàigē (handsome man), "đạocụ" 道具 dàojù (theatrical props), etc.

Colloquially speaking, new Chinese lexicons in Vietnamese could be considered as later loans in addition to what could have been modifiedalterations of the very same words that had already existed prior to phonological shifts with new vernacular usages and semantic adaptions. As a matter of fact, such linguistic phenomenon has taken place since the ancient times. The Sinitic-Vietnamese forms would possibly evolve into some familar words that we all seem to know too well, but actually not, like in the cases to be illustrated below. The point to remember is to throw in more linguistic elements that nothing in the Austrosiatic languages would get closer comparatively, all but some dozen dubious Mon-Khmer words extant in Vietnamese. Specifically, in comparison with parallel usages in modern Chinese Putonghua (普通話), for instance, some typically common words sometimes also serve multifunctionally with the sound changes in the target language, i.e., noun-verbs as co-locators, verbs or adverbs as particles, as exemplified below. Interestingly enough, like many grammatical functional words (虛詞) in both languages, the cited grammatically functional particles have evolved from notionally concrete words (實詞) must have come from the northern Chinese dialect from at least two periods, i.e., Early Mandarin and Late Mandarin, or contemporary Mandarin (官話 Guanhua, SV 'Quanthoại').

Let us examine some of those derived variants of the same Chinese roots in both categories as notional words and grammatical particles.

來 lái: lai (SV)

lại, này: "come"; variations: 來來來! Láilái lái: "Lại đây này!" or "Tới đây!" (Come over here!),
sau: 未來 wèilái "maisau" (in the future),
lai: "racially mixed"; 外來 wàilái: for SV "ngoạilai" [ Notionally, to mean 'foreign origin', and with the dropped syllabic-morheme 外 wài, VS "lai", originally functioning as an adverbal to connote the notion of 'in' or 'into', has become "racially mutated", of which the syllabic-morpheme 來 lai cannot used with the same notion by it self.],
lại (a grammatical particle indicating upcoming or to-be-complete action): Màn lái! 慢來! "Chậm lại!" (Slow down!),
lại: "again" as asymnonym of 再 zài: 'lại', e.g., 再來 Zàilái! "Làm lại!" (Do it again!) (# 再來 zàilái can also be: "lặplại" (repeat!) or "trởlại" 'return')
là: 本來 běnlái "vốnlà" (originally), 原來 yuánlái "nguyênlà" (initially), 一來... yìlái "mộtlà" (firstly)... 二來... èrlái "hailà" (secondly)...,
vậy: "thus" (a grammatical particle indicating resultant cpletetion implying an adverbal 'then' or 'thus'): 你去那裏來? Nǐ qù nálǐ lái? "Mầy điđâu vậy?" (Where did you go?), 你放才說甚麼來呢? Nǐ fāngcái shuō shěnme lái nè? "Mầy vừarồi nói gì vậy nhỉ?" (What have you just said?)
đây: 上來 Shànglái! "Lênđây!" (Come up here!), 過來! Guòlái! "Quađây!" (Come here!)
nầy: 後來 hòulái "saunầy" (later on),
nay: 素來 sùlái "xưanay" (from the start),
làm: 來唄 Láibei! "Làmđi!" (Go ahead!), 亂來 luànlái "làmcàn" (do things carelessly), 來不及 Láibùjí "Làm khôngkịp" (It can't be done (on time)), 來一盃! Lái yī bēi! "Làm một ly!" (Let's have a drink!),
tới: "act", "perform a to be done action", e.g., 來不及 Láibùjí "Tới khôngkịp!" '(We, I, He..) cannot make it on (on time)', 來吧 láiba! "Tớiđi!" (Come!),
nổi: 起不來 qǐbùlái "dậyđâunổi" (unable to get up),

了 lē, liăo: liễu (SV)

liễu: "finish, complete, fulfill" [ e.g., 了結 liăojié #"kếtliễu" (finish) ],
lấy: (a grammatical past tense marker of completed action) [ e.g., 他抱緊了我. Tā bàojǐn lē wǒ. "Nó ômchặc lấy tôi." (He holds me tight.) ],
mất: (a grammatical past tense marker of completed action) [ e.g., 吃我完飯他走了! Chī wán fàn tā zǒu lē! "Ăncơm xong nó đimất." (He disappeared after dinner!), 他的外套被人家偷走了. Tādē wàitào bèi rénjiā tòulē! "Cái áokoát của nó bị ngườita trộmmất." (His coat has been stolen) ].
nổi: (a grammatical particle indicating capacity or possibility) [ e.g., 忘不了 Wàng bùliăo. "Quên khôngnổi." (I could not forget.) 我受不了Wo shòubùliăo "Tôi chịukhôngnổi." (I cannot stand it.) ],
nữa: (ending particle as interjection, acknowldgement, future certainty), [ e.g., 我不再回來了! Wǒ bù zài huílái le! "Tôi sẽ không vềlại nữa!" (I will not come back again!) ],
rồi: "already, done, complete" (a grammatical past tense marker of completed action) [ e.g., 忘了! Wànglē "Quênrồi!" (I already forgot!) ],
rõ: "be clear, understand" [ e.g., 了解 liáojiě "hiểurõ" (understand) ],
ra: "out" [ adverbally 'out of (energy)', 'exhaustedly''. e.g. 累壞了. Lèihuàile. "Mệtnhoàira." (I'm stretched out.),
là: "then" [ e.g., 娶了媳婦忘了娘! Qǔ lē xífù wànglē niáng! "Lấyvợ rồi là quênluôn mẹ!" (After having married a wife then he forgets his mother!), 小偷看見了警察後拔腿就跑. Xiăotòu kànjiàn le jǐngchá hòu bátuǐjìupăo. "Têntrộm trôngthấy cảnhsát là vácgiòmàchạy." (The burglar saw the policeman then ran away.) ],
luôn: "too", "all the way" [ adverbally to indicate degrees 'to the extremity', 'completely'). e.g. 冷死了! Lěngsǐlē! "Lạnhchếtluôn!" (Frozen to death.), 他走了也不再回來. Tā zǒu lē yě bù zài huílái. "Nó đi luôn không quayvềlại." (He has left and never returned.) ],

打 dă: đả (SV)

đánh, quánh, đập, để: "beat, strike, operate" [ e.g., 打字 dăzì "đánhchữ" (typing) ],
đòn: 挨打 ăidă "ănđòn" (get beaten up, be punished),
tá: 一打 yī dá "một tá" (a dozen) [ This is a recent English loanword 'dozen' (~> 'do-' / dropped '-zen') in C., earliest in the late of the Qing Dynasty, and, like other words, it was creeping into the Vietnamese language naturally and dominantly to become an active word of the modern Vietnamese.],
từ: 打 dá "from" [ ~ @ 自 zì (SV tự), cf. 自打 zìdá # "từkhi" (since) ],
ăncướp: 打劫 dăjié "rob" [ Also, VS 'đánhcướp' ~ 'đánhcắp' | M 打劫 dăjié \ @ 打 dă ~ 'ăn' | M 劫 < MC kɛp < OC *kap],
tínhtoán: 打算 dăsuàn "planning" [ Also, VS #'toantính ],
lậpcập: 打抖 dădǒu "tremble" [ M 打抖 dădǒu \ @ 打 dă ~ 'lập' (reduplicative) | ¶ d- ~ l-, @ 抖 dǒu ~ 'cập' (reduplicative) | ¶ d- ~ k- ],
cáđộ: 打賭 dădǔ "bet" [ SV 'đảđộ' ~> VS 'cáđộ' ~> ® @ 打 dă ~ 'cá' (bet) ],

開 kāi: khai (SV)

khai: [ e.g., 開張 kāizhāng "khaitrương" (grand opening), 開幕 kāimù "khaimạc" (inaugurate) cf. 'mởmàn', 開講 kāijiăng "khaigiảng", (begin lecturing; hence, "khaitrường" school opening, 講 jiăng is associated with 庠 xiáng, SV tường, for 'trường' or 'school') ],
khui: [ e.g., 打開 dăkāi "khuira" (open up, like a can, a blockage) ],
khởi: [ e.g., 開始 kāishi "khởsự" (start), associated with 起事 qǐshì. ],
khỏi: [ e.g., 躲開 duǒkāi "tránhkhỏi" (escape from, get aside) ],
/em>mở: [ e.g., 開燈 kāidēng "mởđèn" (turn on the light), 開幕 kāimù "mởmàn" (begin the performance), 開闢 kāiguān "mởcổng" (open up), "đóngmở" (open and close) ],
nở: [ e.g., 花開 huākāi "hoanở" (flowers bloom), cf. 開花 kāihuā "nởhoa" (blooming flowers), Cant. /hoj1fa1/ (cf. VS 'nởbông') ],
lái: (pilot, drive, operate) [ e.g. 開飛機 kāifējī "láimáybay" (fly an airplane), 開車 kāichē "láixe", cf. 駕車 jiàchē "láixe", 賣販 màifàn "láibuôn" (trader) ],
hàilòng: 開心 kāixīn (pleased),
tránhcoi: 讓開 ràngkāi (get out of the way),

Evidences show that since they had occurred or evolved from different sources synchronically in different periods, Chinese and Vietnamese phonological interchanges, as demonstrated by their phonetic shells, were drastically altered beyond recognition, especially with those polysyllabic forms, and by all means, the longer they are the more diverse they are. What supports the postulation of such generous posits of rich and variant sounds in Sinitic-Vietnamese for each Chinese root? The answers can be found in the sound change patterns even with the monosyllabic of Middle Chinese ~ Sino-Vietnamese interchanges, apparently in the Mandarin sounds with droppings of the endings, and for those with untrained eyes, they may not recognize nor accept the resulted sound changes, for instance,

必 bì /bi4/ SV tất [tʌt7] 'inevitable',
屁 pì /pi4/ SV tý [tej7] 'butts',
俾 bèi /bej4/ SV tì [tej2] 'low class',
乘 chèng /ʈʂhəŋ4/ SV thừa [tʰɨ̞̠ɜ2] 'make use of, avail oneself',
吃 chī /ʈʂhɿ1/ SV ngật [ŋʌt8] 'eat',
額 é /ə2/ SV ngạch [ŋajk8] 'amount',
而 ěr /ə:3/ SV nhi [ɲej1] 'but'
激 jī /tsi1/ SV khích [k'ijk7] 'incite',
季 jì /tsi4/ SV quý [wej5] 'season',
節 jié /tsi2/ SV tiết [tjet7] 'festival',
津 jīn /tsin1/ SV tân [tʌn1] 'ford',
熱 rè /rə:4/ SV nhiệt [ɲjet8] 'but'
日 rì /r ɿ4/ SV nhật [ɲjʌt8] 'sun'
起 qǐ /tɕi3/ SV khởi [kʰəj3] 'rise',
攝 shè /ʃə4/ SV nhiếp [ɲjep7] 'act for',
溪 xī /si1/ SV khê [k'e1] 'brook',
吸 xī /si1/ SV hấp [xʌp7] 'inhale',
係 xī /si1/ SV hệ [he6] 'related',
習 xí /si2/ SV tập [tʌp8] 'practice',
洗 xǐ /si3/ SV tẩy [tʌj3] 'wash',
惜 xì /si4/ SV tích [tijk7] 'cherish',
赥 xì /si4/ SV hích [xijk7] 'giggle',
需 xū /sy1/ SV nhu [ɲou1] 'need'
學 xué /sye2/ SV học [xokʷ8] 'study' [ cf. Cant. /xok4/ ],
業 yè /je4/ SVnghiệp [ŋjep8] 'profession',
一 yī /ji1/ SVnhất [ŋjʌt7] 'one',
義 yì /ji4/ SVnghĩa [ŋja4] 'righteous',
譯 yì /ji4/ SVdịch [jijk8] 'translate',
玉 yù /jy4/ SVngọc [ŋokʷ8] 'jade' [ M 玉 yù < MC ŋöuk < OC *ŋok | FQ 魚欲 ],
禺 yú /jy2/ SV ngung [ŋuŋʷ1] 'a kind of monkey' [ ex. 番禺 Fānyú (SV Phiênngung) ],
月 yuè /jwe4/ SV nguyệt [ŋwjet8] 'moon',
樂 yuè /jwe4/ SV nhạc [ɲak8] 'music', etc.

Strictly speaking, the phonlogical interchanges followed well-defined patterns of sound changes from the Middle Chinese ~ Sino-Vietnamese which are diachronic and scholarly in nature as they had evolved from the official language spoken at the old-timed Chinese imperial court and among literati, in this case, the language of Chang'an (長安) from the 6th century onwards. These sound patterns are identified and categorized based on a systematic phonological rule known as fănqiè 反切 (FQ), or phonetic 'spelling'. It is from this old-timed spelling system that all the available Chinese characters can be deciphered for its pronunciation in equivalent Sino-Vietnamese sounds. For example, An Chi (Ibid. 2016) tried to postulate Vietnamese "trứng" (egg) with 種 zhǒng (SV chủng) intead of 蛋 dàn (SV đản), with the former reconstruction solely based on the Ancient Chinese 'spelling'.

Specifically for this phenomenon of phonological sound changes, as mentioned earlier, there are always exceptions that reflect different dialectal articulation as well as historical timeframe in which certain pronunciation of certain sounds were a taboo to certain rulers so people had to use euphemism, but in most of the cases their variants match what are recorded in ancient rhyming books which were later compiled and cited in the Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典 (See Bernhard Kargren, Nguyễn Tài-Cẩn, Wang Li, Li Fang-Keui), for example,

lợi, lãi: 利 lì (benefit) [ VS 'lời' (profit) | M 利 lì < MC lɪ < OC *rhijs ],
phước, phúc: 福 fú (good fortune) [ M 福 fú < MC puk < OC *pjəkʷ ],
phụng, phượng: 鳳 fèng (phoenix) [ M 鳳 fèng < MC bəŋ < OC *bhrjəms ],
cuộc, cục: 局 jú (status) [ M 局 jú < MC goʊk < OC *gok ],
oai, uy: 威 wēi (power) [ M 威 wēi < MC ʔwyj < OC *ʔuj | FQ 於非 ],
chú, chua: 注 zhù (annotate) [ M 注 zhù < MC tʂʊ < OC *toʔs || Note: VS 'trút', 'rót', 'chảy'. According to Starostin: to conduct water, pour; be led to, flow to. Also read *tro(ʔ)-s, MC t.u\, Pek. zhù id. ],
chúa, chủ: 主 zhǔ (master, Lord) [ M 主 zhǔ MC < tʂʊ < OC *toʔ | FQ 之庾 | According to Starostin, person in charge, master. A more archaic loan in Viet. is chúa 'lord, prince' (cf. the Eastern Han Chinese form *tɕwaʔ).]
bá, bách: 百 băi (hunded) [ M 百 băi < MC pɐk < OC *prak | Note: Qièyùn 切韻 in EMC period /baijt4/ (AD 601) and /bà/ (as in 'bátánh' 百姓 băixìng ’common people’) for MC /baj/ ],
triều, trào: 朝 cháo (dynasty) [ Also, VS 'chầu', SV 'triêu', 'chiêu' | M 朝 cháo, zhāo < MC ɖew < OC *dhraw and possible the controcersial postulation of 'Tàu' ('China' = Japanese '支那‘) ],
dị, dịch: 易 yí (easy), (change) [ VS 'dễ' | M 易 yí, yì < MC jɜ, jek < OC *leks ],
nghĩa, ngãi: 義 yì (righteous) [ M 義 yì < MC ŋɜ < OC *ŋajs ],
hoàng, huỳnh: 黃 huáng (yellow) [ M 黃 huáng < MC gwɒŋ < OC *ghwa:ŋ | Pt 乎光 ],
nguyên, ngươn 元 yuán (origin) [ M元 yuán < MC ŋwjən < OC *ŋon ],
nhân, nhơn: 仁 rén (benevolent) [ M 仁 rén < MC ɳin < OC *nin ],
quới, quý: 貴 guì (precious) [ M 貴 guì (quý, quí) < MC kwui < OC *kuts ],
tý, tứ: 伺 sì (attend) [ M 伺 sì, cì (tý, tứ) < MC sjɨ < OC *slhǝ, *slhǝs ],
tý, tử: 子zǐ (offspring) [ M子 zī, zǐ, zì, zí, zi, cí (tử, tý) < MC tsjɤ, tsjy < OC *cɑʔ *cɑʔ ],
vũ, võ: 武 wǔ (martial arts) [ M 武 wǔ < MC mʊ < OC *maʔ ],
đông, thặng: 疼 téng, tóng (pain, love) [ VS 'thương' (love) | M 疼 téng, tóng < MC thəwŋ < OC *dawŋ ],
thừa, thặng: 乘 chéng, shèng (make use of, avail oneself) [ M 乘 chéng, shèng < MC ʑiŋ < OC *ljəŋ ],
trọng, trùng: 重 zhòng, chóng (heavy, repect) [ VS 'nặng' M 重 zhòng, chóng (trọng, trùng) < MC ɖɔuŋ < OC *dhroŋʔ ],
đường, đàng: 堂 táng (hall) [ M 堂 táng < MC ʈaŋ < OC *daŋ ],
tràng, trường, trưởng, trướng: 長 cháng, zhăng (long, grow, senior) [ VS 'dài' (long), 'lớn' (grow-up) | M 長 cháng, zhăng < MC ɖaŋ < OC *draŋ. Also read MC ʈɒŋ < OC *traŋʔ ], etc.,

luật, suất: 率 lǜ (lead, rate) [ M 率 lǜ, shuài < MC ʂwit < OC *srut | According to Starostin: (perhaps) a leather band, and a sacrifice in which such a band was applied to animals. The original meaning is not attested in texts (and can be guessed only by the graphic structure of the character). Instead, in Early Zhou texts the character is used for homonymous words: *srut 'all (adv.)'; *srut 'to lead; to follow'. Since Late Zhou it was applied also to another word, OC *rut, MC lwit, Mand. lǜ 'portion, rate, proportion'. Standard Sino-Viet. readings are 'suất' (for MC ʂwit) and 'luật' (for MC lwit); suất, however, is used in the meaning 'portion, part', thus actually representing MC lwit. Besides, Viet. colloquial sốt (rốt?) 'at all', suốt 'throughout' (cf. also trót 'entire, whole') most probably go back to the same source (MC s.wit, OC *srut 'all (adv.)'). | cf. 比率 bǐlǜ (SV tỷsuất): VS bựcmức, tỷlệ, xácsuất (rate, ratio) ],
cáp, hạp, hợp, hiệp: 合 hé (join, harmonious, closed) [ M 合 hé, gě, gé, xiá < MC ɠɤp < OC *gjə:p, *kəp | cf. 哈爾濱 Hàrbìn (SV Cápnhĩtân) 'Harbin' ],
tịch: 席 xí (mat, banquet) [ ~ VS 'tiệc' (banquet), VS 'chiếu' (mat); also, cf. VS 'chủxị' (host) ~ 主席 zhǔxí: SV 'chủtịch' (chairman) | M 席 xí < MC zjek < OC *lhiak | FQ 祥易 ],
thoại: 話 huà (speech) [ ~ VS 'nói' (speak) | M 話 huà < MC ɠwɑi < OC *ghwra:ts | According to Starostin: speech, lecture. Standard Sino-Viet. is thoại (with unclear th- (hence, h- > n- 'nói' (speak)). ],
thuyết: 說 shuō, shuì (talk) [ ~ VS 'thốt' (utter) | M 說 shuō, shuì < MC ʂwej, ʂwet < OC *ɬwet | FQ 失爇 | MC reading 山合三入薛書 | ¶ d- ~ n-: | According to Starostin: Protoform: *ɫo > t. Meaning: speak, say. Chinese: 說 *ɫot speak, explain. Also read *ɫot-s, MC ʂwe\j (FQ 舍芮), Mand. shuì 'to halt, rest overnight'; often used instead of 脫 *ɫo:t 'to take off, let loose' and 悅 *ɬot 'to delight in, be pleased'.]
thừa, thừng: 承 chéng (hold, undertake, receive) [ M 承 chéng /tʃhəŋ2/, SV thừa /thɨə2/ || Note also thừng [thjɤŋ2], VS nhận /ɲʌn6/ (~ VS dâng, nâng, 'lift, hold up, receive'). Compare simlar patterns: 承受 chéngshòu, VS 'chịuđựng' (endure), etc. (See more below.), cf. 丞相 chéngxiàng: SV 'thừatướng' (minister), 剩餘 chèngyú: SV 'thặngdư' (surplus capital), VS 'dưthừa' (leftover), 大乘 Dàchéng: SV 'Đạithừa' (Mahayana; Great Vehicle); 小乘 Xiăochéng: SV 'Tiểuthừa' (Hinayana; Little Vehicle) ].

To explore further the process of sound changes from Chinese and Vietnamese through drifting, shifting, innovation, localization, etc., let us examine the following examples in detail.

côngcuộc 工作 gōngzuò: SV 'côngtác' (task) [ MC /koŋʷ1ʦu̯ɔk7/ | M 作 zuō, zuó, zuò < MC tzwʌk || Note: for tz- cf. Cant /ʦɔːk8/ | According to Starostin: MC cʌk < OC *ɕa:k | FQ 則落 ]

The process that resulted in association with the sound and concept of another word sometimes is referred to by other authors as induced shift. As in the case of côngcuộc, specifically, the interference of the preceding closed and rounded velar ending [-ŋʷ-], or /-wŋ-/, causes the initial of the next syllable [ts-] to change to [kw-] or a laryngeal sound within dissyllabic forms. This process is further continued by Vietnamese speakers by associating the morpheme [kwok8] with an homophonous one cuộc (< SV cục /kwukʷ/), where it appears in variations of dissyllabic forms and has a close meaning as what appears in the compound côngcuộc, hence [koŋʷ1ʦu̯ɔk7] > [koŋʷ1kwok8]. It is no doubt that many non-specialists of Sino-Vietnamese will be tempted to assign to cuộc , a Chinese cognate of jú 局 (SV cục /kwukʷ/) right away.

Additionally, it is worthy to note that in Vietnamese, except for the Chinese original meaning of 'cuộc' 局 jú as in Sino-Vietnamese thếcuộc 世局 shìjú (> cuộcđời) (life), 'cuộc' in the compound côngcuộc is usually used in the context of "task" like the word côngcuộc xâydựng 建設工作 jiànshè gōngzuò (the task of building) and, similarly, côngcuộc tranhđấu 鬥爭工作 dòuzhēng gōngzuò (the fighting cause) either of which conveys the same meaning as the Sino-Vietnamese word of côngtác. Meanwhile 工作 gōngzuò in modern Mandarin can also mean ‘job’ that is cognate to Vietnamese côngviệc. That is to say, the Vietnamese speakers have associated it with 公務 gōngwù (SV côngvụ) 'official business' where 工 gōng (work) has been assimilated with 公 gōng (official) in association with the sound [koŋʷ1] (written in modern National Vietnamese Quốcngữ as "công"), for which the Vietnamese việclàm – 'work', a localized alternation of the vernacular form 幹活 gànhuó as "làmviệc" by means of reverse order – is the equivalent in both etymology and meaning.

For that reason, we can assume that the formation of the word côngcuộc is a local development in Vietnamese that has originated from 工作 gōngzuò. In the meantime, we can not yet exclude the possibility that 工作 gōngzuò can be the compound derivation of gōng 公 (or 工) + jú 局 – hence, a doublet of the syllabic-morpheme 作 – if we apply the sandi rule to the formation of this Chinese compound even though this compound word seems to be non-extant in the Chinese vocabulary as known to the author – and if that were the case, which has never been, then the scenario [koŋʷ1ʦu̯ɔk8] > côngcuộc is no longer a local development in Vietnamese but a variation of the same Chinese cognate.

What we are at it, let us apply the same approach to the drifting and shifting models with other etymological cases throughout this paper because it involves also some common aspects of word formation in Vietnamese with Chinese material via the sandhi process of assimilation, e.g., 假設 jiăshè (SV giảthiết) ~> 假說 jiăshuì (SV giảthuyết) for the meaning of 'hypothesis'. Beware that the denotation of the aforementioned process used here is to mean a linguistic rule of sound changes by assimilating the close sound with those that fall within either the sphere of sounds or realm of meanings, or both, so that the respective words would carry some similar lexical contours, phonologically and semantically, of the assimilating word, e.g., 局 jú (SV cuộc) for 作 zuò [tzok7].

As a matter of fact, many Vietnamese words are formed in the same manner and, being Chinese loanwords for most of the cases, we can apply an analytic approach to trace down the etymology of Sinitic-Vietnamese lexicons by associating their meanings with other symnonymous lexemes being close to both phonological form and semantics, for example,

善良 shànliáng (SV thiệnlương) for 'hiềnlành' (good character) vs. 賢良 xiánliáng (VS 'hiềnlương'),
高尚 gāoshàng (SV caothượng) for 'caosang' (high class) in concurrent usage with 'caothượng' (noble),
估計 gùjì (SV cốkế) for 'cóthể' (possibly) in association with 可能 kěnéng (SV 'khảnăng') [ ~ VS 'cóthể', cf. 態 tài (SV thái) ],
周年 zhōunián (SV châuniên) for 'thôinôi' (baby's first birthday's shower) in addition to 'chuniên' (anniversary) [ It could not parobably be 停(搖)籃 tíng(yáo)lán; in any cases, there were no 'cradle' in ancient times, perhaps, and the character 籃 lán or 'rỗ' (basket) is a later development for the sam reason. ]
坐月子 zuòyuèzi (SV toạnguyệttử) for 'đầytháng' [ in Vietnamese, the connotation is equally applied to "baby's one-monthed shower". Etymologically the fixed compound word means 'puerperium', i.e., traditional one-month confinement period following one's childbirth', a very important cultural ritual for the Chinese up until now; meanwhile in the West, for a working woman, the time-off period for a woman after her childbirth merely means 'one-month maternity leave'. ]
屬鼠 shúshǔ (SV thuộcthử) for 'tuổichuột' (born in the year of the rat) [ and the likes, e.g., 'tuổidê' 屬羊 shúyáng (born in the year of the goat), 屬雞 (born in the year of the rooster), etc. where 屬 is associated with 歲 suì: SV 'tuế' > VS 'tuổi' (age). ]
渾蛋 húndàn (SV hỗnđản) for 'khốnnạn' (son of a bitch) in association with 困難 kùnnăn (SV khốnnạn) vs. VS 'khókhăn' (difficulty),
過癮 guòyǐn for 'đãghiền', 'đãcơn', 'dãcơn' (satisfy a craving),
夭折 yāozhé (SV yêuchiết) for 'chếtyểu' (die young),
要飯 yàofàn (SV yếuphạn) for 'ănmày' (beggar) instead of 'giởcơm' (scoop rice) [ also, VS 'xúccơm', 'xớicơm', 'bớicơm', 'múccơm' ] ,
炸肉 zhàròu (SV tạcnhục) for 'chảlụa' (cooked meat cake) instead of 'chảgiò' (fried meatloaf),
肥肉 féiròu (SV phìnhục) for 'bachỉ' (bacon) instead of 'barọi' 五花肉 wǔhuāròu (fatty pig's belly meat),

The existence of such irregular derived syllabic interchanges allows us to further expand and solidify the foresaid sandhi association principle in making etymological revisions for those doublets or etyma that have the same roots in innumerable cases. As a result, the whole matter demonstrates that the rigid one-to-one correspondences being insisted on by old Sinologist schools are no longer applicable.

As you will see the foundation for such revised reconstruction teleology is partially based on certain peculiar vocalism and articulation of Vietnamese initials and finals that fit into the phonotactics utilized by the Vietnamese speakers. The derived paradigm would then be challenged only by testing their competence and performance as attested by Ancient Chinese phonological and rhymimg schemes as deduced from Old Chinese linguistic materials with the late discoveries and reconstruction work on Proto-Chinese by several renown linguists of our time. For example, one of the most striking peculiar labiovelar vocalism in modern Vietnamese with those of finals -wc, -wng which are preceded by a rounded vowel such as ɔ-, o-, u- or simply a medial -w- in Vietnamese orthography, i.e. [-uwk, -uwŋ, -owk, -owŋ] (characterized by the rounded finalizing liabialization of the same ending consonants) appears to resemble so closely with those OC finals ending with labiovelars *-kw[kʷ], *-gw[gʷ], and labiovelar nasal *-ngw[-ŋʷ] (Li, along with some other linguists such as Pulleyblank, independently reached the same conclusion), e.g., 風 fēng (VS gió 'wind'), 心 xīn (VS lòng 'heart'), and the same endings lead to the rounded finals, e.g., 痛 tòng: VS 'đau' (pain), 彤 tóng: VS 'đỏ' (red), etc. For illustration, the examples of 風 fēng, 心 xīn, and 生 shēng are sufficed:

giông, gió: 風 fēng 'wind' (SV phong) [ M 風 fēng ~ giông /dʒoŋʷ1/ ~> gió /dʒɔ5/ | SV phong /pfɔŋʷ/ <~ MC pjuŋ < OC *pjəm (< prəm < pjuŋʷ) < PC **pryŋʷ | MC reading 通合三平東非 | cf. 颱風 táifēng: SV 'đàiphong' > VS # 'giôngtố' (typhoon), 風雨 fēngyǔ > # 'mưagiông' > 'mưagió' (rainstorm), 暴風 bàofēng: SV 'bạophong' > VS # 'giôngbão' (storm) ],
lòng : 心 xīn 'heart' (SV tâm) [ ~ VS 'tim' | M 心 xīn < MC sjəm < OC *sjəm (< *ljəŋʷ) < PC **sljəŋ | Note: pre-SV *sjʌmʔ, § Cant. /sʌm/, Old Viet. : lâm | e.g. 點心 diănxīn (SV điểmtâm) VS lótlòng 'snack, breakfast', 痛心 tòngxīn (SV thốngtâm) VS đaulòng 'heart-broken', etc. ],
sinh, sanh, sống, đẻ, tái, dưng, xảy: 生 shēng 'live, be born, grow, birth, life, raw' (SV sanh) [ VS sống /soŋʷ5/, and possibly 'mọc' (grow) via /soŋʷ5/ > /mowk8/ \ /s-/ ~ /m-/, /--oŋʷ]/ ~ -ɔkʷ] | M 生 shēng (sinh, sanh) < MC ʂɒiŋ ~ ʂɑiŋ < OC *shreŋ, *shreŋs | FQ 所庚 (sanh) ~ 所敬 (sinh) | MC 梗開二平庚生 | Dialects: Cant. saang1, sang1, Hakka sang1, sen1, sien1, Hainanese te11 (~> VS đẻ, tái ), TrC sẽ 11, Hm sĩ11 ~ cĩ11, Ôc siɛ1, Pk chiaŋ1. | Shuowen: 進也。象艸木生出土上。凡生之屬皆从生。所庚切 (a note by dchph: "sanh") | Kangxi: 〔古文〕𤯓《唐韻》所庚切《集韻》《韻會》《正韻》師庚切，𠀤音甥。《說文》進也。《玉篇》起也。《莊子·外物篇》凡道不欲壅，壅則哽，哽而不止則跈，跈則衆害生。《註》生，起也。又《玉篇》產也。《博雅》人十月而生 (dchph: "đẻ")。《穀梁傳·莊二年》獨隂不生，獨陽不生，獨天不生，三合然後生。又出也。《易·觀卦》上九觀其生，君子無咎。《註》生，猶動出也。又養也 (dchph: "dưng")。《周禮·天官·大宰》五曰生以馭其福。《註》生，猶養也。賢臣之老者，王有以養之。《左傳·哀元年》越十年生聚，而十年敎訓。又《韻會》死之對也 (dchph: "sống")。《孟子》生，亦我所欲也。《前漢·文帝紀》世咸嘉生而惡死。又造也 (dchph: "xảy")。《公羊傳·桓八年》遂者何，生事也。《註》生，猶造也。專事之詞。| Guangyun: (1) 生所庚生庚二開平聲庚開口二等梗庚 ʃɐŋ srvng／shang , (2) 生所敬生庚二開去聲敬開口二等梗庚 ʃɐŋ srvngh／shanq | GSR 0812 a-b || ex. 吃生 chīshēng (VS xơitái) 'eat raw', 生人 shēngrén (VS ngườidưng) 'stranger', 生產 shēngchăn (VS sanhđẻ) 'give birth', 發生 fāshēng (VS xảyra) 'happen' ],

Evidences for such reconstruction are attested in Shijing 詩經 (“The Book of Odes”) in which 風 usually rhymes with 心, 林, etc., all fitting into 侵 MC /tshjəm1/ rhyme group and 東 MC djung [ < OC *djəŋʷ ] (cf. SV 'lòng' [lɔŋʷ2]) (林), Division III (having -j- medial). Yu Nai-yong (1985. pp. xiii, 277-79, 286) grouped it with the same classification but in classical Chinese (ending with /-m/). It is interesting to see that words ending with /-ŋʷ/ in this class in Vietnamese happen to be articulated with all initial consonants, so it is not hard to connect that with lòng [lɔŋʷ2] or [lɔwŋm2]. His reconstruction of Proto-Chinese and Old Chinese 風 as **pljom > *pljəm and 嵐 as **plom > *bləm are based on xiéshēng 諧聲 which shows two different initials in Middle Chinese as [piuŋ] and [lam] respectively.

Some other linguists have similar reconstructions with only minor discrepancies. For example, Bodman (1980. p. 121) came up with Proto-Chinese **pyəm, Old Chinese *pjəm and Middle Chinese pjuŋ for 風 and commented on the opinion about the inter-rhyming of the *-əm, *əng and *-ung finals in OC as being divided between those favor *-m in the -uŋ endings, that the *-uŋ was perhaps a dialect reflex of -əm. Schuessler (1987. p. 385) modified Li’s OC of 林 as *gljəm. Forrest (1958. p. 114) observed that in the archaic period Chinese still tolerated consecutive labials, i.e., the initial /P-/ and the ending /-M/ (capital letters signify arbitrary consonants of similar class of articulation) and he concluded that the OC 風 ending must have been the same as that of 心, that obviously appears to us as /-m/.

From the above view we can safely posit /*-jOm/ ~ /*-jOŋʷ/ interchange based on the hypothesis that during the sound change transition from OC *-jəm to MC -jung, it must have gone the through the process of labialization of the Old Chinese final to become /*-juŋʷ/ or /*-juwŋm/. It is interesting enough that this phonemic feature still shows in the Vietnamese language. Pulleyblank (1984) shared the same view when representing final /-uŋ/ as /-əŋʷ/ and he hypothesized that the OC final must have been pronounced as that of Vietnamese ông [oŋʷ] and ong [əŋʷ], of which the final labiovelar is realized with double, labial and velar, articulation.(p. 123)

On the other hand, for the Middle Chinese period, Forrest noted that /-ung/ remained unchanged everywhere unless the preceding consonant is a labial /P-/ in which case it is dissimilated to /-ə-/ as 風 pronounced fēng in Mandarin (p. 182). The implication we can draw from Pulleyblank’s and Forrest’s views is that our postulatiuon of the Vietnamese word giông might have evolved during the transitional period of Ancient Chinese (also known as Early Middle Chinese or EMC) where /p-/ was palatalized and dropped from /pjuŋʷ/ to become a glide /j-/, that eventually gave rise to [juŋʷ] > [joŋʷ] with the remaining rounded nasalized labiovelar endings -- too much for a Chinese northerner to pronounce the word – and further syncoped into nasalized [jõ] > [jɔ5] as it appears in the last two forms in modern Vietnamese, namely, 'giông' and 'gió'. Of course, this process of sound change could also have gone differently from the one that would later have given rise to Sino-Vietnamese phong [fəŋʷ].

This postulation [ 風 *pjuŋ > 'giông' > 'gió' ] is very likely because the Vietnamese language has the tendency of resistance for /p-/ and substitutes it with /b-, ph-, h-, j-, nh-/ or might have this initial palatalized to /t-, s-/ and the likes, and, sometimes, does this even with the rounded labiovelars being dropped to become /-w/ or /-o/ as in 痛 tòng (VS đau) 'pain', 銅 tóng (VS thau) 'broze', and 彤 tóng (VS đỏ) 'red'. This phenomenon commonly has happened not only with Vietnamese words of Chinese origin but also within the Chinese dialects themselves.

Based on the above deduction, we can assume with certainty that proto-Vietic and Old Vietnamese – oftentimes referred to as ancient Annamese – of giông might possibly have had similar sounds as those of lexicons in PC and OC. In the meanwhile the Vietnamese gió might have been a local innovation or merely an alternation of the former by changing the labiovelar to -ɔ. An interesting thing is that in the form of Sino-Vietnamese phong [pfɔŋʷ1], of which the initial is an alternation of b-, both labials, i.e., b- and f-, remained in the same word, which would have probably produced /j-/. Consecutive labial occurrence is regarded as a distinct feature of Old Chinese while Sinitic-Vietnamese giông reflects an Old Chinese linguistic feature of an ancient period that the Chinese language had developed “its distaste for consecutive labials”, as Forrest put it, while modern Sintitic Vietnamese still keeps this linguistic feature.

The historically phonological correlation of Vietnamese and Chinese in the case of the ending /-juŋʷ/ syncoped into /-uw/, /-m/, /-Ø/, or /-ŋ/ ~ /-Ø/ for that matter, which could be expanded to many other patterns as well, for example,

捅 tǒng (SV thống) for 'đâm' (to stab),
痛 tòng (SV thống) > 'đau' (pain),
銅 tóng (SV đồng) > 'thau' (bronze),
公 gōng (SV công) > 'cồ' (female fowl),
蟲 chóng (SV trùng) > 'sâu' (insect),
彤 tóng (SV đồng) > 'đỏ' (red),
夢 mèng (SV mộng) > 'mơ' (dream),

and similar pattern /-ŋ/, /n-/ ~ /-Ø/ such as

承 chéng > 'thừa' (take order from above),
石 dàn > 'tạ' (dan, a unit of dry measure for grain (= l00 sheng), Viet.= 100 kg),
點 diăn > 'tí' (little),
腚 dìng > 'đít' (butts),
飯 fàn > 'bữa' (meal),
放 fàng > 'bỏ' (give up),
丁 dīng > 'trai' (youngster),
烘 hōng > 'hơ' (warm by the fire),
礦 kuàng > 'mỏ' (mine),
娘 niáng > 'nạ' (mom),
明 míng > 'mai' (tomorrow),
倆 liăng > 'lứa' (couple),
零 líng > 'lẻ' (odd),
星 xīng > 'sao' (star),
泉 quán > 'suối' (creek),
羊 yáng > 'dê' (sheep),
線 xiàn > 'sợi' (also, 'chỉ') (thread),
錢 qián > 'chỉ' (a measure unit for gold, 1/10 of a 'liăng' (兩: Chinese ounce),
鮮 xiān > 'tươi' (fresh),
泉 quán > 'suối' (creek),
蒜 suàn > 'tỏi' (garlic),
萍 píng > 'bèo' (duckweed),
坪 píng > 'bãi' (land plot),
生 shēng > 'sống, đẻ, tái, xảy' (live, birth, live, raw, happen, respectively),
盛 shèng > 'chứa' (contain),
王 wáng > 'vua' (king),

the plausibly reverse cases

打 dă < 'đánh' (strike),
道 dào < 'đường' (road),
鵝 é < 'ngỗng' < 'ngang' (goose),
而 é < 'mà' (that),
腹 fú < 'bụng' (belly),
抱 bāo < 'bồng' (carry in one's arms),
道 dào < 'đường' (road),
寒 hán < 'cóng' (freezing),
里 lǐ < 'làng' (village),
林 lín < 'rừng' (forest),
溜 lìu < 'lặn' (slip away),
逆 nì < 'ngược (contrary),
葩 pā < 'bông' (flower),
怯 qiè < 'nhát' (timid),
柚 yóu < 'bòng' < 'bưởi' (pamelo),
禺 yú < 'ngung' (a kind of monkey),
心 xīn < 'lòng' (fig. 'heart'),

From the established baseline as discussed therefrom we can actually reconstruct many Old Chinese initials and finals and build an analogy of the Chinese ~ Vietnamese sound change patterns that can eventually be used to find more Vietnamese etyma of Chinese origin and, for that matter, to recognize words resulted from multiple phonemic shifts such as those loanwords in Sinitic-Vietnamese which have been conveniently adapted to local speech habit, or phonotactics, as well as other factors due to its colloquial nature or linguistic substrate interference with the target language through imperfect learning or imitation, hence the so-called "competence and performance".

In the researching process, there inevitably arises confusion in etymological roots due to both corruption and contamination from both similar Sino-Vietnamese sounds and semantic mask with extended usages which are not easy to recognize as those examples as given above, such as

吃 chī: SV 'ngật' ~> 'xơi' (eat) [ cf. 乙 yǐ (SV ất) < 食 shí (SV thực) 'eat' ] in place of 'ăn' [ 唵 ān: SV ảm (eat) ],
川 chuān: SV 'xuyên' ~> 'dòng, sông' (stream) [ cf. 江 jiāng: SV giang (river) and 水 shuǐ: SV thuỷ (water, river). ex. 湘水 Xiāngshuǐ: VS 'SôngTương' (Xiang River), 渭水 Wèishuǐ (SV Vịthuỷ) => VS 'Sông' + 'Vịthuỳ' (Wei River), 漢水 Hànshuǐ: VS 'SôngHán' (Han River); instead of VS 'suối' (spring) which is 泉 quán: SV 'tuyền' (creek)],
煩 fán: SV 'phiền' ~> 'buồn' (disturbed) [ cf. 悶 mèn: SV muộn (sad) ] instead of 'bực' (disturbed),
師 shī SV sư ~> 'thầy' (master) [ ex. 官師 guānshī: VS 'quanthầy' (colonialist), 師徒 shītú: VS 'thầytrò' (teacher and pupils), cf. 巫師 wūshī: VS 'thầymô' (wizard) ~ 'phùthuỷ' (shaman) ] as apposed to VS 'sãi' (monk) for the very same word 師 besides the meanings of 'army division'. ],
屁 pì: SV 'tý' for VS 'đít' (buttocks) [ cf. 腚 dìng: SV 'định' > VS 'đít' | Note: 屁股 pìgǔ has given rise to 'phaocâu' (chicken butt) ] instead of 'địt' (fart, nonsense),
鳳凰 fènghuáng: SV 'phượnghoàng' (phoenix) ~> VS 'phượnghồng' (delonix regia, flame tree) [ for the latter morphemic syllable VS '-hồng', it is from 凰 huáng via association with 紅 hóng (SV hồng), a contamination with the similar sound, which works fine to differentiate the SV 'phượnghoàng' (phoenix). ],
地帶 dìdài: SV 'địađái' ~> 'dãiđất' (stretch of land) as opposed to 'đấtđai' 土地 tǔdì: SV 'thổđịa' (land),
太陽 tàiyáng: SV 'tháidương' (the sun) ~> VS # 'mặttrời' instead of 'trờinắng' (sunshine),
行將 xíngjiāng: SV 'hànhtương' (about to) > VS 'sắpsửa' instead of 'sẽmau' 快要 kuàiyào (be going to),
明年 míngnián: SV 'minhniên' (new year) ~> VS # 'nămmới' as opposed to 'sangnăm' (next year),
去年 qùnián: SV 'khứniên' (last year) ~> VS # 'nămngoái' in addition to 往年 wăngnián 'nămxưa' (previous year) which could be alternatively posited as 'nămngoái',

B) An analogy of Vietnamese etymology

Besides the similarity of innumerable basic words in Vietnamese and Chinese, throughout its history of development Chinese has continuously influenced the formation of the Vietnamese language remarkably for hundreds of years since the first century B.C., the time the ancient Vietnam, i.e., Annam, was still under the Chinese domination as a prefecture and its after-affects still continue on until present. Meanwhile, at the same time other Chinese cultural impacts have left their traces clearly and notably in all contemporary Vietnamese linguistic aspects, e.g., names in the familial hierarchy being called virtually the same.

One way to identify Chinese traits in the Vietnamese etymology is to utilize a new tool that I call the 'analogical method'. It is based on a methodology that syntactic or lexical analogy, as have been widely used as a tool in historical linguistics, can be re-tooled to make use of many linguistic forms that have already been standardized, categorized, and tabulated, that most of instutionally western-educated specialists have already applied in Vietnamese linguistic work so far. For the same matter, one way that we could look into it firstly is that those Sinitic Vietnamese words are in effect products of pattern formation of phonetic interchanges that resemble sound change paradigms in Sino-Vietnamese loanwords of which their induced shifts are already in existence and predominant in the Vietnamese language, for example,

MC Initials > SV Initials

p > t
b > t
t > t
d > t
s > s
z > s
s > s
ts > ts
dz > ts
ts > s

That is to say, rules for those sound change that governed sound changes of Middle Chinese and Sino-Vietnamese, and Sintic Vietnamese for that matter, prior to the 10th century have also affected interchanges of all other Chinese to Vietnamese infiltration from then until now. Additionally, internal rules work on the same models inside one language, not to mention syllables and tones.

b > m
b > v
ch > th
d > nh
đ > d
đ > n
k > g
kj > gi
l > j
l > n
l > nh
l > r
l > w
m > b
n > l
p > b
ph > b
r > nh
s > t
sh > th
t > đ
tr > ch
zh > ch
zh > gi

Altogether, at least 41 initials in MC merged into 20 ancient Annamese ones by the 10th century. (Nguyen Ngoc San. Ibid. p. 72) That also means that they had been fully formed with derived tonality, for which historical linguists shoud know best. The point to add here is that this futher rebuffs Haudricourt's theory of tonegenesis as discussed in the previous chapters.

In the following sections we will examine some attested approaches that explore both common and irregular sound changes that are not limited only to what is to be discussed for Chinese and Vietnamese etymologies but can be used to expand to other linguistic families. For our purposes, we will focus mainly on those Chinese words numerous in the contemporary Vietnamese language as exemplified throughout this survey. They are readily recognized as candidate cognates in both layers of linguistic substratum and superstratum, respectively.

1) A corollary approach

Like what the terminology indicates, a corollary approach utilized here is one among several analogical methodologies that is used to establish affiliated linguistic attributes in etymological candidates by identifying their lexical properties with similarity based on their semantic peculiarities, characteristics of the very same nature, and traits intrinsically existing in those words under examination.

As we have seen until now how close and how far Sinitic-Vietnamese words and their equivalents deviated from the same Sino-Tibetan etymologies and how much deviative sound changes were affected by competence and performance of the Vietnamese speakers trying to digest new linguistic elements in ancient times, e.g., Chinese dialects spoken by stationed Chinese foot soldiers as well as Chinese migrants from the Middle Kingdom to the southernmost prefecture known as the colonized Annam Protectorate (安南都護府 or 'Annam Đôhộphủ') – or to be exactly translated as "the Annamese colony" – which lasted for more than 1,000 years under the rule of different Chinese dynasties that administered different regional dialects as well, e.g., prestigious dialects spoken in the imperial courts by the rulers at the time, for instance, in the Jin's capital in Luoyang (洛陽), the Tang's in Shaanxi's Chang'an (長安), i.e., presently Xi'an, or Southern Han State's dominated Baihua (白話) in the Lingnan region of where today's Guangdong and Guangxi provinces are located. Under such powerful influence, any native words might give in and vanquish overtime, including basic words. That explains why there are so many words in Vietnamese cognate to those in Chinese, with a few exceptions.

Let us first examine the corollary approach to find Chinese ~ Vietnamese cognates. The following words are selectively picked herein based on their appearance but they are still highly prone to controversy. In genreral, we postulate as their cognacy when a large number of words in one category are uniformly cognate to the same roots under investigation. Regardless, chances are that the corresponding others could also be of the same genre, which are just awaiting to be explored. Note that this is only an attempt to find the Sinitic-Vietnamese etyma of Chinese origin by applying one among many techniques and methods along with their resulted works already made available to date by other authors at our disposal.

For their irregularities sound changes do not always follow strict rules that those of scholarly Sino-Vietnamese etyma have gone through. All other unconventionality for those disputable etyma along with their sound changes discussed here indeed follows the principle of irregular paradigm due to frequency of their occurence. In any cases for those words that are not likely plausible cognates, it does not mean that others ought to be also brushed underneath the rug. Each etymon under scrutiny here should have its own merit as in the field of SInitic-Vietnamese studies.

The important lesson here is to follow the rationalization on how the author would come up with the deliberation on those cited examples solely through reasoning and induction, which can be backed up by sound change rules as attested in the examples below. For some readers many of them may appear to be irrational, say, the patterns { p > t } or { p > b > ʔb > ɓ } internally in ancient Annamese to modern Vietnamese; however, their cognates are supported by sound change rules as attested in Vietnamese historical linguistics. That is how some irregular cognates have been identified via a corollary approach, though. By using this methodology, newly established paradigms can lead to discovery of new etyma as a result.

Keep in mind, though, that some outlandish examples cited below are selectively chosen and not limited to only what will be exhibited next, which is meant to be supplementary to what has been accepted so far. They may need more supporting evidences for illustrations as given, which was not purposely to formulate any corresponding patterns or linguistic rules to follow because they could probably not work with different linguistic genres for their dissimilar nature.

Upon accepting the correpondences below, readers will understand why even patterns in Sino-Vietnamese sound changes seemingly being irregular are really regular as in:

岸 àn has given rise to SV ngạn (bank),
額 é ~> SV ngạch (amount, forehead),
罷 bā ~> SV bãi (on strike),
畢 bí ~> SV tốt (graduation),
必 bì ~> SV tất (inevitable),
季 jì ~> SV quý (season),
節 jié ~> SV tiết (festival),
偏 piān ~> SV thiên (bias),
匹 pí ~> SV thất (match, lone),
起 qǐ ~> SV khởi (rise),
七 qī ~> SV thất (seven),
煽 shăn ~> SV phiến (incite),
攝 shè ~> SV nhiếp (act for),
濕 shì ~> SV thấp (damp),
灣 wān ~> SV loan (bay),
熄 xí ~> SV tức (put out),
學 xué ~> SV học (study),
郵 yóu ~> SV bưu (postal),
左 zuǒ ~> SV tả (left),

The same rule is applicable in the Sinitic-Vietnamese etymology as well. As stated previously, "those Sinitic-Vietnamese words are in effect products of pattern development of phonetic interchanges that resemble sound changes in Sino-Vietnamese loanwords of which their induced shifts are already in existence and predominant in the Vietnamese language". Let us now examine some of the illustrations to support the validity of established sound change patterns.

For their plausibility, it is mostly a corollary of those words in the same category that are equal to Chinese cognates, etymologically, in this case, for body parts in Vietnamese and their related etyma. They are

tóu 頭: "đầu" (head),
năo 腦: "não" (brain),
fā 髮: "tóc" (hair),
mù 目: "mắt" (eye) [ cf. 眼 yăn 'nhìn' (look) ],
tóng 瞳: "tròng" (eye ball),
miàn 面: "mặt" (face),
dìng 顁: "trán" (forehead),
méi 眉: "mày" (eyebrow),
méimáo 眉毛: "mi" (eye lash),
líng 齡: "răng" ('tooth' by association with 牙 yá which is used to refer to 'ivory' as SV 'ngà'.),
hàn 頷: " cằm" (chin),
hán 含: "hàm" (jaw),
ròu 肉: "nướu" (gum),
chóng 蟲: "sâu" (cavity) [ cf. 牙蟲 yáchóng 'sâurăng' (cavity) ],
quán 犬: "khểnh" (canine) [ cf. 犬牙 quányá 'răngkhểnh' (canine) ],
wěn 吻: "mồm" (mouth, hence "miệng") [ cf. 吻 wěn: "hôn" (kiss) ],
xū 鬚: "râu" (beard),
wēng 翁: "lông" (hair),
fū 膚: "da" (skin) [ by association with pí 皮 SV bì /bej2/ ],
shǒu 手: "tay" (hand),
shǒubăn #手板: "bàntay" (palm),
gébó 胳膊: "cánhtay" (arm) [ by association ],
gébì 胳臂: "cánhtay" (arm) [ by association ],
gébózóur 胳膊肘兒: "cùichỏ" (elbow) [ by constraction ],
bēi 背: "vai" ('shoulder' by innovation),
hóu 喉: "cổ" (throat),
shé 舌: "lưỡi" ('tongue' by association with 脷 lěi),
hóulóng 喉嚨: "cổhọng" (throat),
fèi 肺: "phổi" (lung),
yì 臆: "ngực" (chest),
xīn 心: "tim" (heart),
gān 肝: "gan" (liver),
shèn 腎: "thận" (kidney),
yāo 腰: "eo" (waist),
dìng 腚: "đít" (buttocks),
pì 屁: "địt" (fart),
xiōng 胸: "hông" ('hip' by innovation),
wèi 胃: "dạ" (stomach) [ cf. 胃子 wèizi 'dạdày' (stomach) ],
pì 脾: "tỳ" (spleen),
fú 腹: "bụng" (belly),
tuǐ 腿: "đùi" (lap),
jiăo 腳: "giò" (leg),
zú 足: "chân" (foot),
jìng 脛: "cẳng" (leg),
jiăn 趼 "móng" ('fingermail' by association),
jiăobăn #腳板 "bànchân" (sole),

For the aforesaid 6-strike rule, like most of the other body parts are cognates, such as "máu" 衁 huàng – it had an Austroasiatic origin as postulated by Tsu-lin Mei in APPENDIX G – there is no reason why "răng" (tooth) should be an exception.

"răng":

Phonologically, we have

răng 牙 yá (tooth): nha (SV), yá (Mand.), ngah (Cant.), gheh (Hai.) [ M 牙 yá < MC ŋya < OC *ŋrya || ¶ y- ~ r- | cf. 牙 yá: SV 'ngà' (ivory), 笌 yá: VS 'măng' (bamboo shoot), also, 萌芽 méngya (germ): SV 'manhnha' vs. VS 'mầmmống' vs. VS 'giá' (sprout). ]

and the interchange between { y- ~ r- }:

(i) Examples of the initial interchanges { ¶ y - ~ ng-, r- }:

齖 yá: "răng" (tooth),
劜 yà: "rặng", (exert),
勜 yà: "ráng" (exert oneself),
崖 yá: "rặng(núi)" (mountain range) [ cf. 嶺 líng (SV lĩnh) "rặng" ],
砑 yà: "ràng" (wrap up),
掗 yà: "ràng" (attach),
蚜 yà: "rọm" (aphid),
啞 yā: "ràm" (onomatopoeic: whining sound),
耀 yáo: "rạng" (glowing),
煆 yā: "rực" (raging fire),
椏 yā: "nhành" (forking branch),
枒 yá: "vành" (rim) [ also, "dừa" (coconut tree)],
襾 yà: "vung" (lid, cover),
婭 yà: "ấy" [ address term between sons-in-law ],
押 yā: "giải" (detain in custody),
笌 yá: "măng" (bamboo shoot),
羊 yáng: "dê" (goat),
焱 yàn: "rang" (hot),
吆 yāo: "rao" (shout),
隐 yǐn: "riêng" { as in 隐私 yǐnsī: "riêngtư" (private) },
硬 yìng: "rắn" (sturdy),
蝇 yíng: "ruồi (nhặng)" (flies),
元 yuán: "ngươn" (a surname) [ cf. 阮 ruăn "Nguyễn" ],
月 yuè: "giăng" (moon),
曰 yuè: "rằng" (said),
鉞 yuè: "rựa" (axe),
夭夭 yāoyāo: "rậmrạp" (bushy),
悒悒 yìyì: "rayrứt" (uneasy),

It is worth to note that in the Vietnam's southwestern Rạchgiá 'sub-dialect' local people tend to substitute the initial sound /r-/ with /g-/, e.g., 'găng' for 'răng', 'gô' for 'rô', 'gỗ' for 'rỗ', etc.

(ii) Final interchanges { ¶ -a (e), -Ø ~ -an,-ang } :

打 dă: "đánh" (=> "quánh" /wajŋ5/) 'strike',
嗎 mà: "mắng "scold',
得 dé: "đặng" (< VS "được", Hainanese /dak8/ ) 'got', 'able to get' [ however, on the side note, it is possible that 行 xíng could have given rise to 'đặng'that carries the meaning of "Okay!"),
俄 é: "Nga" (Russia),
鵝 é: "ngang, ngỗng" (SV nga) (goose)
蛇 shé: "rắn (SV xà) (snake)
炸 zhà: "rán" (fry)
耀 yáo: "rạng" (illuminate), etc.

The relationship between 牙 yá (SV nha) for both 'ngà' and 'răng' – of which the latter Vietnamese might also be associated with 齖 yá (tooth) or 齡 líng (SV linh, 'instar') to differentiate 牙 yá as 'ngà' for 'ivory' – was fossilized that shows with those Chinese dissyllabic compounds:

牙齒 yáchǐ "răngcỏ" (teeth),
犬牙 quányá "răngkhểnh" (canine),
牙肉 yáròu "nướurăng" [ ~# lợirăng ~> lợi] (gum),
牙蟲 yáchóng 'sâurăng' (cavity),
咬牙 yăoyá "nghiếnrăng" (grind one's teeth),
假牙 jiăyá "rănggiả" (false teeth),
牙蟲 yáchóng "sâurăng" (cavity),
牙痛 yátòng "đaurăng" (tooth ache),
牙床 yáchuáng "hàmrăng" (tooth bed),
牙蟲 yáchóng "sâurăng'"(cavity),
犬牙 quányá "răngkhểnh" (canine),

The induction is based on the hypothesis that Sino-Vietnamese "ngà" (ivory) and Sinitic-Vietnamese "răng" (tooth) are variants of the same root like those of 牙 yá, 齒 chǐ, 齖 yá,and 齡 líng, all being doublets in various forms in Chinese. This view will certainly meet with critics from opposite camp. Tsu-lin Mei specifically posited 牙 yá, which, in great length, as the sole phonetic value evolved from the equivalent of Sino-Vietnamese "ngà" for 'ivory' and affirm its Austroasiatic origin (See The case of "ngà").

In other word, coming from our corollary approach, the resconstruction issue may lie in the sound value of OC /*ŋrya:/ as cognate to "ngà", which could have have been derived from some ancient sound of 'răng' or vice versa. In the meanwhile, 齡 líng (SV linh) and 齖 yá (SV nha) must be a much later development where, as we understand it, 牙 yá has overrun its derivative 齖 yá in popular use.

Per Tsu-lin Mei in http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tm17/paper459.htm,

Some Min dialects still employ 牙齿 in the sense of tooth. The common word for tooth in Amoy is simply k’i. Foochow has nai3which is a fusion of ŋɑ plus k’i, i.e. 牙齿. This strongly suggests that in Min the real old word for ‘tooth’ is 齿 as in Amoy, the implication being that this was stil the colloquial word for ‘tooth’ well into Han when Fukien was first settled by the Chinese. The Japanese use 齿 as kanji to write /ha/ ‘tooth’ in their language; 牙 rarely occurs. Both these facts provide supplementary evidence for the thesis that the use of ya as the general word for ‘tooth’ was a relatively late development.

In a note published in BSOAS, vol. 18, Walter Simon proposed that Tibetan so ‘tooth’ and Chinese yá 牙 (OC *ng*) are cognates, thus reviving a view once expressed by Sten Konow. Simon’s entire argument was based upon historical phonology; he tried to show

a) OC had consonant clusters of the type sng- and C-, (b) by reconstructing 牙 as sng* > zng > nga and 邪 as zˠ* > z**, one can affirm He Shen’s view that 邪 has 牙 as its phonetic, and (c) Chinese sng* can then be related to a Proto-Tibetan *sngwa and Burmese swa:>θwa:.

Our etymology for yá ‘tooth’ implies a rejection of Simon’s view; if yá is borrowed from Austroasiatic languages, then the question of Sino-Tibetan comparison simply does not arise. Alternately, if our theory is accepted, there is no reason to adopt Simon’s analysis; ya is clearly a word of relatively late origin, and the fact that 邪 has 牙 as its phonetic can be explained by assuming that the z- of 邪 resulted from the palatalization of an earlier g-.*

Given all rationalizations above, while it might be still indecisive for readers to associate 牙 yá with 'răng' here, the postulation for other controversial words in the same category as of the topmost part of a vertebrate body – in additon to human anatomy word already given above – is opened up for further substantiation.

shǒu 首: "sọ" (cranium) [ /sh-/ ~ /s-/ ],
miàn 面: "mặt" (face) [ /-n/ ~ /-t/ ],
dǐng 頂: "trán" (forehead) [ /t-/ ~ /tr-/ ],
méi 眉: "mày" (eyebrow) [ /m-/ ~ /m-/ ],
mù 目: "mắt" (eye) [ /m-/ ~ /m-/ ],
dā 耷: "tai" (ear) [ by association with 耳朵 ěrduō (VS lỗtai); cf. 洱 ěr (Cant. /lej6/) | ¶ /l-/ ~ /t-/ ],
fá 髮: "tóc" (hair) [ /b-/ ~ /t-/, cf. SV 'phát' /fat7/ ],
bì 鼻: "mũi" (nose) [ /b-/ ~ /m-/ ],
jiá 頰: "má" (cheeks) [ /j-/ ~ /m-/ ],
zuǐ 嘴: "môi" (lips) [ /z-/ ~ /m-/ ],
wěn 吻: "mồm" (mouth) [ hence "miệng"; also, 吻 wěn: ""hôn" (kiss) ],
hàn 頷: "cằm" (chin) [ /h-/ ~ /k-/],
hán 含: "hàm" (jaw) [ /h-/ ~ /h-/],

"mặt":

We have 面 miàn (face) [ SV diện /jien6/ | M 面 miàn < MC mjen < OC *mhens || Note: modern M miàn < MC mjen (*-jen > denasalized to -jat \ ¶ *-/n/ ~ -/t/) ].

For the ending sound change correspondences { ¶ -/Ø/, -/n/, -/ng/ ~ -/t/, -/k/ } there exist many Sino-Vietnamese, hence, for the sam mattet, Sinitic-Vietnamese, words originated from the 7th and 8th tones in Ancient Chinese (that is the main reason why for Vietnamese historical linguistics we need to work on 8-toned framework, categorically. (See more words with the sound change pattern { -Ø ~ -t } down below):

吃 chī: "ăn" (SV ngật) (eat) [ cf. 乙 "ất" ],
咽 yàn: "nuốt" (swallow),
粉 fén: "bột" (flour),
分 fēn: "phút" (minute),
淡 dàn: "lạt" (insipid),
晕 yùn: "ngất" (pass out),
麦 mài: "mạch" (wheat),
脈 mài: "mạch" (vein),
滅 miè: "diệt" (eliminate),
目 mù: "mắt" (eye),
默 mò: "mặc" (tact),
忙 máng: "mắc" (busy),
亡 wáng: "mất" (pass away),
密 mì: "mật" (dense),
木 mù: "mộc" (wood),
没 mò: "một" (loss), etc.,

面孔 miànkǒng # "khuônmặt" (face),
面貌 miànmào: "mặtmày" (countenance),
前面 qiánmiàn: # "mặtrước" (front),
後面 hòumiàn: # "mặtsau" (back),
下面 xiàmiàn: # "mặtdưới" (bottom),
側面 cèmiàn: # "mặttrái" (sideview),
表面 biăomiàn: "bềmặt" (surface),
面對 miànduì: # "đốimặt" (facing),
沒面(子) méimiàn(zǐ): "mấtmặt" (lose face),

From this pattern, we can safely posit 'miàn' ~ 'mặt' correspondence.

Let us put aside the body part section here and go on to other domains of vocabulary. Let us first focus on "cá" (fish). Readers should ask themselves the question, "Is there any reason that native pepeole living along southern coasts fishing the living should loan words from the inland horse-backed Chinese to express 'fishing ideas' ?" That sai, "cá" (fish) has been the main stable not only for seaside southerners but also along the banks of the second longest river in the world, the Yangtzi River.

"cá" :

We have 魚 yú = "cá" = SV 'ngư' (fish) [ M 魚 yú < MC ŋʊ < OC *ŋha | FQ 語居 | MC reading 遇合三平魚疑 | According to Starostin: For *ŋh- cf. Xiamen hi2, Chaozhou hy2. | Protoform: *ŋ(j)a. Meaning: fish. Chinese: 魚 *ŋha fish. Tibetan: ɳa fish. Burmese: ŋah fish, LB *ŋhax. Kachin: ŋa3 fish. Lushei: ŋha fish, KC *ŋhà. Kiranti: *ŋjə\ . Comments: PG *tàrŋa; BG: Garo na-t<k, Bodo ŋa ~ na, Dimasa na; Chepang ŋa ~ nya; Tsangla ŋa; Moshang ŋa'; Namsangia ŋa; Kham ŋa:ɬ; Kaike ŋa:; Trung ŋa1-pla<ʔ1. Simon 13; Sh. 36, 123, 407, 429; Ben. 47; Mat. 192; Luce 2. || Note: it is not hard to see the denasalized valar from OC *ŋh- ~ k- (ca-) | See more about the etymology of "cá' in APPENDIX M that is also related to the etymology of "ketchup" or "catsup". ],

For 'cá', it corresponds to OC *ŋha. The etymology: 魚 cá ‘fish’ yú < *nga [ For *ng- > VS k-; **ŋ- > MC ŋjw- > SV ngư. The pattern ng- ~ k- is very common in laryngeal sound changes, which can also occur via intermodals g-, gh-, kh- etc., for example, 'kê' > jī 鷄 > gà 'chicken'.]

Also, from "cá" we have other fixed expressions and dissyllabic equivalents:

打魚 dăyú "đánhcá" (net fishing),
釣魚 diàoyú "câucá" (fishing),
撈魚 làoyú "lướicá" (net fishing),
捕魚 bǔyú "bắtcá" (catch fish),
魚刺 yúcì # "xươngcá" (fish bone),
咸魚 xiányú # "cámặn" (salted fish),
煎魚 jiānyú # "cáchiên" (fried fish),
魚腥 yúxīng # 'tanhcá' (fishy),
脯魚 fǔyú "khôcá" (fish jerky),
鯨魚 jīngyú "kìnhngư" (white whale),
如魚得水 rúyúdéshuǐ # "nhưcágặpnước" (like the fish back in the water),
大魚吃小魚 dàyúchīxiăoyú # "cálớnnuốtcábé" (Larger fish devour the smaller ones),

In the meanwhile usage of Sino-Vietnamese "ngư" (漁) in the place of "cá" – considered as a much more "purely Vietnamese word" -- is natural in the Vietnamese language as wel.

漁船 yúchuán "ngưthuyền" (fishing boat),
漁港 yúgăng "ngưcảng" (fhishermen's wharf),
漁夫 yúfū "ngưphủ" (fishermen),
漁民 yúmín "ngưdân" (fishermen),
漁翁 yúwēng "ngưông" (fishermen)
鷸蚌相爭漁翁得利 yùbàngxiāngzhēng, yúwēngdélì "dẽ trai giànhnhau, ngưôngđắclợi" (fishermen benefit from the fighting between mussel and snip.),

And interestingly enough, unlike English 'salmon' or 'sturgeon', probably due their monosyllabicity, e.g., 鮭 guī VS 'hồi' or 鱘 xún: VS 'tầm', respectively, in both Vietnamese and Chinese each particular type of fish must go with "cá-" or "-魚" in order to to make a semantically complete word to name a kind of fish that is ambiguous if standing alone, for example,

魚婢 yúbì "cábóng" (small carp),
墨魚 mòyú # "cámực" (cuttlefish),
紅魚 hóngyú # "cáhồng" (snapper),
鮭魚 guīyú # "cáhồi" (salmon),
京魚 jīngyú # "cákình" (white whale),
鱘魚 xúnyú # "cátầm" (sturgeon),
鮐魚 táiyú # "cáthu" (mackrel),
鮪魚 wěiyú # cángừ" (horse mackerel),

It is said many of the Sinitic-Vietnamese "cá" etyma above are loanwords from Chinese. Of course, some of them are but a mjority of them must be uniqely Vietnamese since the ancient times for the rerason that the Vietmuong natives lived along the shoreline and went to sea to fish. The additional point to make here is that the "fish" concepts and lexicons are so intertwined between Chinese and Vietnamese that no other Mon-Khmer languages can match. If the latter statement is the case, it could be the other way around then because the map of Austroasiatic Mon-Khmer linguistic region in Southeast Asia is about "fish" but the "cá" etymology does not fit into any AA MK linguistic picture, supposed of oceanic geography at all that the author has found so far.

How is about basic words with main agricultural staple of the southern region like 'rice'? Neither is the case of "gạo" or 'rice'.

"gạo":

We have 稻 dào (rice) for "gạo" or SV "đạo": [ M 稻 dào < MC dɑw < OC *lhu:ʔ ~ ɫhu:ʔ (Schuessler : MC dâu < OC *gləwʔ or *mləwʔ) | MC reading 效開一上皓定 | According to Starostin, as many times cited in the survey, Viet. lúa is an archaic loanword; regular Sino-Viet. is đạo. Protoform: *ly:wH (~ ɫ-), Meaning: rice, grain, Chinese: 稻 *lhu:ʔ (~ɬh-) rice, paddy, Burmese: luh sp. of grain, Panicum paspalum, Kachin: c^jəkhrau1 paddy ready for husking. Kiranti: *lV 'millet' | SR: 1078 h-k ].

For a historical linguist, s/he may see why both "gạo" and "lúa" could be variants of 稻 dào (SV đạo). It is likely that this is a Yue loanword in Chinese which had come from regions of China South where rice planting originated, which is listed by Maspero (1952) as Vietnamese and Thai cognates. The point to make here is that they were all evolved from the same root varying in sounds and conveying slightly the same connotation in different forms, similar to the cases of "betel" nuts and leaves, namely, 檳榔 bīnláng (ancient Annamese 'blau') VS "trầu" vs. "cau" that may be something else, phonetically). However, Daic form /khou3/ embrace all three concepts "paddy" (husked rice), "unhusked rice", and "cooked rice" and the Mon-Khmer word has only /sro/ as suggestedly a cognate for the Vietnamese "lúa" (paddy). . Meanwhile it is notable that Vietnamese forms have three different words, i.e., "lúa" (paddy), "gạo" (husked rice), "cơm" (cooked rice), though, that denote prominently the paddy planting culture.

The interchange { ¶ /d-/, /t-/ ~ /g-/' } is scanty in Chinese ~ Vietnamese correspondences, which does not necessarily mean 稻 dào (SV đạo) must be cognate to Vietnamese "lúa" only based on the pattern { ¶ d- ~ l- } as posited by Starostin. Dispite of their irregular sound change pattern, we can still find more than just a few words foolowing the sound change rule that 6 cognates govern):

導 dào "gò" (to coach),
倒 dǎo "gục" (collapse),
陡 dǒu "gồ" (precipitous),
逗 dòu "ghẹo" (tease),
凸 tù "gồ" (protruding),
佗 tuó "gã" (that fellow/he),
駝背 tuóbèi "gùlưng" (hunchback),
大膽 dàdăn "cảgan" (dare to),
託付 tuòfú "gởigấm" (entrust),
陶器 táoqì # "đồgốm" (pottery).

"đất":

We have 土 tǔ (soil): 'thổ', 'độ', 'đỗ' (SV) [ M 土 tǔ < MC dwo < OC *daʔ (Li Fang-Kuei : OC *dagx ) | FQ 他魯 | MC reading 遇合一上姥透 | According to Starostin: MC tho < OC *tha:ʔ (Note the final -ʔ). Also used for *d(h)a:ʔ (MC do, Pek. dù) roots of mulberry tree.]

The sound change can fit into the following patterns initial { ¶ /t-/ ~ /đ-/ }:

tù 突: "đột" (suddenly),
tú 圖: "đồ" (drawing),
tù 吐: "thổ" (vomit),
táng 唐: "đường" (path),
tán 談: "đàm" (talk),
tán 壇: "đàn" (platform),
tuǐ 腿: "đùi" (lap),
tòng 痛: "đau" (pain),
tóu 頭: "đầu" (head),
tǎ 踏: "đạp" (tread),
tiáo 條: "điều" (article),
diăn 點: "điểm" (point),
dú 毒: "độc" (poisionous),
dù 督: "đốc" (urge),
dú 櫝: "tủ" (cabinet),
dú 讀: "đọc" (read),

bì 必: "tất" (inevitable),
shì 室: "thất" (chamber),
qī 七: "thất" (seven),
qī 漆: "tất" (lacquer),
jí 疾: "tật" (illness),
xì 悉: "tất" (entire),
qí 乞: "khất" (beg),
bù 不: "bất" (not),
bì 畢: "tốt" (graduate),
zú 卒: "tốt" (private - lowest rank in the army of a solder),
shāo 燒: "đốt" (burn),
hù 忽: "hốt" (neglect),
tù 突: "đột" (sudden),

Note: in Chinese 地 dì (SV địa) 'earth', a later development, is a derivative and doublet of 土 tǔ, which further strengthens the case 'tǔ' = 'đất', for example, the merger of both tǔdì 土地. Doublet forms are very common in the Chinese language which have been evolved from different sources, e.g., 首 shǒu ~ 頭 tóu for 'đầu' (head), etc.

tǔdì 土地: "đấtđai" (land),
dìdài 地帶: "đấtđai" (stretch of land),
tǔpì 土鼊: #"bọđất" (beetle),
língtǔ 領土: #"mãnhđất" (territory),
dìmiàn 地面: #"mặtđất" (the earth's surface),
dìkuài 地塊: #"cụcđất" (a piece of soil),
kuàidì 塊地: "khoảngđất" (a piece of land) [ <~ "一塊地 yī khuài dì" (numeral+classifier+noun)],
dìyú 地域: # "vùngđất" (region),
tiándì 田地: # "ruộngđất" (farming land),
dìqíu 地球: # "quảđất" (globe),

"đốt":

For shāo 燒 (SV thiêu) ~ đốt (to burn) [ M 燒 shāo, shào < MC ʂew < OC *snɛw, *snɛws | ¶ sh- ~ đ- ] it is not hard to see that sh- or th- (or s- for that matter) can give rise to đ-, including the case of an alternation of 燒 shāo, that is

"sốt" as in "phátsốt" 發燒 fāshāo (SV phátthiêu) 'have a fever' and
"thắp" as in "thắpnhang", "thắphương" 燒香 shāoxiāng 'burn incense', which is the same as "đốtnhang" and "đốthương". Also, a reduplication, via localization, of shāo(+shāo) 燒+燒 has added a new word "thiêuđốt" into the Vietnamese vocabulary. (The same pattern occurred for 少 shăo ~ thiếu|sót > "thiếusót", 'shortage' that is the same as quèshăo 缺少.)

In addition to those words that follow the pattern { ¶ th- ~ đ- } to connect 土 tǔ with "đất" as given in the examples above, 燒 shāo "thiêu" ~ "đốt", where /sh-/ usually gave rise to /th-/, could be originally evolved from an archaic đ- [ the Nôm word "đốt" might be an older form of "thiêu" as the th- sound exists only in SV, a variation of MC, while in OC or AC the voiced /d-/ initial already had existed as it left a remnant in some Chinese dialects as well, such as Hainanese or Amoy. ], we can also find other examples in the pattern { ¶ sh- ~ đ- } in place of { ¶ th- ~ đ- } :

Again, the sound change can fit into the following patterns { ¶ sh- ~ đ- }

生 shēng: "đẻ" (Hainanese /te1/) (give birth),
深 shēn: "đậm" (SV thâm) (dark),
首 shǒu: "đầu" (SV thủ) [ doublet of 頭 tóu SV 'đầu' (head) ],
盛 shèng: "đựng" (SV thịnh) (contain),
世 shí: "đời" (SV thế) (life),
石 shí: "đá" (SV thạch) (stone) [ cf. 石 dàn 'tạ' (unit of measurement of weight, equal to 100 kilograms.) ],
水 shuǐ: "nước" (SV thuỷ) (water) [ cf. Viet-Muong 'đák' (water), cf. 踏 tă > 'đạp' (tread) ],

"lửa":

We have 火 huǒ (fire): hoả (SV) [ M 火 huǒ < MC xwʌ < OC *smjə:jʔ ]

and the pattern { ¶ /h(w)-/ ~ /l-/ } :

話 huà: "lời" (spoken word),
混 hún: "lộn" (confused),
宏 hóng: "lớn" (large),
很 hěn: "lắm" (much),
灣 wān: "loan" (bay),
大伙 dàhuǒ: "cảlũ" (the whole group),
同夥 tónguǒ: "đồngloã" (complice),
裸體 luǒtǐ: 'loãthể' (naked) [ cf. phonetic stem 果 guǒ: SV 'quả' /wa3/ ] ,

火車 huǒchē: "xelửa" (SV 'hoảxa') (train),
火箭 huǒjiản: "tênlửa" (SV 'hoảtiển') (rocket),
救火 jìuhuǒ: "chửalửa" (SV 'cứuhoả') (firefighting),
火燒 huǒshāo: "lửacháy" (SV 'hoảthiêu') (burn),

"con":

We have VS 'con' ~ 子 zǐ 'child, son' (SV tử) [ M 子 zǐ < MC tsjɤ < OC *cɑʔ | According to Starostin: child, son, daughter, young person; prince; a polite substitute for 'you' Also read *cjəʔ-s, MC cjy\, Mand. zì 'to treat as a son'. Related is 字 *tɕjəʔ-s 'to breed' q. v. The character is also used for an homonymous word *cjəʔ 'the first of the Earthly Branches' (in Sino-Viet.: tý). | Note: Cant. 仔 /zei3/ (son). In the dialects of Fuzhou (Fukienese) it is represented with 囝 kiaŋ (M jiăn), in Xiamen (Amoy) /kẽ/ and Hananese /ke1/, a close sound with Vietnamese con, which could have originated from Austroasiatic kiã ‘son, child’ or might be a cognate with 子 zǐ. ]

This lexeme appears with other Chinese compounds, including other derived meanings and their matched usages as an affix:

fùzǐ 父子: "bốcon" (father and son),
múzǐ 母子: "mẹcon" (mother and son),
zǐsūn 子孫: "concháu" (children and grandchildren),
háizǐ 孩子: # "concái" (children),
yòuzǐ 幼子: # "connhỏ" (child),
chăngzǐ 長子: # "contrưởng" (eldest son),
qízi 棋子: # "concờ" (checker piece),
dāozi 刀子: # "condao" (knife),
hóuzi 猴子: # "conkhỉ" (monkey), etc.

For { ¶ C- ~ K- } we have 存 cún (VS còn) 'exist', 擦 cā (VS cà) 'rub', 餐 cān (VS cơm) 'meal', etc., while not taking into consideration of the whole class of fricative Z- where they commonly have the tendency of laryngeal shift to K- class.

"sao":

We have 'sao' 星 xīng 'star' (SV tinh) [ ~ VS tạnh (clear sky after rain) | M 星 xīng < MC sieŋ < OC *she:ŋ < se:ŋ | MC reading 梗開四平青心 | FQ 桑經 | ZYYY: sijəŋ1 | Dialects: Hainanese: se11 (cf. shēng 生: đẻ ~ Hai.: /te1/), Hankou: ʂin11, Sichuan: ʂin11, Yangzhou: ʂĩ11, Chaozhou: sin11, Changsha: sin11, Shuangfeng: $ ʂin11, ʂiõ11, Nanchang: $ ʂin11, ʂiaŋ11 || Note: what is lacking for us to relate 'sao' to 星 xīng 'star' (SV tinh) is the condition of rounded final, similar to 痛 tòng (SV thống, VS đau) 'pain'. ],

"lá":

We have 葉 yè 'leaf' (SV diệp) [ M 葉 yè < MC jep < AC *lhap < OC *lap < PC **lɒp | Note: Most of the Tibetan languages carry the the sound near lá: Tibetan: ldeb 'lá, tờ', Burmese: ɑhlap 'cánhhoa', Kachin: lap2 'lá', Lushei: le:p 'búp', Lepcha: lop 'lá', Rawang ʂɑ lap 'lá' (used to wrap dumplings) ; Trung ljəp1 'lá', Bahing lab. Sh. 138; Ben. 70. In effect, we have well over one hundred words that register the pattern OC *l- > MC j-, | cf. 聿 yú => 律 lǜ. ].

For the pattern { ¶ /y/- ~ /l-/ }, hence, { /l-/ ~ /y-/, /v-/,/ r- /} in both Vietnamese and Chinese we have numerous words of this interchange, especially those in the realm of OC /*l-/ for M /l-/ ~ M /y-/:

藥 yào [ (SV dược) 'medicine' ] ~ 樂 lè (SV lạc) 'happy' [ ¶ /y/- ~ /l-/ ],
葉 yè: "lá" (leaf),
搖 yáo: "lay" (shake),
腰 yāo: "lưng" (lower back),
異 yí: "lạ" (strange),
陰 yīn: "lồn" (female genital),
蠅 yíng: "lằng" (bluebottle),
游 yóu: "lội" (swim),
籬 lí: "dậu" (hedge),
冽 liè: "rét" (chill),
離 lí: "rời" (leave),
落 luò: "rơi" (drop),

"uống":

We have 'uống' ~ 飲 yǐn (drink) (SV ẩm) [ Also, VS 'dô' /jo1/ | M 飲 yǐn < MC ʔɨmʔ, MC ʔim < OC *jəmʔ, *ʔjəmʔs ],

As a matter of fact, with the exception of close relationship among many Chinese dialects themselves based on the "Sino-Mandarin" for historical reasons, that is, the massive influx of Han (Ancient Chinese) and Middle Chinese stocks having contributed to the evolution of Cantonese or Fukienese on top of the substratum of aboriginal lexicons that have been positively identified, it is noted that remarkable linguistic closeness of Vietnamese with several Chinese dialects through their possible kinship rather than merely a loan relationship as attested with those basic words such as yú 魚 cá ‘fish’, yè 葉 lá ‘leaf’, miàn 面 mặt 'face', yǐn 飲 uống ‘drink’, etc. In short, their etymological resemblance is much closer than even those same words postulated in the Mon-Khmer or Sino-Tibetan languages that have among themselves.

The sound change patterns and interchanges among Chinese and Vietnamese languages exemplified above just give readers an overall picture without regard of spatial and temporal specifics. If we research further, we can go further with plausible reasonings for detailed postulation for many etyma. For those matters, Nguyễn Ngọc San (NNS, Ibid. 1993. pp. 154-160) fairly depicted the sound changes in ancient times in his sypnosis as extracted and noted as follows, which should be considered as sound changes rules.

The author stated that the initial /ch-/ existed since the time Vietnamese and Mường had not split yet, while those words started with the /tr-/ sound would appear at the later date that were used to pronounce those words with the clusters /bl-/, /tl-/ transformed from the 17th century. However, among those fundamental words for utensils around the house, kinship relations, tools used in economic activities, domestic animals and other bugs and insects... that he pointed out such as chổi, chõng, choé, chạn, chậu, chách, chum, chĩng, chăn, chiếu, chày, chảo, chuồng, chốt, chai, chén, chị, cháu, chão (dây), etc., below were transmitted with /ch-/, but not /tr-/sounds, including many fundamental words that are cognate to those Chinese ones being transcribed with pinyin as /zh-/, /z-/, /sh-/, /j-/... as pronounced in Mandarin per se, for example,

帚 zhǒu for Vietnamese 'chổi' (broom),
樽 zūn ~ 'chai' (bottle),
姊 zǐ ~ 'chị' (older sister),
侄 zhí ~ 'cháu' (grandson),
叔 shū ~ 'chú' (paternal uncle),
走 zhǒu ~ 'chạy' (run),
棹 zháo ~ 'chèo' (oar, row),
煎 jiān ~ 'chiên' (fry),
鼠 shǔ ~ 'chuột' (rat),

'chay' (pre-SV) is older than SV 'trai' [ 齋 zhāi (vegan) ],
'chày' > SV 'trì' [ 遲 chí (slow) ],
'chém' > SV 'trảm' [ 斬 zhán (cut off) ],
'chén' > SV 'trản' [ 盞 zhán (bowl) ],
'chè' > SV 'trà' [ 茶 chá (tea) ],
'chừa' > SV 'trừ' [ 除 chú (excluding) ],
'chứa' > SV 'trữ' [ 儲 chǔ (store up) ],
'chuyền' > SV 'truyền' [ 轉 chuán (transmit) ],
'chuyện' > SV 'truyện' [ 傳 zhuàn (story) ],

Regarding the initial consonantal clusters of /bl-/, /tl-/ prior to 17th century, Nguyen Ngoc San noted that they had changed into /tr-/, /gi-/, or /l-/; therefore, if there still exist any lexical doublets initialized with /tr-/, /gi-/, or /l-/, they should be correctly spelled as /ch-/ and /gi-/ instead of /ch-/ and /d-/, for example,

trời ~ giời
trầu ~ giầu
trăng ~ giăng
trùn ~ giun
trôn ~ lồn
trũng ~ lũng

At the same time all the words with pre-glottal /ʔ-/ prior to the end of the 12th century had changed into the intial spellings /d-/ and /nh-/; therefore, any words that exist in concurrence with those of /d-/ and /nh-/, they should be spelled as /d-/, not /gi-/, for example,

dăn ~ nhăn
dặng ~ nhặng
dơ ~ nhơ
dỡ ~ nhỡ
dồi ~ nhồi
dức ~ nhức

During the process of the split of the Viet-Muong group, the initial /ch-/ became palatalized /gi-/ (sibilant sounds [ʨ] > [z-], respectively ) as attested by the existence of doublets of certain etyma, for example,

cha ~ già
chi ~ gì
chói ~ giọi
chuỳ ~ giùi
chừ ~ giờ
chủng ~ giống

Within the Vietnamese language, the same phenomenon with palatalization also left their remnants with other doublets with e sound change pattern rules /ch-/ [ʨ] ~ /x-/ [s-], /đ-/ [d]~ /d-/ [j-], etc., such as,

chẻ ~ xẻ, xé
chiên ~ xiên
chòm ~ xóm
chen ~ xen
chếch ~ xếch
chao ~ xào
đã(cơn) ~ dã(cơn)
đứt ~ dứt
đao ~ dao
đập ~ dập
đình ~ dừng
đướn ~ dưới
đạy(học) ~ dạy(học),
đun(đẩy) ~ dun(dẩy),
(chỉnh)đốn ~ dọn(dẹp)
(cây)đa ~ (cây)da

Interestingly, most of the illustrated examples cited by Nguyễn Ngoc San just further strengthen the Vietnamese ~ Chinese correspondences, e.g., 'đ-'/d-/ ~ 'd-'/j-/ in their affiliated etyma，e.g.,過癮 guòyǐn ~ #đã(cơn) ~ #dã(cơn) (where 癮 yǐn > 'dã', 過 guò > 'cơn'. For the rest of other cited words above, let us save the work on exploring the matching Chinese cognates for our future historical linguists in Vietnamese to practice in the next worksheets.

With respects to sound change rules for the long vowels into the short ones in Vienamese, their existence is attested in the Central subdialects with interchanges of long /e/ (in Quangai and Binhdinh provinces) and long /o/ (Nghetinh, and this deviating pronunciation are not used in modern standard Vietnamese. However, Nguyễn suggested that we could recognize those Sino-Vietnamese from Vietnamese words simply based on their phonological appearance. As we may already know, for those voiceless Middle Chinese words, when they entered the Sino-Vietnamese stock, they all evolved into those words with lower-registered tones (as displayed with diacritical marks in Quốcngữ as '\', '~', '.' that we can posit them as those of Sino-Vietnamese words that come with certain initials. Specifically, those Sino-Vietnamese words starting with the glottal /ʔ-/ that was not transcribed in the modern Romanized Vietnamese, e.g., an, anh, ang, ong, ông, ếch,, etc., carry the upper registered tones, for example, a, ả, á, an, án, ám, ung, úng, ủng, ôn, ổn, âm, ấm, ẩm, etc.; meanwhile, other words that carry lower registered tones are supposedly Vietnamese (Nguyễn Ngọc San. Ibid. p. 158).

Nguyễn cited the rules that those Sino-Vietnamese starting with the present initial /gi-/ [z] were derived from those words starting with /ch-/ [ʨ-]; therefore, the Sino-Vietnamese words with the initial /ch-/ all have the upper tones, for instance, gia, giá,giả, gian, gián, giản, giang, giáng, giảng, giam, giám, giảm, etc. In the meanwhile, present Sino-Vietnamese words with the intial /ch-/ originated from the voiceless Middle Chinese /t's'/ (in the division of the syllabic initial of 章 'chương') following the interchange from a voiceless sound to voiceless sound carry upper registered tones, e.g., chu, chú, chủ, chương, chướng, chưởng, chân, chấn, chẩn, chi, chí, chỉ, chư, chử, chúch, chích, , etc., and those of Sino-Vietnamese initial of khê/kh-/ from /k'/ also with the upper registered tones, such as khai, khái, khải, kha, khà, khắc, khâm, khí, khi, khiếp, khuyển, khánh, khuyết, khoáng, khoa, khoái, khủng, khứ, khúc, etc. And the author draws the conclusion that all those Vietnamese words that carry the lower registered then must be of "pure" Vietnamese origin.

Nguyễn Ngọc San has also drawn the tonal sound change rule that those Sino-Vietnamese words with the initals /m-/, /n-/, /nh-/, /ng-/, /l-/ also originated from MIddle Chinese /m-/ (nitial "minh"), /n-/ ("nê"), /nh-/ ("nhật"), /ng-/ ("nghi"), /l-/ ("lai"), and other initials such as /d-/ from /d-/ ("dương"), and /mj-/ ("mẫn", "minh", division II), and /v-/ from /w-/ ("vân") and /miw/ ("vi"), all originally of voiced initials, so their Sino-Vietnamese also became voiced initials, carrying the lower registered tones. However, the author noted that for some in those that carry the first tones (陽平, 陰平), their Sino-Vietnamese equivalents in Sinitic-Vietnamese words appear to carry both upper and lower registered tones, for example,

viên ~ vườn
nương ~ nàng
nguyên ~ nguồn
ma ~ mè
lâm ~ lầm
lô ~ lò
văn ~ vằn
nam ~ nồm
linh ~ lành
du ~ dầu
di ~ dời

In short, those Sino-Vietnamese words with the initials /m-/, /n-/, /nh-/, /ng-/, /li-/, /v-/, /d-/ all carry either the level upper tone /一/ or lower registered tone /~/, and /./

mao, mão, mạo, mi, mĩ, mị, ma, mã, mạ, mô, mỗ, mộ, mai, mãi, mại, môi, mỗi, etc.
Exception: miến, miếu

nao, não, nạo, nô, nỗ, nộ, niêm, niệm, niên, nịch, etc.
Exception: nùng, náo, niết

nh-

nhi, nhĩ, nhị, nhân, nhẫn, nhận, như, nhữ, nhụ, nhung, nhũng, nhụng, nhiệm, nhiệt, nhuận, nhan, nhãn, nhạn, etc.
Exception: nhất, nhiếp, nhuế [ cf. "một" ]

ng-

nga, ngã, ngại, ngãi, ngoa, ngôn, ngưỡng, nghĩa, ngữ, nguyện, ngọc, etc.
Exception: ngải

lao, lão, lạo, lai, lãi, lại, lung, lãng, lạng, lâm, lẫm, liêu, luễ, liệu, lê, lễ, lệ, lô, lỗ, lộ, luật, lịch, etc.
Exception: lý, lánh

vi, vĩ, vị, viên, viễn, viện, vinh, vĩnh, vịnh, vu, vũ, vụ, vãn, vạn, vong, võng, vọng, etc.
Exception: vấn

di, dĩ, dị, dung, dũng dụng, diên, diễn, diện, dục, do, duyệt, etc.
Exception: vấn

For the tonal sound change rule above, that is, Sino-Vietnamese words of intitials that start with m-, nh-, v-, l-, d-, ng- carry level upper tone /一/ or lower registered tone /~/, and /./, the mnemonic aid for them is to remember the Vietnamese clause that goes "Mình nhớ viết là dấu ngã. (Nguyễn Tài Cẩn. 2000) For all others, they are written with the tones /`/, /ʔ/, /./

2) Words of unknown origin

Understandably, unlike etymologies of virtually all words cited in the Webster dictionary for the English language, we would probably not find all the Vietnamese words cognate to those in Chinese by applying the approaches and principles discussed here. Some rules may be applied to Sino-Vietnamese as cited above, but not Sintitic Vietnamese. Many words in Vietnamese –- except for those that appear to be loanwords from the Khmer language, such as "cápduồn" (ethnic lynching) or "hầmbàlằng" (mixed bag) -- are questionable regarding their roots which sometimes look more dubious Chinese. For example, modern Mandarin 腰 yāo is hardly cognate to Vietnamese "lưng" (back) simply because we do not elaborate on its cognacy but certainly we could elevate it to Vietnamese "eo" that means 'waist'. Even though Austroasiatic Mon-Khmer specialists posited /khnong/ (Khmer) for Vietnamese "sống (lưng)" (spine), in Chinese we can still find other words for the human back as well.

"lưng" 脊 jǐ, jí: SV tích (body back) [ M 脊 jǐ, jí < MC tsiajk < OC *tsiajk | Note: the case of 脊 jǐ for "lưng" is postulated as that of contraction from 脊梁 jǐliáng (SV tíchlương) where it could be speculated as a shift from 'sốnglưng' ~> 'lưng'; cf. 'tuỷsống' (spinal marrow): M 脊髓 jísuí (SV tíchtuỷ), VS 'cộtsống' ~> 'sống' (spinal column): 脊柱 jǐzhù (SV tíchtrụ), hence, 'sống' ~> 'lưng' | ¶ s- ~ l- ].

"vác" 背 bèi: SV bội (shoulder) [ As a verb, VS vác (carry on's shoulders, hence, "to shoulder") | @ M 背 bèi < MC bɔj, poj < OC *bjə:ks, *pjə:ks | FQ 蒲昧, 補妹 | According to Starostin, MC pɔj < OC *pjə:ks mean 'the back, posterior part'. | ¶ b- ~ v- ],

In effect, while words of the same contextual nature could not be found in any Austroasiatic Mon-Khmer languages, for many more etyma, we can still indeed cite an impressvive list of questionable Vietnamese words of unidentified substratum such as 'màngtang' (temple – Chinese 太陽穴 tàiyángxué ?), 'mỏác' (top of skull – 囟門 xìnmén ?), 'cùichỏ' (elbow – Chinese 胳膊肘 gēbozhǒu ?), etc., and many types of tropical plants and fruits, e.g., 'nho' (grapes – Chinese 栲 kăo ? ), 'thơm' (pineaple – Chinese 鳳梨 fènglí ? ), 'ổi' (guava – Chinese 安石榴 ānshílíu ?), 'soài' (mango – Chinese 檨 shē?), 'mận' (red-bay fruit – Chinese 蓮霧 liánwù ?), 'khế' (carambole fruit – Chinese 芅 yí or 萇 cháng? ), and some other non-cultural items unidentifiable mostly being related to plants, insects, name of fish, etc., to counter posit and match them with those, if any, words that exist neither in the Mon-Khmer languages as follows.

đànbà: 婦道 fùdào (woman) [ @ 道 dào ~ 'đàn', @ 婦 fù ~ 'bà' {婆 pó (bà) } | M 婦 fù < MC bjəw < OC *bjəʔ || M 道 dào (đạo, đáo) < MC djəw < OC *lhu:ʔ | Pt 徒皓 || Handian: 婦道 fùdào (1) 為婦之道。舊多指貞節、孝敬、卑順、勤謹而言。 (2) 指兒媳的行輩。 (3) 指婦女, 舊時對成年女子的通稱, 指女人。 Ex. 《兒女英雄傳》第三三回： “普天下的婦道，第一件開心的事無過於丈夫當著他的面讚他自己養的兒子。” || Ex. 一個婦道人家是辦不成這樁事的. Yī gè fùdàorénjiā shì bàn bùchéng zhè zhuāngshì de. (Đâylà chuyện mà đànbà ngườita làm khôngxuể.) ],
đànông: 乾道 qiándào (man) [ @ 乾 qián ~ 'ông' 公 gōng (công), @ 道 dào ~ 'đàn' | M 乾 qián, gàn, gān (kiền, càn, can) < MC gen, kʌn < OC *ghar, *ka:r | Pt 古寒 || M 道 dào (đạo, đáo) < MC djəw < OC *lhu:ʔ | Pt 徒皓 || Handian: 乾道 qiándào: 天道，陽剛之道。《易·乾》：“乾道變化，各正性命。” || Ex. 紫雲觀的生活區有乾道房、坤道房、會議廳、餐廳等。 Zǐyúnguān de shēnghuó qū yǒu qiándào fáng, kūndào fáng, huìyì tīng, cāntīng děng. (Khu sinhhoạt của Tửvânquan có phòng cho đànông, phòng cho đànbà, phòng hộinghị, nhàăn, vânvân.), 乾道洗手間 qiándào xǐshǒujiān (nhàvệsinh đànông) ],
congái: 嬌娃 jiāowá (girl) [ @ 嬌 jiāo ~ 'con, cô', @ 娃 wá ~ gái | M 嬌 jiāo, jiăo, qiáo < MC kew < OC *kaw | Pulleyblank: LM kjaw < EM kjiaw | ¶ q- ~ k- || M 娃 wá, wā < MC ʔʷa < OC *ʔʷrē || Handian: 美人；少女。|| ex. 唐 Táng (Đường) 劉禹錫 Líu Yǔxī (Lưu Ngu-Tích) 《館娃宮 Quǎnwá Gōng (Quánoa Cung) 》詩 Shī (Thơ) ：“宮館貯嬌娃，當時意太誇。” Gōngguǎn zhù jiāowá, dāngshí yì tài kuā. (Cungquán đầy congái, khoe ýđẹp tràntrề.), 元 Yuán (Nguyên) 無名氏 Wúmíngshì (Vôdanhthị) 《鴛鴦被 Yuānyang Bèi (Mền Uyênương) 》第二折 Dì'èr Zhé (Tiết Thứhai) ：“可憐我這沒照覷的嬌娃，早諕的來手兒腳兒軟剌答。” Kělián wǒ zhè méi zhàoqū de jiāowá, zǎo háo de lái shǒur jiǎor ruǎn là dá. (Thươngcho thân tôi nào biếtgì đànbà congái, vừa đụngtới là taychân như rụngrời.), 《歧路燈 Qílù Dēng (Đèn Trên Lối) 》第四九回 Dì Sì Jǐu Huí (Hồi Bốn Chín)： “譚紹聞因前日跟著夏鼎趕那一次會，也新學會了物色嬌娃。” Tán Shàowén yīn qiánrì gēnzhe Xià Dǐng gǎn nà yīcì huì, yě xīn xuéhuì le wùsè jiāowá. (Đàm Thiệu-Văn vì hômtrước đitheo Hạ Đỉnh chỉ mộtlần hộingộ đó, naygiờ họcđòi chuyện đànbà congái.) ],
contrai: 仔仔 zǐzǐ (boy) [ @ Cant. 仔仔 zai24zai21 \ @ 仔 zǐ ~ 'con', 'trai' | M 仔 zǐ, zī < MC tsz < OC * tsɨ | § 子 zǐ (tử) con, Viet. 'contrai' @ © '公子 gōngzǐ (côngtử)' ],

However, based on corollary approach, we can keep this literary item below for balanced contrast and still have many other words appear in solid context and idiomatic fixed expressions as well as in conceptional compounds of which one of the syllabic words is either cognate, with either one of Yue or Chinese origin. For example, the names of animals in the Chinese zodiac table could be likely of southern Yue origin, for which the Chinese scholars refuse to accept their postulation, and unfortunately their exerted idea -- the way the Cantonese, the Fukienese, and the Wu dialect were blanketed in the Sino-Tibetan umbrella for their dominant exant Chinese glosses, but not the Vietnamese, that have been widely accepted in the Western linguistic circle.

ngựa: 午 (horse) [ SV "ngọ" as listed the 7th animal in the Chinese and Vietnamese zodiac table) 'horse'. cf. ancient Annamese bàngựa. ex. "Bàngựa già thiếu kẻ chăn" (Đạinam Quốcâm Thitập by Nguyễn Trã)i as apposed to Chinese 馬 mă (SV mã) (See NNS. Ibid. 1993. p163) ],
heo: 亥 (pig) [ SV "hợi" as listed the 12th animal in the Chinese and Vietnamese zodiac table) 'pig' [ cf. 'lợn' 腞 (豘) tún, dùn (SV độn) 'pig' ],

ăncơm: 吃飯 chīfàn (dining),
cơmnắm: 飯糰 fàntuán (rice pudding),
ănmày: 要飯 yàofàn (beggar),
bữa: 飯 fàn (meal) [ which gave rise to 'ban' and 'buổi' for the concept of 'period of the day' | Dialect: Hainanese 飯 /muj2/ ],

bantrưa: 白晝 báizhōu (noon time) [ Hence, 'buổitrưa' | @ 白 bái ~ 'ban' ],
banngày: 白日 báirì (daytime) [ @ 白 bái ~ V 'ban' ],
banhôm: 傍晚 bángwăn (at dawn) [ hence, 'chạngvạng'; @ 傍 báng ~ V 'ban' ],
banđêm: 晚上 wănshàng (night time) [ @ 晚 wăn ~ V 'ban' ],
bankhuya 半夜 bànyè (midnight) [ @ 半 bàn ~ V 'ban' ],
mồhôi: 冒汗 màohàn (sweat) [ cf. 冒汗 màohàn 'perspire', 出汗 chūhàn 'sweating', 汗毛 hànmáo (body hair). ],
buồngngủ: 臥房 wòfáng (bedroom) [ Also, 'phòngngủ'; hence, 臥 wò (SV ngoạ) is posited as "ngủ" ],
hôicủa: 盜劫 dàojié (rob) [ or 盜竊 dàoqiè (loot), also, VS 'trộmcắp' and 'trộmcướp' | ¶ d- ~ h-; j-, q- ~ k- ],

3) Questionable words of Chinese origin

Except for those obvious loanwords from Chinese as demonstrated by their closeness in both phonology and semantics, we still have a long list of words suggestive of Chinese origin. Nevertheless, many of them, in addition to those items posited as the foregoing items, at the same time, might be related to those of either the Mon-Khmer languages or unknown sources such as Malay, Thai, which make them dubious as Chinese cognates, for instance (for elaboration on their etymology, refer back to previous chapters) :

một, hai, ba, bốn, năm [ As discussed earlier, numerals one to five could be of Mon-Khmer origin, but note that there exist no designated numbers six to ten in the Khmer language. ],
tai 耷 dā: (ear, modern M 'big ear'),
tóc 髮 fā: SV 'phát' ( (hair ) [ { ¶ f- ~ t- } ],
lỗtai 耳朵 ěrduō: (ear drum) [ dissyllabic sound change: 耳 ěr ~> 'lỗ' + 朵 duō ~> 'tai' ? ],
trai 丁 dīng: SV 'đinh' (man) [ < 'trống' < 公 gōng? ],
gái 娃 wá: (woman) [ < 母 'mái'? In effect, in AC 子 zǐ means both 'trai' and 'gái' ],
voi 為 wēi: (elephant) [ Archaic, modern M 'for'; cf. archaic 豫 yú VS 'voi' ],
lúa 來 lái: (unhusked rice grains) [ Archaic, meaning 'millets', modern M 'come'. For lúa, possibly the same sam as gạo "稻" dào (SV đạo) ],
"không" (no, not, a grammatical negation) is associated with "không" 空 kōng (empty, nothing) but could not have originated from the etymon. "Không" has been a very late development from "chẳng". Before the 16th century, there was not "không" as an antonymn of "có", but existed only "chẳng". Likely as it could be that 並非 bìngfēi (VS 'chẳngphải') 'it is not', or 並不(是) bìngbúshì, equivalent to "chẳng", possibly a contraction of "chẳngphải".
"blời" 日 rì: VS trời (sun) [ Given that /bl-/ corespondends to /tr-/. The consonental cluster /bl-/, among other /-l-/ glides, mostly appeared between the periods from the 15th to 17th centuries, possibly of Muong dialects. When King Minh Mạng of the Nguyen Dynasty issued imperial decrees to prohibit Western missionaries to spread propaganda the BIble in the country in the 17th century, their religious preach appeared to be limited within the Muong habitats. Phonologically, note that 'giời' and 'ngày' seem to fit very well to 'rì'. ]
"blăng" 月 yuè: VS trăng (moon). [ Similar to the foregoing postulation note that 'giăng' and 'tháng' also seems to fit well to 'yuè', though). For "blời", "blăng" they might have been just alternations of "mặttrời" (太陽 tàiyáng) and "mặttrăng" (月亮 yuèliàng) where /b-/ has been assimilated with /m-/ and vocalized as "mặt" where "mặt" more likely evolved from indigenous Chamic language. Otherwise, "giời" 日 rì and "giăng" 月 yuè cannot fit into a sound change scheme where /gi-/ corresponds to both r- and y-, which, in turn, might have been evolved from some ancient sounds that must have been close to the initials nh-, j-, jh- and ng- as we can see in SV "nhật" and "nguyệt".],

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(A)This event was told in the Vietnamese folktale Lạclongquân 雒龍君 ("King Lac of Dragonic Descent"); it is about the origin of the Vietnamese people.

(H)See Bo Yang for China's history, Wang Li for OC and vernacular Vietnamese, Kargren for pioneering in reconstruction of OC historical phonology, Li Fang-Kuei for OC reconstruction, Pulleyblank for phonology of Early Mandarin, Schuessler for Qin-Han phonology reconstruction, Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典 for vernacular variants of many uncommon Chinese characters which are cognate to many Vietnamese words.

(C)To understand how that could possibly be, as previously discussed, compare the similar models the have made up the people and their language around the world after their countries had been colonialized for hundreds of years, such as Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Ughyur, Taiwan, Hainan, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Guam, the Phlippines, Singapore, Malyasia, Australia, New Zealand, Scottland, Ireland, South Africa, Marocco, Hawaii, North and South America, Cuba, Haiti, etc.

(V)If Vietnam had still remained as a colony of China like Guangdong, Fujian, and even Zhejiang, Jiangsu provinces, the 'Viet dialect" would have been certainly classed as of Sino-Tibetan languistic family like all of the above for sure. If it were so, for the needs of bartering, selling, or trading, the Annamese speakers would have pretty well adapted the Chinese numbers if they had not already done so. Form this rationalization, we could see that cognacy in numerals is not a big deal as previously discussed, that is, to use them to determine the linguistic affiliation of two or more language in the same sub-family.

(林) a) rừng, rậm 林 lín ‘forest’ (SV lâm) [ M 林 lín < MC lim < OC *rjəm < PC **rjəɱ ~ OC *srjəm (~ 森 (sâm) rậm) | Tibetan languages: Burmese rum 'rậm', Kachin diŋgram2 'rừng', Lushei ram 'rừng' | Cant. /lʌm2/ | ¶ l- ~ r-, ex. 龍 lóng (SV long) VS rồng ],
b) lấn 侵 qīn (SV xâm) [ M 侵 qīn < MC chjim < OC *shim | ¶ q- ~ l- ],
c) đông 東 dōng 'the east' (SV đông) [ According to Starostin, 東 dōng < MC tuŋ < OC *toŋ | FQ 德紅 ]

Ø ā ē ě ī ǐ ă ō ǒ ū ǔ ǖ ǘ ǚ ǜ ü û ɔ ɑ ɪ ɛ ɤ ə¯ ŋ ɯ ɪ ʅ ɿ ı u̯ ʔ ö ä ü ɐ ɒ æ χ ɓ ɗ ɖ ɱ ʿ ʾ θ ñ ŕ ć ¢ ď Ā ź ţ ť tś ʨ tʃ ʃ dź dʒ ƫ ć ń ç ď ş ŗ ż ſ ņ ʷ ɲ ʈ ɫ ɬ ʈ ƫ ʐ ɣ Ś ¯¯ ¯ ˉ

In search of sound change patterns

An analogy of Vietnamese etymology

A corollary approach

Words of unknown origin