Case study worksheet 3 (Table 13.A) - Basic words in Vietnamese and other regional Asian languages

Language Two Three Bird Eye Give Blood Water Stone Name Snow Who Say
A njidh səm ghjəm mjəkʷ kjəp maŋ tujʔ khiagw ɕiŋ⁵¹ snhot duj ghwra:ts
B nhait sone nghaat myetlone payy shaayy ray kyaww kya nar m tyaww ko moe pw ng a bhaalsuu sai pwayar so
C ˀɑɻ⁵¹ san⁵⁵ ʨin⁵ mu⁵¹ ʨj²¹⁴ huaŋ⁵ świ²¹⁴ tan⁵¹ seŋs ɕɥ̯œ²¹⁴ świ⁵ xu̯a⁵¹
D du se sae nun jugi pi mul dol seong nun nugu malhada
F dalawang tatlo ibon mata magbigay ng dugo tubig bato pangalan snow sino sinasabi
G jiː²² saːm⁵⁵ kam⁴⁴ mʊk̚² kap⁴⁴ fong¹¹ sɵy³⁵ taːm³³ sɛːŋ³³ syːt̚³ sɵy²¹ waː³⁵
H ob peb noog qhov muag muab ntshav dej pob zeb lub npe daus uas hais
I dua tiga burung mata memberikan darah air batu nama salju siapa mengataka
J ni san tori me ataeru etsueki mizu ishi furunēmu yuki dare Iu
K pir bei baksaei phnek phtal aoy chheam tuk dom th chhmoh pril del niyeay
L song sam nok sanid ta hai leuod noa hin su hima thi vao
M dua tiga burung mata memberi darah negara batu nama salji yang berkata
S Ssxng s̄ām nk tā H̄ı̂ leụ̄xd pratheṣ̄ f̄in chụ̄̀x f̄ima khır phūd
T ñii sum bya mig sbyin ƫhaa ćhū to miŋ qhań sū smra
V haːj˧ ɓaː˧ ʨim˧ mat˥ ʨɔ˧ maw˥ nɨək˥ ɗaː˥ ten˧ twiət˥ aːj˧ nɔj˥
X jī saⁿ   ba̍k     chuí   sèⁿ seh chuí hoā

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Worksheet 4

 List of the 23 identified fundamental basic words for which we could plug in all Vietnamese and Chinese cognates into place without much difficulty. Let's work on this for worksheet, and try if you will to see what the AA MK camp will come up with.

23 basic words in Vietnamese and other regional Asian languages
Basic words A B C D E F G H I J K L V
thou                          
not                          
give                          
man/male                          
mother                          
bark                          
I                          
that                          
we                          
who                          
this                          
what                          
ye                          
old                          
hear                          
fire                          
pull                          
flow                          
ashes                          
spit                          
worm                          

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See APPENDIX M: "Ancient Languages Have Words in Common" by Zachary Stieber, Epoch Times (May 6, 2013). Source: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/42284-ancient-languages-have-common-words-in-common/

Case study worksheet 5 (Table 13.B) -- Fill in the missing Chinese etyma

InterchangesChinese (?)
trời ~ giời 
trầu ~ giầu 
trăng ~ giăng 
trùn ~ giun 
trôn ~ lồn 
trũng ~ lũng 
dăn ~ nhăn 
dơ ~ nhơ 
dồi ~ nhồi 
dức ~ nhức 
cha ~ già 
chi ~ gì 
chói ~ giọi 
chuỳ ~ giùi 
chừ ~ giờ 
chủng ~ giống 
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 

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In addition to the 5 worksheets above, you can query corresponding words with the dictionary of Vietnamese etymology and fill in the blank in the last column of vocabulary table prepared by Mark Alves at http://world.livingsources.org/vocabulary/24. By the way, never mind about those redundant Sino-Vietnamese lists, e.g., 'thếgiới' 世界 shìjiè, 'lụcđịa' 陆地 lùdì, etc., which should not be included in the table because there are thousands more of similar words like those in the Vietnamese language and they are affirmatively Sino-Vietnamese words of Middle Chinese origin. What we are trying to do here is to identify "Vietnamized" words of Chinese origin to put them into that Sinitic-Vietnamese category. That said, the purpose of this worksheet is to point out a due process that fill defficiency of Western scholars who have still had misconcepts about what is Sino-Vietnamese.

 

Case study worksheet 6 (Table 13.C) Samples of Vietnamese vocabulary list worksheet conpiled by Prof. Mark Alves

Vietnamese Vocabulary

by Mark Alves

The vocabulary contains 1534 [ quoted herein only a small portion of them randomly selected ] meaning-word pairs from the recipient language Vietnamese. The corresponding text chapter was published in the book Loanwords in the World's Languages. The language page Vietnamese contains a list of all loanwords arranged by donor languoid.

The word is given in the usual orthography or transcription, and in the usual citation form.

Click on a word to get even more information than is shown in this table.

Word LWT Code Meaning Borrowed Status Source Words

The Loanword Typology code is the identifier of the Loanword Typology meaning. Sorting by LWT Code sorts the words thematically by semantic field.

This column shows the labels of the Loanword Typology meanings. Get more information about the meaning, as well as a list of all words that are counterparts of that meaning listed in the original table.

There are five borrowed statuses, reflecting decreasing likelihood that the word is a loanword:

  1. clearly borrowed
  2. probably borrowed
  3. perhaps borrowed
  4. very little evidence for borrowing
  5. no evidence for borrowing

For (possible) loanwords, this column shows the words in the source languages that served as models.

For possible Chinese cognates.

thế giới 1.1 the world 1. clearly borrowed
đất (1) 1.21 the land 5. no evidence for borrowing
đất (2) 1.212 the soil 5. no evidence for borrowing
bụi 1.213 the dust 5. no evidence for borrowing
bùn 1.214 the mud 5. no evidence for borrowing
cát 1.215 the sand 5. no evidence for borrowing
núi 1.22 the mountain or hill 5. no evidence for borrowing
đồi 1.22 the mountain or hill 4. very little evidence for borrowing
vách đá 1.222 the cliff or precipice 5. no evidence for borrowing
đồng bằng 1.23 the plain 5. no evidence for borrowing
thung lũng 1.24 the valley 5. no evidence for borrowing
lưu vực 1.24 the valley 1. clearly borrowed
đảo 1.25 the island 1. clearly borrowed
cù lao 1.25 the island 2. probably borrowed
pulau (Cham )
đại lục 1.26 the mainland 1. clearly borrowed
bờ 1.27 the shore 5. no evidence for borrowing
hang 1.28 the cave 5. no evidence for borrowing
nước 1.31 the water 5. no evidence for borrowing
biển 1.32 the sea 5. no evidence for borrowing
không nổi sóng 1.322 calm 5. no evidence for borrowing
động 1.323 rough(2) 2. probably borrowed
bọt 1.324 the foam 5. no evidence for borrowing
đại dương 1.329 the ocean 1. clearly borrowed
hồ 1.33 the lake 1. clearly borrowed
vịnh 1.34 the bay 5. no evidence for borrowing
phá 1.341 the lagoon 5. no evidence for borrowing
đá ngầm 1.342 the reef 5. no evidence for borrowing
mũi đất 1.343 the cape 5. no evidence for borrowing
sóng 1.35 the wave 5. no evidence for borrowing
triều 1.352 the tide 1. clearly borrowed
triều thấp 1.353 the low tide 5. no evidence for borrowing
triều cao 1.354 the high tide 2. probably borrowed
sông 1.36 the river or stream 5. no evidence for borrowing
dòng nước xoáy 1.362 the whirlpool 5. no evidence for borrowing
giếng 1.37 the spring or well 2. probably borrowed
đầm lầy 1.38 the swamp 5. no evidence for borrowing
thác nước 1.39 the waterfall 5. no evidence for borrowing
rừng 1.41 the woods or forest 5. no evidence for borrowing
thảo nguyên 1.411 the savanna 1. clearly borrowed
gỗ 1.43 the wood 5. no evidence for borrowing
đá (1) 1.44 the stone or rock 5. no evidence for borrowing
địa động 1.45 the earthquake 1. clearly borrowed
trời 1.51 the sky 5. no evidence for borrowing
mặt trời 1.52 the sun 5. no evidence for borrowing
mặt trăng 1.53 the moon 3. perhaps borrowed
sao (1) 1.54 the star 5. no evidence for borrowing
chớp 1.55 the lightning 5. no evidence for borrowing
sấm 1.56 the thunder 5. no evidence for borrowing
chớp 1.57 the bolt of lightning 5. no evidence for borrowing
bão 1.58 the storm 2. probably borrowed
cầu vồng 1.59 the rainbow 3. perhaps borrowed
ánh sáng 1.61 the light 5. no evidence for borrowing
bóng tối 1.62 the darkness 5. no evidence for borrowing
bóng (1) 1.63 the shade or shadow 5. no evidence for borrowing
sương 1.64 the dew 5. no evidence for borrowing
không khí 1.71 the air 1. clearly borrowed
hơi 1.71 the air 3. perhaps borrowed
gío 1.72 the wind 5. no evidence for borrowing
mây 1.73 the cloud 5. no evidence for borrowing
sương mù 1.74 the fog 5. no evidence for borrowing
mưa 1.75 the rain 5. no evidence for borrowing
tuyết 1.76 the snow 1. clearly borrowed
đá (2) 1.77 the ice 5. no evidence for borrowing
cực quang 1.771 the arctic lights 1. clearly borrowed
đông lại 1.775 to freeze 2. probably borrowed
thời tiết 1.78 the weather 5. no evidence for borrowing
lửa 1.81 the fire 5. no evidence for borrowing
ngọn lửa 1.82 the flame 5. no evidence for borrowing
khói 1.83 the smoke 5. no evidence for borrowing
hơi nước 1.831 the steam 5. no evidence for borrowing
tro 1.84 the ash 5. no evidence for borrowing
than hồng 1.841 the embers 5. no evidence for borrowing
đốt cháy 1.851 to burn(1) 5. no evidence for borrowing
cháy 1.852 to burn(2) 5. no evidence for borrowing
đốt 1.86 to light 5. no evidence for borrowing
tắt 1.861 to extinguish 5. no evidence for borrowing
diêm 1.87 the match 5. no evidence for borrowing
củi 1.88 the firewood 5. no evidence for borrowing
than 1.89 the charcoal 2. probably borrowed
người 2.1 the person 5. no evidence for borrowing
đàn ông 2.21 the man 5. no evidence for borrowing
đàn bà 2.22 the woman 5. no evidence for borrowing
trai 2.23 male(1) 5. no evidence for borrowing
gái 2.24 female(1) 5. no evidence for borrowing
con trai (1) 2.25 the boy 5. no evidence for borrowing
người bạn trai 2.251 the young man 5. no evidence for borrowing
con gái (1) 2.26 the girl 5. no evidence for borrowing
thiếu nữ 2.261 the young woman 1. clearly borrowed
con (1) 2.27 the child(1) 5. no evidence for borrowing
con bé 2.28 the baby 5. no evidence for borrowing
chồng 2.31 the husband 2. probably borrowed
vợ 2.32 the wife 2. probably borrowed
cưới 2.33 to marry 3. perhaps borrowed
lấy (1) 2.33 to marry 5. no evidence for borrowing
gả 2.33 to marry 2. probably borrowed
đám cưới 2.34 the wedding 5. no evidence for borrowing
ly dị 2.341 the divorce 2. probably borrowed
bố 2.35 the father 3. perhaps borrowed
mẹ 2.36 the mother 3. perhaps borrowed
bố mẹ 2.37 the parents 5. no evidence for borrowing
đàn ông có vợ 2.38 the married man 5. no evidence for borrowing
đàn bà có chồng 2.39 the married woman 5. no evidence for borrowing
con trai (2) 2.41 the son 5. no evidence for borrowing
con gái (2) 2.42 the daughter 5. no evidence for borrowing
con (2) 2.43 the child(2) 5. no evidence for borrowing
em trai 2.44 the brother 5. no evidence for borrowing
anh em 2.44 the brother 5. no evidence for borrowing
anh 2.444 the older brother 5. no evidence for borrowing
em trai 2.445 the younger brother 5. no evidence for borrowing
chị em gái 2.45 the sister 5. no evidence for borrowing
chị 2.454 the older sister 2. probably borrowed
em gái 2.455 the younger sister 5. no evidence for borrowing
anh chị em 2.456 the sibling 5. no evidence for borrowing
anh chị 2.4561 the older sibling 5. no evidence for borrowing
em 2.4562 the younger sibling 5. no evidence for borrowing
sinh đôi 2.458 the twins 5. no evidence for borrowing
ông (1) 2.46 the grandfather 1. clearly borrowed
ông (2) 2.461 the old man 1. clearly borrowed
bà (1) 2.47 the grandmother 1. clearly borrowed
bà (2) 2.471 the old woman 1. clearly borrowed
ông bà 2.4711 the grandparents 5. no evidence for borrowing
cháu trai 2.48 the grandson 5. no evidence for borrowing
cháu gái 2.49 the granddaughter 5. no evidence for borrowing
cháu 2.5 the grandchild 5. no evidence for borrowing
bác 2.51 the uncle 2. probably borrowed
chú 2.51 the uncle 2. probably borrowed
cậu 2.511 the mother's brother 1. clearly borrowed
bác 2.512 the father's brother 2. probably borrowed
cô 2.52 the aunt 1. clearly borrowed
dì 2.52 the aunt 2. probably borrowed
m 2.521 the mother's sister 2. probably borrowed
thím 2.522 the father's sister 1. clearly borrowed
cô 2.522 the father's sister 1. clearly borrowed
cháu trai 2.53 the nephew 5. no evidence for borrowing
cháu gái 2.54 the niece 5. no evidence for borrowing
cháu 2.541 the sibling’s child 5. no evidence for borrowing
anh chị em họ 2.55 the cousin 5. no evidence for borrowing
tổ tiên 2.56 the ancestors 1. clearly borrowed
hậu duệ 2.57 the descendants 1. clearly borrowed
bố vợ 2.61 the father-in-law (of a man) 5. no evidence for borrowing
bố chồng 2.611 the father-in-law (of a woman) 5. no evidence for borrowing
mẹ vợ 2.62 the mother-in-law (of a man) 5. no evidence for borrowing
mẹ chồng 2.621 the mother-in-law (of a woman) 5. no evidence for borrowing
bố mẹ vợ chồng 2.622 the parents-in-law 5. no evidence for borrowing
con rể 2.63 the son-in-law (of a man) 5. no evidence for borrowing
con rể 2.631 the son-in-law (of a woman) 5. no evidence for borrowing
con dâu 2.64 the daughter-in-law (of a man) 5. no evidence for borrowing
con dấu 2.641 the daughter-in-law (of a woman) 5. no evidence for borrowing
con rể 2.6411 the child-in-law 5. no evidence for borrowing
con dâu 2.6411 the child-in-law 5. no evidence for borrowing
con dấu 2.6411 the child-in-law 5. no evidence for borrowing
chị dâu 2.6412 the sibling-in-law 5. no evidence for borrowing
bố dượng 2.71 the stepfather 5. no evidence for borrowing
mẹ ghẻ 2.72 the stepmother 5. no evidence for borrowing
con trai riêng 2.73 the stepson 5. no evidence for borrowing
con gái riêng 2.74 the stepdaughter 5. no evidence for borrowing
mồ côi 2.75 the orphan 5. no evidence for borrowing
bà goá chồng 2.76 the widow 5. no evidence for borrowing
quả phụ 2.76 the widow 1. clearly borrowed
ông goá vợ 2.77 the widower 5. no evidence for borrowing
bà con 2.81 the relatives 5. no evidence for borrowing
gia đình 2.82 the family 1. clearly borrowed
tao 2.91 I 5. no evidence for borrowing
tôi 2.91 I 5. no evidence for borrowing
mày (1) 2.92 you (singular) 5. no evidence for borrowing
nó 2.93 he/she/it 5. no evidence for borrowing
hắn 2.931 he 5. no evidence for borrowing
cô ta 2.932 she 5. no evidence for borrowing

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany License

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A) A sypnopsis of phonological sound changes from Chinese to Vietnamese

Based on the new approach to explore plausible cognates as presented in the previous sections, let's recap some common sound change patterns as have been discussed throughout in this survey.

Generally, in addition to the well established interchanges as presented in Chapter Twelve, other irregular corresponding patterns in Chinese and Vietnamese phonologies could occur to any sounds among the initial, medial, final, and ending, or a combination of them in a word. The process happened diachronically over the time one at a time and eventually led to a phonetic shift across the whole phonological system of monosyllabic words. At the same time sound changes of a syllabic ending would have occurred without phonetic-lexical restraint of the original syllabic-word, e.g., the whole last syllable might be syncoped and all phonemes could be dropped (a common phenomenon having occurred from Middle Chinese to early Mandarin.)

Sound changes could happen synchronically internally inside a language with a similar fashion like what would have happened in a small village, constrained within the local speech habit as we already discussed in the previous chapter, e.g., {tr- ~ ch-}, {ch- ~ g-}, {l- ~ r-}, {n- ~ l-}, {-n ~ -ng}, {-nh ~ -ng}, {-t ~ -k}, and so on so forth. We could therefore further apply those similar internal corresponding paradigms to those SInitic-Vietnamese words postulated as of Chinese origin inclusively in order to explore possible scenarios of what could take place reciprocally given the fact that linguistically they had been in the early contact with each other as attested in two of the best cases {/*kr-/ ~ /s-/, /cj-/} as follows.

Note that the patterns of sound changes enumerated below are just some illustrated samples and they are inexhaustible. For Sinologists and Vietnamese specialists, the following listings are focused solely on the Chinese and Sinitic-Vietnamese interchanges only, especially those irregularities; therefore, Sino-Vietnamese words are limited to minimum. Literally, as long as you could imagine an irregular pattern, there would be a chance that a plausible one could be found. As we could tell, numerous patterns are not included in the following list, since they are relatively obvious, at least as a linguist sees them, e.g. {x- ~ h-}, {zh- ~ gi-}, {j- ~ k-}, {g- ~ k-}, {q- ~ nh-}, {sh- ~ nh-}, etc.

Concentionally, as always, English meanings are annotated for each illustrated lexicon to help those who are unfamiliar with Vietnamese see how intimately close Vietnamese and Chinese vocabularies are, phonologically and semantically. (For their etymology, refer to previous sections for those lexicons that are already cited or try http://vny2k.com/hannom/.)

(1) Sound changes in the neighboring pronouncing positions:

(2) Pattern { ¶ l- & S-} (same class as s, c, x, ch, sh, j, z, zh, q)

(3) Pattern { ¶ S- ~ r- }

(4) Pattern { ¶ S- ~ T- } (same as d, th, tr, ch)

(5) Pattern { ¶ l- ~ r-}

(6) Pattern { ¶ p- (b-) ~ t- (d-) }

(7) Pattern { ¶ y- ~ b- (p-) }

In reality, besides those common interchanges, and we can keep going on to establish many more of other patterns. We can say that any sound can change to any sound, a product of multiple sound changes coloquially over time, one leading to another like slow chained reactions, partly triggered by phonetic shifts first, then localization, under influence of uneducated imitations, and so on so forth. However, in many cases, we can still recognize the originally underlined form solely based on the sound appearance.

(8) Irregular sound changes:

While some interchanges, on the one hand, could be identified via historical sound change rules such as the traditional system of 8-toned scheme -- NOT 6 tones -- e.g., 'tất', 'học', 'tiếc', etc., as follows, there are also cases that sound changes might have occurred beyond recognition. However, their etymology is still traceable based on the pronunciation rules, which is known as fănqiè 反切, in Chinese characters to give better guides to pronunciation keys for words, including the Middle Chinese 8-toned scheme that corresponds to those Sino-Vietnamese words ended with the 8th lower and upper registered tones /-p/, /-t/, /-k/.

Yet, on other hand, for a great number of VS words as listed above that might have changed that way, we are left with virtually no means but analogy that are attested by usage including both original authentic forms and semantics, for example,

(9) Sino-Vietnamese sound loans -- sandhi process of association:

As discussed in previous chapters, there exist a great number of Sinitic-Vietnamese words sounding like those of Sino-Vietnamese, being not only the ramifications from doublets nor different sources, but also deviates evolved from internal association in each language, which has resulted in new lexical items in the source or target.

(10) Homonyms, synonyms, doublets, and loanwords:

Many monosyllabic words can be read the same in Chinese but they carry different meanings. Similarly, there were also dialectal pronunciations for the same character of which variations had given rise to different usages before and, especially, after they entered the Vietnamese vocabulary. As a result, it is not surprising to see that with the same word the Vietnamese language may also have differentiated that very character with deviated sounds either by means of association with other words or internal localization. Let us examine a few as follows.

(11) Similarities with early and modern Mandarin:

One of the most interesting and noteworthy similarity between both vernacular and literary Mandarin and Vietnamese that many specialists of historical Vietnamese have missed is their share of coloquial words and fixed expressions. Besides the case of "mainày" 明兒 mínr (tomorrow) or "sátvách" 隔壁 jiébì (next door), or 行將 xíngjiān which has roots in modern Mandarin originated from vernacular Běijīnghuà 北京話, a departure from the common ideas that we could only search for Vietnamese words of Chinese origin only from either Proto-Chinese, Old Chinese, Ancient Chinese, Middle Chnese, and, for that matter, or the Sino-Vietnamese, there exist many other venues, for example,

The influence of Mandarin as both court's language and lingua franca in China historically also has influenced the Vietnamese language deeply in both official and learned cirles until the present time, especially with the Vietnamese Northern dialect, leading the way in new usage of Chinese elements, for instance:


not to mention some other minor distinctions in usage of certain words, either due to earlier older or vernacular loans, yet, comprehensible by most speakers of all regions:

Northern Vietnamese dialect / Chinese root Southern Vietnamese dialect / Chinese root  
cút 滾 gǔn đi 去 qù get out of here
vuốt 捋 lǚ rờ 摸 mò stroke
vồ 捕 pǔ chụp 捉 zhuō grasp
hoa 花 huā bông 葩 bā flower
ngô 玉米 yùmǐ bắp 苞 bāo corn
mê 迷 mí ưa 愛 ài feel attracted to
hãi 駭 hài sợ 懼 jù scared
rọ 籮 luó giỏ 籮 luó [ cf. 'răng' (tooth) ~> Southwestern Vietnamese sub-dialect 'giăng' ] basket
gầy 瘦 shòu (Vietnamese Central sub-dialect 'sỏ') ] ốm 奀 ēn skinny
ốm 屙 é (Cant.) bệnh 病 bìng (V Central sub-dialect 痛 tòng ('đau') sick
lọ 罍 léi chai 樽 zūn bottle
thai 胎 tāi bầu 胞 bāo pregnancy
quên 忘 wàng lẫn 忘 wàng (possibly from 聾 lóng, VS 'lãng') forget
cầy 狗 gǒu chó 犬 quán dog
lợn 腞 dùn heo 亥 hài pig
mắng 罵 mà chửi 咒 zhòu scold
nôn 涒 tūn ói 嘔 ǒu vomit
vua 王 wáng chúa 主 zhǔ king
môigiới 媒介 méijiè giớithiệu 介紹 jièshào middleman
phà 筏 fá bắc 泊 bó ferry
sướngphê 爽快 chuăngkuài quáđã 過癮 guòyǐn fully satisfied
ngậy 膩 nì béo 油 yóu greasy
béo 胖 pàng (bàn) mập 肥 féi fat
chăn 衿 jīn mền 綿 mián blanket
phủphê 飽飽 băobao no 饒 ráo satiate
cực 極 jí ghê 極 jí very
xinh 亮 liàng đẹp 婕 jié beautiful
quan 棺 guān hòm 棺 guān coffin
họng 喉 hóu cổ 喉 hóu throat
xơi 食 shí [ Cant. /shik8/ ] ăn 唵 ān [ cf. 吃 chī: SV 'ngật, phonetic 乙 yí 'ất' ] eat
lạc 落 luò đậu 豆 dòu earthnut
giỡn 玩 wán xạo 嘐 xiāo joke
bổ 剖 pǒu xẻ 切 qiè chop
... ... ...

in addition to -- lest us forget -- what has already been integral parts of the modern Vietnamese language because they are common daily words.

  • nào: 哪 nă 'which'
  • đó: 那 ná (nớ - Huế dialect) 'that'
  • rồi, nổi: 了 lē, liăo (indicate 'already') (examples: quên đâu nổi: 忘不了! wàngbùliăo! 'unforgetable', quênrồi: 忘了 wàngle!) 'already forgot'
  • ...đi ...啦 (for example: 拿啦 nála! 'take it'lấyđi!, điđái 拉尿啦 làniào la! 'go pee'điđái đi!
  • sẽ: 將 jiāng 'will'
  • vẫn: 仍 réng 'still'
  • đây: 這 zhèi 'this'
  • đúng: 對 duì 'correct' [ colloquial form of 中 zhòng 'trúng', as in 中意 zhòngyì (trúngý) 'as one's wishes'), which is common in many Chinese dialects.]
  • gì: 啥 shă (what' [ also, VS sao (why) ],
  • vìsao(mà): 為什麼 wèishěme (how come) [ Beijing: 為啥 wèishă ],
  • chúngmình: 咱們 záměn (we),
  • mình: 我 wǒ (Bejing dialect /mne/) (I) [ also, VS 'qua' ],
  • maulên: 快點 kuàidiăn (quick) [ Also, 'mauđi' - cf. Cant.: /faitì/), but 愉快 yúkuài: # vuivẻ ... ]
  • luônluôn: 老老 láoláo (always) [ also, doublet '牢牢 láolao' ],
  • riêngtư: 隱私 yǐnsī (privacy),
  • lánggiềng: 鄰居 língjū (neighbor),
  • sátvách: 隔壁 gébì (next door) [ Beijing dialect /jièbì/ \ ji- ~ s- ],
  • mauchóng: 馬上 măshàng (quickly) [ cf. 盡快 jìnkuài ] ,
  • bạtmạng: 拼命 pìnmìng (daring),
  • cảlũ: 大伙 dàhuǒ (the whole group),
  • đạochích: 盜賊 dàozéi (burglar),
  • đầunậu: 頭腦 tóunăo (ringleader),
  • cạnly: 幹杯 gànbèi ((drinking) cheers, endup),
  • sangrửa: 沖印 chōngyìn (photo develoment and print)
  • tầmbậy: 三八 sānbā (nonsense' [ a modern word originated from the 3-8 International Women's Day' to redicule funny female individuals, that also giving rise to (Fukienese) 'tầmbạ', 'sàbát'., etc., which shows tremendous influence of dialectal Chinese untill the present day. ] ,

    • and variants of the same base concept which point to different roots, for example:

  • "làm": 領 lǐng, 令 lǐng, 幹 gàn, 弄 nòng... (make, do, cause),
    • 幹啥 gànshă: làmgì (vậy)? (what are you doing?),
    • 幹活 gànhuó: làmviệc (working),
    • 幹家務 gànjiāwù: làmviệcnhà (doing house chords),
    • 當官 dàngguān: làmquan (be an official),
    • 當兵 dàngbīng: làmlính (be a soldier),
    • 榜樣 băngyàng: làmgương (exemplify),
    • 弄樣子 nòngyàngzǐ: làmravẻ (make oneself look like),
    • 弄錢 nòngqián: làmtiền (make money),
    • 勒索(錢財) lèsuǒ(qiáncái): làmtiền (extortion),
    • 含聲 hánshēng: làmthinh (keep quiet),
    • 耕田 gēngtián: làmđồng (farming),
    • 勞動 láodòng: làmlụng (labor),
    • 弄假成真 nòngjiăchéngzhēn: làmgiảthànhthiệt (pretence becomes reality!),
    • 令人肉麻 lǐngrénròumá: làmrợncảngười (have a deep creepy feeling);
    • 領我驚雅 lǐng wǒ jīngyá: làm tôi kinhngạc (I'm surprised...),
    etc.

B) Localization and innovation or "Vietnamized"

On becoming parts of Vietnamese vocabulary, one of the most important tools to coin new words is to "Vietnamize" -- 'Nômhoá' or 'Việthoá' -- all foreign loanwords because they might have entered into the Vietnamese language 1,000 years prior to and long after Vietnam became an independent state in 939 AD, of which localization and innovation are 2 key mechanisms that have blended well all Sinitic elements into the Vietnamese language. The tools are indispensable head and soul of a living speech.

(1) Reverse of word order (#, "iro", "metathesis")

We can often find correspondences in both Chinese and SV words and a larger number of them is in reverse order of each other, which might be either borrowed with conscious efforts or choice of words first probably used in literary works:

In fact, in comparison with those of modern Mandarin equivalents, VS loanwords seem to be always in reverse order:

As we all may know, this is a result of re-arrangement of syntactical order in the Vietnamese language where a modifier mostly is put after the modified. This phenomenon demonstrates clearly in synonymous dissyllabic words in which two syllables were originated from either two different Chinese characters or just one which may still convey the same original meaning if it still retains an older form and its sound has not been altered by mean of reduplication process, for example:

(2) Local innovations

Other common linguistic phenomena in word coinage in V, such as combining ancient roots with modern words, applying concepts of certain words to other words, syncoping, or adding new elements, is local innovation as it has happened in other languages as well.

Many other words have evolved and further expanded their meanings beyond what was originally conveyed if those secondary meanings have not already existed in the original loanwords (See (6) below for their original meanings.):

(3) Integration and combination

Combinations of words with both sounds of ancient and modern pronunciations or with both Sinitic-Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese words:

(4) Permanent word formation made up with associated classifiers

(5) Assimilation

Word formation evolved from the sandhi process of assimilation to associate one concept with another morpheme:

(6) Analogical word formation

If a Vietnamese word is derived from a word of Chinese origin, chances are that an antonym of it is also from the same source, of which both word-syllables make up a dissyllabic word:

(7) Sound omission or contraction and syncope

It is not unusual to see that many monosyllabic words in Vietnamese correspond to only those polysyllabic equivalents in Chinese. That is the result of sound ommission, contraction, drop, and syncope. This sound change phenomenon can be the product of localization, innovation, simplification, contamination, or retention of old pronunciation or meanings. However, that is not always the case because, as in those examples marked with * after a word in the illustrations below, many of the loanwords had been originally monosyllabic in Chinese then later they evolved into mergers and compounds in dissyllabic forms to avoid being homonymous.

Similar to each Chinese monosyllabic character as a morphemic-syllable, the Vietnamese basic syllabic stem 'tiếng' (聲) -- that embraces all the concepts morpherme-character-word in one unit -- functions as compound word builder. It characterizes itself as an independent entity by either retaining the Chinese original form or adjusting the polysyllabic development to the minimum and not distorting the signified connotation despite of changes in the original source, that is, Chinese. Here are some examples:

In many cases, when sound omission occurred to the same dissyllabic word in both languages, the Chinese language took on the original monosyllabic one, i.e., the one that had existed prior to the development of an equivalent dissyllabic word, while Vietnamese might took on a later developed sound and adopted it as the main word and, in some other cases, it was assimilated with another word and either one was retained, for instance,

(8) Influence from other Chinese dialects

Chinese characters are pronounced differently in all dialects, almost unintelligibly to one another, and oftentimes they even have different pronunciations within a dialect ('subdialect') just as it does in Vietnamese, i.e., northern, northern-central, central, southern subdialects. Moreover, a Chinese character many a time appears to have evolved into multiple sounds in Vietnamese, partly because they had been pronounced according to different dialectal sources that were synchronously introduced into the target language by all regional resettlers from the mainland throughout different periods in the past, e.g.,

We can find some other peculiar characteristics found in each Chinese dialect, including Mandarin, in Vietnamese besides the overall features such as morphology, phonology, or idiomatic expressions, which they all have in common. For example, the Vietnamese second tone, equivalent to Chinese shangsheng or rising tones, at the lower register such as that of “õ”, that is somewhat similar to nasalized final vowels in Fukienese or Chaozhou, i.e., /ẽ/, /ã/, /ĩ/, etc., and those of Beijing dialect suffix -er 兒, e.g.

<
or tonal system in the Hunan dialect, as accented in Mao Zedong's Mandarin, reminds us that of Huế dialect of Vietnamese, etc. For the phonetic nasalized instances in the Minnan subdialects, see more citations below.

The fact that Mandarin sound is selected in this paper to represent modern Chinese is not only a matter of convenience but, oftentimes, it is useful to make comparative analysis to see how sound changes from the same source turn out to be in two different languages, i.e., Mandarin and Vietnamese. That does not always mean that Vietnamese words directly originated only from those of Mandarin because they might have also originated from other Chinese dialects. However, there is strong evidence that modern Vietnamese appears to have some surprising similarities with Mandarin, at least some vernacular version of its northern subdialects (cf. Mandarin as being spoken in the Southwest regions of China as in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hunan, etc., and its Baihua 白話 verson of a northern dialect as used in the Six Great Chinese Classical novels showing their great similarities), for instance,

all appears as they have been just "twisted sound" of the original Mandarin pronunciations, probably a result of association and corruption due to competence and perfomance coloquially.

It is noted that average Vietnamese speakers always find it harder to understand the language of 17th century Vietnamese literary work than they could do with the six great Chinese classic novels written in the 12th century onward that could be read and translated with ease by Chinese learners of Vietnamese descent. It is said that for Vietnamese speakers if they learn to recognize 3000 bare individual Chinese characters can enjoy reading Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, because many compounds have been built with those individually single characters, interestingly, in both languages, so to speak. That is another subject matter for Vietnamese linguits to discuss.

Also, it is interesting to see that some other sounds of cetain words in southern Chinese dialects that were of the same native roots would resemble pronunciations of certain Vietnamese words, for example,

The examples above manifest the lowest linguistic stratum of Vietnamese in which words of the same root shared by the native or the Yue people -- aka the so-called 'Austroasiatic' in modern terminology -- are still in use by their mixed descendants at present day while other words might have been variants of either direct influence from one isogloss to the other, or they are merely a uniform result of sound changes.

Other cognates can also be found in daily common words such as

Examples like those are numerous. They are worth discussing individually by line items in a manner much more elaborate than simple listings of corresponding phonetic patterns as such. Needless to say, in our contemporary era, technology savvy linguists equiped with some knowledge of database management can tabulate raw data and be able to deliver some advantageous edges over those who don't because Western conventional tools could only assist them in general terms. The Vietnamese historical phonology demand specialists to master more before expecting meaningful achievement from this linguistic field. The sound change rules from Old Chinese to modern Chinese and Vietnamese occurred throughout differenent stages prior to what they appear nowadays.

It is controversial, though, that the cited words above carry so heavy the cultural influence from China that they should not be used to establish affiliated kinship with Chinese. That is to say, only common basic words count; here we go again hearing the same old broken records being played. Additionally, many linguists prefer to eliminate obvious Chinese loanwords and other linguistic aspects like grammar and phonology, etc. They insist to work only with residues of what is left over called "fundamentally basic words" that are regarded as of non-Han (non-Chinese) origin. As it turns out, however, they might have never suspected that most basic words really are cognate to those of Sino-Tibetan etymologies. When in doubt, simply refer to Shafer's Sino-Tibetan wordlists (see Chapter 10).

They are results of sound changes and those extant doublets are multifaceted in both time and space as pointed out by Nguyễn Ngọc San in the enumeration in Chapter 11. According to the author (NNS. 1993. Ibid. p. 5), today's Vietnamese evolved from the foundation of what spoken 1,000 years ago when the Hán-Việt (SV) pronunciation emerged from Middle Chinese, not what beyond that period. For example, words of Classical Chinese used in literary works are pronounced differently from words of certain vernacular speech, say, languages of the Imperial Court spoken by the mandarins and they in turn were variants from an older form known as Old Chinese or Ancient Chinese. In fact, as illustrated throughout this paper, words having Chinese roots could enter synchronously into Vietnamese in different periods. Such phenomenon had long been noticed by Haudricourt (1961) and already noted by the late renown etymological linguist Starostin, and many other Sinologists such as Wang Li and Nguyễn Tài-Cẩn.

Renown linguist Cao Xuân Hạo (2001) argued that there exist no such thing as the so-called "pure-Vietnamese words", which might extend to all fundamentally basic ancient Viet-Muong and Mon-Khmer words extant in Vietnamese as discussed in the previous chapters. At the same time, nevertheless, should the fact that the overwhelming Chinese linguistic entities presented so far not be used to constitute as prominent components that make up the Vietnamese language, what is it then to be recognized as main integral substances of the Vietnamese language ? Lexically, they are actually variations of more than 90% of Chinese origin mixed with those words from different sources. Note that the given percentage, admittedly, is only an estimate made by the author by sampling those Vietnamese words that happen to have been postulated as having the Chinese origin without taking into consideration of the frequency of their usage. The scaled-down given number is obtained by taking samples in random pages from a Vietnamese dictionary. Whether the exact number could be accurately obtained or not, the point to be made here is that many Vietnamese are of Chinese origin, hence, called Sinitic-Vietnamese herein. Having gone this far, we attempted to prove that stated point based on what we have induced from the sound change patterns as selectively illustrated throughout this survey that is the core of this research.

In the academic point of view, lexicographically, it is no doubt that, from relatively complete and reliably verifiable listings with solid grammatically phonological rules as similar with mostly Sino-Tibetan and Han etymologies, we could eventually finalize the first Vietnamese dictionary ever to be complete in a very near future.

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