Talk:Vietnamese language/Archive 1

Archive 1

Writing System before Chinese influence

I read this sentence in another article on Wikipedia, the one called "First Chinese domination of Vietnam":

"Vietnam was a country with written language prior to Chinese influence. Under foreign rule, the Vietnamese people lost their writing system, language, and much of their national identity."

This is valuable information, anybody has any ideas or sources about the Vietnamese writing system even before Chinese influence comes in. This should be before the Han invasion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sophisticate20 (talk • contribs) 09:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

There wasn't one. I went to the page you mentioned and someone has already edited the section to include this information.86.13.121.8 (talk) 23:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Gi and D

I have edited the IPA for Gi and D based on the pronunciation of Standard Northern Vietnamese. Gi is /ʒ/ while D is close to /z/.

Although some Northern Vietnamese don't distinguish these two sounds, those that do distinguish the two will tell you that Gi sounds like the sound sample of [ʒ] and D sounds close to the sound sample of [z]. I have talked to many Northern Vietnamese about the difference between D and Gi, and given them various sound samples of fricative consonants in standard IPA and asked them to pick out the Gi and D sounds among these fricative sound. They all picked [ʒ] for Gi and think [z] is the closet to D.

One thing we are sure of is that D definitely doesn't sound like [ɟ] in any region of Vietnam. Native Vietnamese speakers would reject this sound as D upon hearing it right away.

I am a native Vietnamese speaker myself and I have had experiences with many regional Vietnamese accents.

There's a need to rearrange the consonant tables because of the changes in IPA sound for Gi and D. I hope someone will help me do this because I'm not familiar with editing table in wiki. Thanks.

lhtran

That sounds like original research to me. Please provide a source for [ʒ] in Vietnamese. - AlexanderKaras (talk) 06:05, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Missing Diphthongs?

Several other resources list additional diphthongs beginning with /w/, such as those listed at http://hmongrp.wisc.edu/IPPL%20Vietnamese/inetpub/wwwroot/ipa/vietnamese/glides_vowelFemale.html and http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vietnamese.htm

Are they duplicates of the diphthongs listed here just with different transcriptions? Their spellings don't appear on this page either (e.g. oa, ue, oe, oai). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.74.114.251 (talk) 17:03, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Truyện Kiều

Why is the chữ nôm version of the Truyện Kiều (under the Examples heading) a JPEG picture instead of actual text? --Frungi 5 July 2005 01:56 (UTC)

Possibly because chữ nôm is not standardized and computer support for it in Unicode is very rudimentary. DHN 5 July 2005 06:07 (UTC)

genetic classification?

'Britannica claims that Vietnamese is one of the , not descended from Chinese. Do you have a better source?

-- I don't know what an Austroasiatic language is, other than perhaps a language used near Australia or Asia. The old characters are very similar to Chinese, and the language seems to me to be more related to Chinese than any of the other southeast asian languages I've heard. The only other tonal languages in the area which I know of are Thai, Laotian, Hmong (and some of the other tribal languages), and they're nothing like Vietnamese. My evidence is only empirical, though; I'm sure the real linguists have a better answer for us. -J

Ok. The languages you cited are members of the Tai languages, which is a different group altogether. As to what the Austroasiatic languages are, I think the best answer for now is the languages related to Vietnamese and Cambodian, which do not include Chinese. If they sound similar, though, I would bet that Chinese has had a big influence on Vietnamese, including probably the system of writing. Permission to say so above?

--Go ahead and Be bold in updating pages; I don't mind. Interesting that you bring up Cambodian, though, because that's the language I'm most familiar with - and it's closer to Laotian and Thai than anything else. Cambodian and Thai are about as close to each other as Spanish and English - *lots* of roots and words that are similar or the same, and the written languages are also very close. (Thai and Lao are about like Spanish and Italian, or even Spain-Spanish and Mexico-Spanish). Those three all have strong roots in Pali and Sanskrit. Doing a little research, however, http://www.saigon.com/~nguyent/hoa_04.html seems to agree with you, so let's go ahead and make the change.

Quoted from this page: "Cambodian and Thai are about as close to each other as Spanish and English - *lots* of roots and words that are similar or the same, and the written languages are also very close. (Thai and Lao are about like Spanish and Italian, or even Spain-Spanish and Mexico-Spanish)." Comment: The same CANNOT be said of the Vietnamese and Cambodian languages. T.Vd./

Actually, it can't be said even with thai and cambodian becuase they are not actually related while english and spanish are. Vietnamese and Cambodian can be said to be like english and german, or okinawan and japanese. They are actually related but far apart. English have 50% or so of its vocabulary and grammer borrowed other languages, and okinawan grammer is only about 70% the same as japanese. CanCanDuo 03:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Cambodian claiming "like english and german" is not true. Peter Nguyen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.58.21.26 (talk) 00:49, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Vietnamese as Austroasiatic

2002.03.09: As someone who has pretensions of knowing something about linguistics, I can confirm that Vietnamese is considered by linguists to be an Austroasiatic language, part of the Austronesian languages grouping. This language grouping can, very roughly speaking, be divided into four major areas: Vietnamese/Cambodian, Malagasy language, the languages of the Indonesian & Phillipine archipelagos (with exceptions), and then the Oceanic (or Polynesian) languages.

I think Austroasiatic have never officially became a part of Austronesian. ASutroasiatic-Austronesian should be as far as Austronesian~Tai-Kadai Visit this page www.ethnologue.com/family_index.asp --qrasy-- 10:37 PM June 5th, 2005(GMT+7)

11/1/2011: I see a citation is needed for the general stat in the first paragraph that Vietnamese has more speakers than the other Austroasiatic languages combined. I found this chart from Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan that would support that sentence, but it's my first time adding a citation. I'm not sure how to do it but to put it here in the discussion area: http://www.ling.fju.edu.tw/typology/Austro-Asiatic.htm UrbanHaiku (talk) 17:42, 1 November 2011 (UTC)UrbanHaiku

tonogenesis speculation

Most notable is that Vietnamese is, to my knowledge, the only one of these that is tonal. I'd hazard a guess that the tonal system of Vietnamese arises from the influence of the Sino-Tibetan and Tai/Daic languages surrounding it and Khmer. But I'd be overstepping the limits of my knowledge trying to make any actual *claim* that such is the case.

There are other languages related to Vietnamese that have tone. The general hypothesis is that tones were developed historically from the influence of surrounding consonants. (Consonants in all languages affect the frequency of vowel formants.) Here is a cool link about some of this: http://www.anu.edu.au/~u9907217/languages/AAlecture6.html There was an article in Language about this too.

Ish ishwar 14:22, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By the way some of the terms in that page seems Chinese word, probably loans. Chinese also had tonogenesis for sure.-qrasy- 9 Aug 2005 11:38 (GMT+8) Tsat language is a good proof od tonogenesis

unicode

I'm inclined to add a section to this page that includes the Unicode characters for several of these symbols. It's kind of hard to connect the written form with these ASCII adaptations. -- Taral

I would recommend using the Unicode forms for the correct orthography in the text where possible (as numeric character references, since we're still using ISO-8859-1 for the text encoding), with ASCII adaptations only as a parenthetical backup for those with old browsers/crappy fonts/text consoles. (Images are another, also unappetizing, possibility.) Brion VIBBER

Already done.  :-) pgdudda

Please can somebody just specify a unicode font or 3 in the text? They are easy enough to get and one at least (Lucida Sans Unicode) seems to come with either Windows or some Windows apps. Numeric character references only work if a suitable font is provided anyway. I would recommend that the font faces be provided explicitly in the HTML rather than the stylesheets, since many browsers cannot understand standard CSS.

origins of Roman alpha usage?

I'd be curious to know roughly when Vietnam began using the Roman alphabet. Seems that would be useful to add here and/or in History of Vietnam. Wesley

Roman characters were introduced by Portugese and Spanish Catholic Missionaries and Traders in 17th century. At the time, the port of Hop Pho (in central Vietnam) was a trading zone. The first usage of the writing system was the translation of the Bible into Vietnamese. However, the usage was limited around the area.

In late 19th century and early 20th century, modernization movements popularized the use of the writing system and established it as the national standard system of writing. There were many printing presses in major cities and the early 20th century was said to be the Golden Age of vietnamese litterature. Only then that the writing system was standardized by a cooperative effort. Contrary to some belief, the writing system was not standardized to reflect Hanoi speakers pronunciations, but rather was a compromise between different regions.

Linh t tran (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)linh_t_tran

bad translation

The English translation of the poem is horrible. However, I'm not qualified enough to do it justice. "Four scores and two ten years" is too wordy. The first line of the poem literally says "A hundred year within the life of a person..."

---

Here is my proposed translation:

 One hundred years in the human world,
 Talent and fate seem to oppose each other.
 Through a life shattering event,
 Seeing the fragments of life is extremely painful.
 Strange not, lose that and gain this.
 The god is habitually jealous of beautiful girl.

-- Translator 04:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hope you like my version of 23 January 2007:

A hundred years of human existence,

Prodigy and fate intertwined in conflicts,

Mulberry fields turned into open sea,

Enough's been seen to melt the heart.

Little wonder that beauty begets misery,

For Blue Heaven's jealous of exquisite glamour!

TVBZ28 (talk) 20:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

"Tram nam" should not be translated litterally to "one hundred years". It should rather be "since hundred years", in the sense of "it has always been". Linh t tran (talk) 18:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)linh_t_tran

To learn Vietnamese quickly go to www.udemy.com/learn-to-speak-vietnamese-like-a-native — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.5.151.152 (talk) 19:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Every single sentence in your attempt at translating Vietnamese into English could be improved if you supplied at least one verb with a clearly defined tense, mood, action, person, and number. You can't just postpone it to the end of the sentence (or to the end of the paragraph), as English frowns on any kind of structure like that. (Nor is there a poetic exception to the rule.) Without having any ability to speak Vietnamese, I shall assume you meant to write something like:

Even though it takes a hundred years for a man to live out his life,

there is still the matter of his finding his fate and witness it fighting it out with his prodigy:

mulberry fields are actually spanned by endless waves of sinking sea,

why, isn't there enough here to melt your heart the moment you see it?

And as it does, realize, it is only a glimpse of beauty, and yet it is still enough to bring you to a state of misery.

It is a kind of jealousy. Heaven is green with envy of the glamour so incredibly exquisite.

In other words, feel free to add verbs that have clearly defined tenses. I guess Vietnamese doesn't use as many verbs as English does. And remember to add a number to your verbs. Finally, avoid intransitive verbs until you understand why a transitive verb can't be found to replace it.. Otherwise, your translation comes off looking like pidgin English. What works in Vietnamese doesn't work in English. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 00:18, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

computers & unicode

It would good if the computer support section mentioned that there are both combining characters and precomposed characters for Vietnamese in Unicode — and the reasons why and possible problems because of the two systems. — Hippietrail 23:21, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

history inaccuracies

The history section isn't totally accurate:

1. Vietnam actually had two ways to use Chinese characters: chu nho and chu nom.
2. Vietnam is not surrounded by countries which use "ideographic" characters. Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos all use syllabaries ultimately from the same source as Devanagari.

— Hippietrail 03:08, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Countries around Vietnam uses abugida. CanCanDuo 03:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I edited the historic information under "Writing system" to give more context. It wasn't wrong exactly, but a little misleading before. Here's what is was in case people want to keep some of it: Before French rule, the first two Vietnamese writing systems were based on Chinese script:

• the standard Chinese character set called chữ nho (scholar's characters, 𡨸儒): used to write Literary Chinese
• a complicated variant form known as chữ nôm (southern/vernacular characters, 𡨸喃) with characters not found in the Chinese character set; this system was better adapted to the unique phonetic aspects of Vietnamese which differed from Chinese

UrbanHaiku (talk) 18:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)UrbanHaiku

diacritics?

Can someone explain why the vietmanese writing has so many markings? Also, can someone list the prounciations of each letter of that is possible like in spanish?

Vietnamese is a tonal language, and some of the diacritical marks signify the tonal quality of a syllable (such as o versus ò, in which o has the level tone and ò has a falling tone). Another class of diacriticals signify whether a vowel is pronounced "long" or "short" (such as o versus ô, where ô is pronounced like "oh" in English, while o is pronounced somewhat similarly to "ah"). These two types of diacritical marks can be combined in the same letter, indicating for example a long "oh" with a rising tone, and can appear somewhat complicated to one unfamiliar with the orthography. Please take caution with my explanation, however, as I am merely a student of the language, and I am neither fluent nor literate in the language.

— Ryanaxp

Vietnamese has 10 basic vowels, with 2 pairs of short-long distinction. ô-o is not long-short difference.

As a native Viet speaker, I just want to add that the Vietnamese alphabet was originally created by non-native speakers, Portugese to be specific. As such, there may have been a tendency to exoticize it. Or it was just plain incompentence. However, there is no reason why ê in Lê cannot be written as Lei or why ô cannot be written as oe or oh as the above user suggested. Or why the normal d is pronounced as a y. For example, Dung is actually pronounced Yung.

As for the tone markings, that is undoubtedly necessary. However, for the most common words, even that can be omitted. For example, every Viets know that Hanoi is pronounced Hànội, just as every English speaker would recognized that hour is pronounced "our" with a silent h.

I would love to see native Vietnamese linguists get together and rationalize the system. — a.t

• I studied Vietnames in 36 weeks of language school with the US Army. Our teachers were all VN nationals and they all had their little linguistic idiosyncracies that showed how flexible the langage was even though we were being taught with a classic set of rules — and I was studying the Southern dialect. The Vietnamese language was a corruption of the Chinese language in order to disguise it from the ancient enemies of the Han dynasties. This is our original Viet Ngu everyone has heard about. After more than 3,000 years of tossing around, it came to the southerners like most agrarian societies, unbooked and unlearned, It was a Portuguese missionary Alexandre de Rhodes (ca. 1560) who began to romanticize the language (with a romance alphabet) and began compiling a dictionary of the language into Portuguese and Latin. After all that time the language did not become nationalized until about 1920 where the North and the South could somewhat recognize a common language between them. I'm not sure that sitting VN linguists down will solve much because I think they might not be able to reconcile alot of the differences. As for learning VN from parents, many of the VN refugees in the US are from the south. Not to take it away from them, but many are unschooled in the language. As a result I am seeing alot of variation in spellings from the younger generations, and I think we will soon have a new VN language here in So Cal. It happens. Magi Media 04:46, 28 March 2006 (UTC)Magi Media

tone or pitch?

Can anyone explain what tone or pitch is? Many of us have wired together tone generators from integrated chips and just as many (perhaps more) have no experience with wiring any chips together. They claim to recognize tone when they hear it. As for myself, I know what a tone generator is. For instance, if you hook up a 6 volt battery to a couple of I556 chips, and observe the wiring diagram, you can get a perfect tone every time you complete the circuit. The main page of this article will be vastly improved if there is a discussion about tone, and how it is a linguistic feature that is distinct from other sounds like pitch. Or at least put in a link to something that explains it. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 00:30, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Take a look at tonal language. DHN (talk) 03:24, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

pronunciation additions

Hi. I added a lot stuff about vowels & gave my sources. I got rid of the SAMPA vowel chart. SAMPA is very unsophisticated & is only used on the Net. But, since there is the technology to write mostly decent IPA now, I think it should be used. I recommend a comparison of Nguyễn & Thompson. Nguyễn's work is current (he died in 2000, I think). Thompson did his field work around Saigon in the 50s & later had Vietnamese consultants in America in the 60s. But he moved on to Native American linguistics. I would guess that most American textbooks are based on Thompson (?). I want to add more about diphthongs & the writing system, but I that will come later. Comments, you can email.

Ish ishwar 10:59, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

too much?

Am I writing too much? Someone please advise. Create a separate Vietnamese phonology section?

Ish ishwar 05:29, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think you're doing fine. The article is small as it is. DHN 23:58, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Amen to that. Superb job, Mr. Ishwar. Pointing out the inconsistences in the phonetic representations is essential, and you have done that. My only quibble is the choice of Hà Nội as the "main" dialect. It's like choosing British or American variants of English as the correct one. I'm used to the HCMC variant. I might add some corrections a little later to compare HN versus HCMC.

Hi. Thanks for the encouragement. I would like to continue adding more information about some of the other varieties of Vietnamese. I didnt choose the Hanoi variety for any reason other than this variety is the main focus of the works I am consulting (which are mostly Nguyễn 1997 & Thompson 1965). Thompson has published on Saigon (HCMC) Vietnamese in an earlier article in Language. There are some other things (some written in Vietnamese & French) which I dont have. Cheers! - Ish ishwar 07:06, 2005 Jan 19 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the Northern (Hanoi) dialect is usually considered the more "educated" one. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 04:57, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

It's not considered to be more educated, it's only usually thought of as more accurate.--82.23.1.34 20:12, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I find the three dialects fascinating. For example, most songs are sung in the northern Ha Noi dialect, but TV programs translated from Chinese/Korean are almost always translated into Southern Sai Gon dialect. A friend of mine notes that according to the way Vietnamese is written, all 3 dialects are wrong. The Northern Ha Noi Dialect mispronounces the beginning of the word - "tr" and "ch" are the same, "d", "gi", and "r" are pronounced the same. The Middle Hue Dialect mispronounces the middle or the tone of the word - the neutral and falling tones remain the same, while all the other tones get downgraded to the low-broken tone. On the other hand, the Southern Sai Gon Dialect misprounounces the final consonants of the word - final consonants "c" and "t" sound the same, final consonants "n" and "ng" sound the same, and final consonants "ch" and "t" in certain circumstances sound the same too. In my humble opinion, "correct" Vietnamese should be a combination of all 3 dialects, so that no one dialect could claim that it is the most "prestigious" or "official dialect". Interestingly, there is one singer, Quang Le, that sings in this combination dialect, and I think it sounds very "standard". - Phil Hong Nguyen, MD 21 Oct 2007

new phonology article

Hi.

I am thinking about making a separate Vietnamese article on the sound system because the page is in excess of 32 kb & I want to add a considerable amount of material on a phonetic description of (1) consonants, (2) tones, (3) orthography, (4) dialectal variation (only phonetics though). This will probably make the page a little unwieldy.

My question to you is: What to call the article?

I cant see a standarized naming convention for this. Below are some names of similar articles from different languages:

• French phonology and orthography
• German alphabet
• German pronunciation
• English alphabet
• English spelling
• Regional accents of English speakers
• Spanish phonology

So we could have one or two or three articles with names modeled after the above depending on how we divide the information up. I dont see a point in creating separate alphabet and spelling pages (for Vietnamese or English).

Assuming the new article(s) is/are agreed upon by everyone, then the remaining question is what to leave in the main Vietnamese language article.

Suggestions/comments?

- Ish ishwar 19:28, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Great idea.

There seems to be a consensus on phonology for the French and Spanish articles. You can create an article entitled Vietnamese phonology and have Vietnamese pronunciation and Vietnamese dialects redirect there. DHN 22:47, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Phono update:

• created Vietnamese phonology
• move detailed info from this article to phonology article
• inprove tone chart
• greatly simply phono description

One important thing to note is that I have made a decision to use only the orthography in this article. Readers who are interested in phonetics/phonology are referred to the phonology article for IPA transcription and more detail description & analysis. My reason for doing this is that the use of phonetic notation may be unnecessarily complicated for the non-phonetically-oriented, more casual reader. This practice has been adopted in many pedagogical works and even in the rather technical works by Thompson (1965) and Nguyễn (1997). Some authors may take issue with this, though — so I'm letting you know. (If you are interested, I have a discussion with another linguistically-oriented reader about using orthography in Navajo.)

- Ish ishwar 19:39, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

Redirects added

I added the redirects for "Vietnamese pronounciation" and "Vietnamese dialects. I hope it helps.

--Tphcm 06:31, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Khmer Krom and the population of Vietnamese speakers

I noticed the number of speakers of Vietnamese listed in the chart was revised downward with a notice added about the Khmer Krom. However, from my experiences in Vietnam, the great majority (indeed, if not the totality) of Khmer Krom living in the Saigon area spoke Vietnamese natively. This does not mean that they did not also speak Khmer natively, as well, and perhaps the number of Khmer-speakers should include such percentage of Khmer Krom who are believed to speak Khmer. However, I think it would be a mistake to exclude Khmer Krom speakers of Vietnamese from the tally of Vietnamese speakers as much as it would be to exclude, by way of analogy, Welsh-speakers (who indeed number over half a million) from the tally of English-speakers, because as with the Khmer Krom and the Vietnamese language, essentially all native Welsh-speakers (apart from toddlers and possibly a dozen or so elderly people) are also native English-speakers. --Ryanaxp 15:50, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think we should count second-language speakers since the field is "total speakers". Even if the the Khmer Krom don't speak Vietnamese natively, the vast majority do speak Vietnamese (as do most other minorities in this 80+ million people country). DHN 04:35, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

hi. you could also just list both. a discussion in the article body could explain this further. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 05:25, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

Use Unicode in language description pages?

Please can somebody more skilled than I put Unicode font faces (eg: Lucida Sans Unicode, Doulos SIL) into language description pages? It is VERY annoying to see little square boxes where we KNOW a readable character must live.

The HTML entity construction {&[#]nnnn;} does not always work, especially on older browsers -- I use IE5.01 and Opera 6.05.

I would also suggest that a larger range of Unicode fonts be given for users' browsers to choose from -- I mentioned Lucida and Doulos simply because they fell into my machine on another excursion. This is especially important if the font faces are embedded in external stylesheets.

Lead paragraph

"Although it contains much vocabulary borrowed from Chinese and was originally written using Chinese characters, it is considered by linguists to be one of the Austroasiatic languages, of which it has the most speakers by a significant margin (three to four times the number of speakers of the other languages combined)".

Is this sentence a little backwards? In other words, wouldn't it be more informative to mention the genetic language family first, and only after the Chinese information? In a way that would be more objective, more centered on Vietnamese itself and less centered on a foreign language as a point of reference. ~ Dpr 06:32, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

yes, it is a little bit misleading. it was written by authors who apparently thought it was related to Chinese languages (you can get this from some of the first comments on this talk page), and thus worded in this way. perhaps some were surprised to find that it wasnt. i associate this type of confusion with thinking that Chinese and Japanese languages are related or that all Native Americans speak the same language, etc. please continue your edits. peace. – ishwar  (speak) 06:54, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

Overseas Vietnamese

Can we get a link for overseas Vietnamese? Thanks ~ Dpr 06:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Try Viet Kieu and Vietnamese American. DHN 09:01, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

DHN, thanks for the help but if you read the definition of Viet Kieu in the article, it clearly applies only to a subset of overseas Vietnamese and inherently NOT "overseas Vietnamese" as a comprehensive group: namely, it defines Viet Kieu as only those who left after 1975...an enormous part of the overseas Vietnamese left far before 1975. Therefore Viet Kieu should be separate from overseas Vietnamese (OV), or the definition of OV and Viet Kieu should be defined in the article to be the same entity, and also to include those who emigrated pre-1975. Hope that makes sense. Thanks! ~ Dpr 00:55, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The article's definition is wrong. Việt Kiều in Vietnamese had nothing to do with whether they left before or after 1975. This is similar to huáqiáo in Chinese (with Viet replacing Hoa). This term was in use long before 1975. BTW: Of the about 3 million overseas Vietnamese, about 300,000 left before 1975 (mainly to neighboring countries and France). DHN 05:58, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cool. I already suspected what you just confirmed...though I had overestimated the size of pre-75 emigrants. I can fix the article when I have time, or anyone else can go ahead. Peace! ~ Dpr 06:18, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Additions

Are the additions of User:172.155.60.145 linguistically sound? The "influence" of Mandarin? ~ Dpr 07:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The text you refer to was re-added on June 30, 2005, although the editor who added it has not justified such an assertion by providing documentation. I therefore reverted the article to an earlier version that did not include the text that asserts a connection between Vietnamese and Mandarin Chinese phonologies. Without any appropriate documentation, such a theory apparently amounts only to a pet theory—which is impermissible original research. —Ryanaxp June 30, 2005 15:53 (UTC)

It is conceivable that the author meant "similarity" rather than "influence", thereby being attempting a descriptive not a causative statement? ~ Dpr 1 July 2005 01:53 (UTC)

Vowels

This is absolutely incorrect!

There are two of these semivowels: y and w. Vietnamese has many diphthongs of this type. Furthermore, these semivowels may also follow the first three diphthongs (iâ, uâ, ưâ ) resulting in triphthongs.

Vietnamese, for example, has no "w" – not even the W sound, except in foreign words embedded in the text. (The Vietnamese Wikipedia is named "Wikipedia", but it'd be phonetically written as Ui-khi-pé-đi-a or something like that.) Such a sound at the end of a word would be written as an o following another vowel. Furthermore, there's no such thing as iâ or ưâ in Vietnamese text.

 –Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs, blog) 29 June 2005 01:23 (UTC)

I see what the writer wanted to explain, but it's a little bit short and not accurate. I think the writer wanted to say that Vietnamese has diphtongs and triphtongs and how they are built. That can be better seen in the section about syllable structure in the Vietnamese phonology article. Vietnamese has 14 nuclei: 11 are a,ă,â,e,ê,i,o,ô,ơ,u,ư. The other 3 are: iê/ia, uô/uo, and ươ/ưa. Vietnamese has indeed the two semivowels /w/ and /j/ that can combine with the above nucleuses (but some combinations are not allowed!) The W-sound in Vietnamese is written u or o like in uă, uâ, oa, oe, uy, uơ, for example Wikipedia would be rendered as Uy-ki-pê-đia, pronounced We-ghee-pay-dear. /w/ can be before OR after certain nucleuses. In contrast /j/ can only appear after the nucleus like in hai or cây. That's how triphthongs are built: a /w/ before and another /w/ or /j/ after the nucleus: e.g. ngoai (/Nwaj/), khuỷu (/Kwiw/). To sum it up: Vietnamese has semivowels that can add to the full vowels to form diphthongs and triphthongs.

--- Retval 29 June 2005 21:06 (UTC) ---

"Obvious"

To whom is it obvious that labeling the Vietnamese name of the language as Vietnamese? To most, surely. But at the risk of sounding condescending, yet--I believe--accurate, I suggest it is necessary to appeal to the broadest common denominator. Moreover, sometimes language names are glossed in a language other than that being described, thus leading to possible confusion. Thanks ~ Dpr 1 July 2005 01:55 (UTC)

It seems ridiculous to me to use the term that we're defining to define it. DHN 1 July 2005 02:51 (UTC)

It may very well be ridiculous to refer to the very language we're defining in such close proximity to its own definition, but not intrinsically ridiculous because there is still some remote possibility for ambiguity. In any case, I fully concede, as your proposed approach seems to be the standard across Wikipedia. Thanks ~ Dpr 4 July 2005 04:30 (UTC)

"Generally accepted" Austric super-family?

I changed the claim that the Austric super-family is generally accepted - that is simply incorrect; the language super-families are controversial and a minority view. See e.g. the last chapter of "The Power of Babel", John McWhorter (Berkeley linguistics professor). Reaverdrop 04:52, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Archaic Chinese Features

Syllables with plosive endings are not found in Japanese. They rather become 2 syllables. Also, actually many non-Chinese languages also have those plosive endings, thus does not represent Archaic Chinese features. -qrasy-

RoyW 22:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)==pronunciation== Vietnamese 't' is different from English 'd' (at beginning of the word). The Vietnamese 'đ' is instead. Vietnamese 't' is the same as the Mandarin 'd'. — Mashizen (talk · contribs) (08:16, 2005 December 1)

hi. this is incorrect. Vietnamese 't' (IPA: [t]) is most similar to English 'd' as it is pronounced at the beginning of words. This pronunciation is usually a voiceless consonant (sometimes it's partially voiced, like in extremely careful speech; but this is not the usual pronunciation). A Vietnamese 't' is more like French 't' or Spanish 't' or Mandarin 'd' which are usually voiceless more consistently than English. (note that the reason why the symbol 'd' is used for Mandarin transliteration is because it is based on the usual pronunciation of this symbol in English).

Vietnamese 'đ' (IPA: [ʔd~ʔɗ]) is like English 'd' as it is pronounced in the middle of words before an unstressed vowel (however, sometimes these are partially voiceless, too), unless, of course, it is flapped (in which case, English 'd' may be like Vietnamese 'r'). Vietnamese 'đ' is more similar to French 'd' or Spanish 'd' which are fully voiced more consistently than English. Actually, to be more precise, Vietnamese 'đ' is different from all these sounds, but for the purposes of pedagogy these differences may be overlooked to some extent.

In other words,

Viet 't' = Fr 't', Sp 't', Man 'd', Eng 'd' (word-initial), Eng 't' (after 's')

Viet 'đ' = Fr 'd', Sp 'd', Eng 'd' (in unstressed syllable)

peace – ishwar  (speak) 16:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I removed "or Spanish." Spanish /d/ is a fricative in most realizations, so the comparison is liable to confuse.RoyW 22:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Speakers in China

Although the absolute number of Vietnamese speakers in China is negligable (20-30 000), it is important to note it as a "native" language among one of China's minority nationalities: the Gin people or Kinh. Le Anh-Huy 05:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Tr vs. Ch

What the article says about the pronounciation of "tr" and "ch" in the Northern, and Central dialects should be the other way around, for Southern dialects, at least. I'm a native speaker of the Northern dialect and I've lived around Southerners and those from Central Vietnam all my life. In fact, the Romanized version of written Vietnamese is based on largely on the Hanoi dialect. That is why "tr" and "ch" exist for the words châu, pearl, and trâu, water buffalo. People who speak northern dialects have two very distinct pronounciations of "tr" and "ch." As one travels south, the pronounciation of "tr" and "ch" become more blended until the Southern "ch" is used for both "tr" and "ch". If the Romanized version were based largely on the Southern dialects, châu and trâu would be homonyms because Southerners make no spoken distinction between them. --FernNation

I am a Southerner and can distinguish the difference between châu and trâu but can't when Northerners pronounce them. For example, consider the words for "tea". The northern word "chè" for the tea plant is indistinguishable from the word "trà" for processed tea. DHN 08:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

hi. Although I cant answer this question, I offer the following comments:

Obviously saying that the Vietnamese language(s) can be divided into 3 regional variants is a very broad generalization. The actual distribution of dialectal features (such as differing pronunciations) will be more complicated. (In fact, it may be very misleading to say there is a 3-way division, but since I dont know the literature I dont if this is so). There is definitely more written on this & you can consult some of the works in the bibliography for more detailed description.

I will point out that there is a rather detailed descriptive work which is written in Vietnamese:

• Hoàng, Thị Châu. (1989). Tiếng Việt trên các miền đất nước: Phương ngữ học. Hà Nội: Khoa học xã hội.

I havent found the time to read this book, but I understand that it has an amazing amount detail. (Just flipping through it, I see that it has some dialect maps). So, it may be useful to compare your observations with Hoàng's observations.

good luck investigating! – ishwar  (speak) 14:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I suppose this issue is a debateable one. I've come across sites that verify the Vietnamese Language article says [1], but I can't disregard my own what my own ear heard either. FernNation 22:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

More Pronouns

I think there should be also Tao (as the complement to May) and Cau (close buddy). Some Vietnamese native might want to add them.

See Vietnamese pronouns. DHN 08:33, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Dialects

Dialects in Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi are quite different from those ones in Quảng Bình , Quảng Trị and Huế ( former Bình Trị Thiên or Thuận Hóa) . Even lots of people in Quảng Nam, Quảng Ngãi have still mistaken people from Quảng Bình , Quảng Trị for ones -who comes from Huế when hearing their accents.--Hanh mad (talk) 09:16, 9 August 2013 (UTC) In general, dialects do not only differ in pronounciation, but also in grammar and vocabulary. IMHO the article right now focusses only on the proncounciation, where at least there is also a difference in vocuabulary.

Next, based on used vocabulary (and maybe grammar) in official documents like the constitution, laws, etc. it should be possible to define the official written dialect.

However, comparing e.g. to German, where there exists one official dialect ("High German") that is taught in schools, that you hear on National Television etc, there seems to be no official spoken dialect in Vietnam.

Finally, it might be worthwhile noting, that as far as I know, there is a continuum in Vietnamese dialects, without any strict border. That is different e.g. from Germay, where there exist e.g. often quite clear borders (e.g. a river) between dialects like Bavarian, Suebian, Franconian. Of course inside one dialect area the dialect then changes continuously, same like in the whole of Vietnam.

Stefan in Hanoi

I believe the Hai Van Pass that traditionally separates Northern and Southern Vietnam would count as one physical border.

- Michael Nguyen — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.72.10 (talk) 07:24, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Viet-Muong to Vietic in the databox?

Currently Viet-Muong languages redirects to Vietic, should that article be renamed or the databox here?--KingZog 05:19, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Sound changes from Chinese - expansion

It would really be nice if we had a whole section or article describing the sound changes and shifts from Cantonese or Mandarin Chinese to Vietnamese. If you compare Vietnamese and Chinese, many words seem to follow a special pattern, like the High German consonant shift or Grimm's Law. http://www.vny2k.com/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese6.htm might be a fairly good source, although it does appear to have some bias and inaccuracies because it is a draft of a student paper. — Stevey7788 (talk) 05:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Help with translation

I'm currently working on a script intended to create short articles on political parties on a variety of wikipedias simultaneously. However, in order for the technique to work I need help with translations to various languages. If you know any of the languages listed at User:Soman/Lang-Help, then please help by filling in the blanks. For example I need help with Vietnamese. Thanks, --Soman 15:08, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Help to update my Win98 to display VN correctly?

Can my Win98 be updated to display VN correctly? Instead of the correct letter, I just see a "box". The CDs aren't available to me. Can I do something so that I can see the correct letters instead of boxes? Can someone walk me thru it step-by-step? Feel free to email me on pwt898 at msn dot com

Most words disyllabic?

"however, most words are indeed disyllabic. This is largely because of the many reduplication words that appear in household vocabulary, or adjectives."

The second part of this is very confusing--how is "or adjectives" related to the rest of the sentence? Does "household vocabulary" mean that reduplicated forms are confined to certain informal registers?

The main statement is also puzzling--it is surely not true that most of the words in a typical Vietnamese text are reduplicated forms, and otherwise the vast majority of words appear to be monosyllables.

RoyW 22:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Vietnamese Is Sinitic

Tonality is not known as an attribute of Mon-Khmer languages. Yet, they put a tonal language in a basket of non-tonal languages and call it Mon-Khmer, and they keep defending the indefensible. [Something under dispute cannot be described as a "generally accepted view", by the way.] To justify their doings, they would go such lengths, as far as to claim that tones in Vietnamese were a recent acquisition! [Haudricourt: The Vietnamese tone development evolved from none to being completely formed by the 12th century!]

Go ahead and claim that -like Vietnamese- Japanese and Korean have developed tones, too! Jokes aside, face it, there is something severely wrong there in their way of reasoning. The examples of Japanese and Korean are enough to rebut the theory.

The tones set Vietnamese apart from all the rest. Refusing to see that is sheer ignorance. T.Vd./

More than 150 years of research have pretty much concluded that Vietnamese is Mon-Khmer. Only a few Chinese researchers are still under the delusion that Vietnamese is Sinitic (hint: look at the grammatical structure and base words). DHN 02:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The names Maspero, Forrest, Pulleyblank, Campbell and the like are all Chinese names, according to DHN, Cf. post above. T.Vd./

You claim that korean never developed tones doesn not back up your argument. Korean have been shown to historically have tones, as evident by its hangul writing system but tones were simply lost. Much words in Japanese is accented. To further distort you claim that vietnamese is sinitic, there are many languages in Mon-Khmer besides vietnamese that have tones. Even an austronesian language (Tsat) have tone. CanCanDuo 03:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Do accented words in Japanese mean the same as tones in Vietnamese & Chinese?

No.

How do the arguments listed above support the theory of tone acquisition?

They don't. Claiming that some languages (Korean in the example) "simply lost" tones at some stage in history does nothing to support Haudricourt's argument.

Meanwhile however, the author of that claim [CanCanDuo 03:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC)] seems to have switched his way of reasoning by 180 degrees in direction, coming from "...tones were simply lost..." to "...You must know, tonality is easily gained..." [Cf. message below, CanCanDuo 23:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)]. Apparently, tones can be "simply lost" and yet at the same time also "easily gained", according to CanCanDuo. And the world "must know". That much of CanCanDuo's reasoning.

Vietnamese and Chinese have often been cited as examples of tonal and monosyllabic languages [More recently, also referred to as dissyllabic]. For comparison, why aren't Mon-Khmer languages cited for such examples?

Because they are not known as such. Cambodian in particular is not a tonal language. T.Vd./

There has never been any evidence of "toneless" Vietnamese at any stage in history, from the Hundred Yüeh to the present days. The modern Vietnamese tonal system fits well into the Middle-Chinese tonal scheme that had been completely formed around the 9th century [with four tones in two registers.] Had Haudricourt's theory been dated back to the 2nd century, it might have been plausible, but how would they explain the tones in Vietnamese folksongs, believed to have originated from ancient times?

Japanese and Korean are the two languages that have borrowed massively from Chinese just like Vietnamese has. Cf. Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean, Sino-Vietnamese. [Not to mention the overwhelmingly large amount of Sinitic-Vietnamese.] The Japanese Kanji was devised without the tones however. The same for Korean. Contrary to Haudricourt's theory, they did not acquire tones from Chinese. It is unconceivable that "toneless" Vietnamese borrowed words without tones fisrt and then added them later. In contrast to non-tonal Japanese and Korean, the Vietnamese Chu Nom [based on Han-Chinese and in use for over a thousand years, now nearly extinct] had to accommodate for tones inherent to Vietnamese. [The ChuNom characters usually consisted of a phonetic element and a semantic element.] Tones in Chu Nom asides, the examples of Japanese and Korean alone are enough to reject the theory of tone acquisition.

The Vietnamese pronunciation of some Chinese characters is closest to Cantonese, Cantonese known as a tonal Yüeh language; For example Zhao Wu Wang/Chiu Mu Wong/Trieu Vu Vuong are, respectively, Mandarin/Cantonese/Vietnamese pronunciations of the same characters for "Zhao, the Martial Emperor", with Vietnamese "Trieu" in the 6th tone pronounced the same as Cantonese "Chiu". [The characters refer to the first ruler of Nan Yüeh (or Nam Viet); Cf. Trieu or Zhao dynasty, 208BC - 111BC.]

Vietnamese shares a tonal system with the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family, on the Chinese model among other things, such as mono-syllabics/dis-syllabics, no inflection, grammar highly relying on word order, noun classifiers.

Like Chinese, the grammar relies on word order for intelligibility, even though adverbs can commute: [Adverb(s)] Subject [Adverb(s)] Verb [Adverb(s)] Object. The present days' order of adjectives & nouns separates Vietnamese from Chinese, but actually the "proper" order (adjective followed by noun) has always been used interchangeably in the language. [Examples of adjectives followed by nouns are: "Dai Viet Su Ky" (13th century usage) -> "Great Viet Historical Records"; "Viet Nam Cach Mang Donh Minh Hoi" (20th century usage) -> "Vietnamese Revolutionary Allied League"; "Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang" (20th century usage) -> "Vietnamese National People's Party". The symbol "->" means "...translating word by word (in the order shown) literally into..."]

Maspero, H. (1952) classified Vietnamese with the Thai languages of the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family. Forrest, R. (1958) shared his viewpoint. Pulleyblank, E.G. (1984) recognized that Vietnamese is typologically closer to Chinese than is Japanese or Korean and, in many ways, even Tibetan. The view that Vietnamese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family is also shared by Peng Chu’nan (1984) and others.

Vietnamese originally started out from a common Yüeh linguistic root and then, quoting from http://vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese5.htm#sino-tibetan, it had gone its way in the Sino-Tibetan route, intertwined and interpolated with Chinese, blending itself beautifully with all Chinese elements, and finally evolved as a language of that linguistic family. T.Vd./

So does many unrelated languages to Chinese. Tsat, a descendant of Cham Malay is tonal, monosyllabic. Mon uses noun classifiers, no inflection, and is mostly monosyllabic also. Your argument is should be on the Mon-Khmer page. You must know, tonality is easily gained. Old Chinese was not tonal, the overwhelming amount of sino-tibetan languages are neither monosyllabic or tonal just because Chinese is. Not good enough. Mon-Khmer rely on the same system. Thai is unrelated to Chinese. It is best assumed they were Sinicized. No, actually Yue refers to may people. Many people of Mon-Khmer descent live around China and Burma. Based on linguistic evidence it is best assumed that Mon-Khmer dominated eastern India all the way to southern china and northern Vietnam until Sino-Tibetan migrated downwards CanCanDuo 23:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is the place to have arguments about what the correct classification is. The question is which view is the mainstream, and I believe the answer is the view that Vietnamese is Mon-Khmer. If there's a significant minority that think Vietnamese is Sino-Tibetan, it could be added to the article alongside the Mon-Khmer theory, but it should be made clear who holds that view and who doesn't. --Ptcamn 08:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right, what should be add is the mainstream view. The mainstream view is that Vietnamese, although heavily affected by Chinese is not related to Chinese. Tones and monosyllabic is not unique to Sino-Tibetan languages, they are also presented in many African languages. CanCanDuo 23:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

CanCanDuo 23:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC):"best assumed" that "...Mon-Khmer dominated eastern India all the way to southern china...". Something falling out of the sky and take it! What a way to "reason"! What is more, reasoning CanCanDuo's way, Sino-Tibetan & African should be classified as subbranches of Khmer! There is a line to draw between scientific speculations and hoaxes. CanCanDuo has gone beyond the scope of thsi discussion, also beyond his technical competence.

Returning to the discussion, unable to support Haudricourt, yet he reiterated "...You must know, tonality is easily gained...". That, in making such a statement, he completely ignored the post above on Korean & Japanese is remarkable enough. CanCanDuo 03:07, 29 January 2007 (UTC): "...tones were simply lost...". In view of a tone acquisition argument, CanCanDuo had lost orientation right from his very fisrt message on. T.Vd./

It is assumed that Mon-Khmer, or more accurately austroasiatic are the spoken languages in the region before the migrations of Tais, Sino-Tibetans, and Indo-Aryan. Why does this sound like propaganda? Because it claims something that is sensitive to many. But if you look at the evidence, there are Austroasiatic loans in many Sino-Tibetan languages from chinese to even munda words in Nepal.

Another argument, Tones are easily gained(vietnamese) and lost(korean), but it is not simply enough to categorize languages base on this. Khmer and Chinese are no where close to related, but a Mon-Khmer language under heavy chinese influence will develop chinese like characteristics, but at the same time still preserve its own ones. Vietnamese have three tones that are delivered through two registers, registers being common to Mon-Khmer. Vietnamese is more like chinese than most mon-khmer languages, but like I said, are not actually related. But does it corresponds to the standard comparative method? If not then it likely not related. Khmer is not related to Thai, but Khmer syntax is closer to thai than Mon. But then, Wikipedia is strict about veriable mainstream facts, not what we want to believe. CanCanDuo 11:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC):

What about Vietnamese people being Yue people? I'm sure this says something about our relationship to "Chinese". I hate how they keep saying that because of 1000 years of Chinese domination that we were influenced heavily by Chinese culture. I think it would make sense that the "chinese-like" characteristics of our culture are in actual fact, just that. That perhaps they were ours to begin with, I'd like to know how much of OUR culture influenced the Chinese, and how much of it was in fact ours! And thus, the argument for our language . It can't be the only language in the Mon-khmer to be so reliant on Tones. And that definitely says something. I find that Cantonese is more recognisable to me than Khmer, that obviously says something. CanCanDuo - I don't agree with the "easily gained" part of your argument. How can "Chao" with low pitch easily change to "Chao" high pitch to mean totally different things (hello, congee), they're not even related words, I'm assuming these words would have been used from the day the Vietnamese language was developing - when and where is my argument. How can it be more closely related to Khmer, when we're from Van Lang.

Vietnamese Is Sinitic: More Supporting Arguments

[01] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mon-Khmer

Extract:

The Mon-Khmer languages are the autochthonous language family of Southeast Asia. Together with the Munda languages of India, they are one of the two traditional primary branches of the Austroasiatic family. However, several recent classifications have abandoned this dichotomy, either reducing the scope of Mon-Khmer (Diffloth 2005) or breaking it up entirely (or equivalently reclassifying Munda as a branch of Mon-Khmer: Peiros 1998). See Austroasiatic languages.

[02] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austroasiatic_languages

Extract:

Classification

Linguists traditionally recognize two primary divisions of Austro-Asiatic: the Mon-Khmer languages of Southeast Asia, Northeast India and the Nicobar Islands, and the Munda languages of East and Central India and parts of Bangladesh. However, no evidence for this classification has ever been published, and it is possible that the linguistic classification has been influenced by researchers' subjective perception of a racial dichotomy between the speakers of languages that have traditionally been classified as Mon-Khmer and those that have traditionally been classified as Munda.

Each of the families that is written in boldface type below is accepted as a valid clade. However, the relationships between these families within Austro-Asiatic is debated; in addition to the traditional classification, two recent proposals are given, neither of which accept traditional Mon-Khmer as a valid unit. It should be noted that little of the data used for competing classifications has ever been published, and therefore cannot be evaluated by peer review.

[03] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietic_languages

Extract:

The Vietic languages are a branch of the Austroasiatic language family. (Also referred to by the older terms Vi?t-Mu?ng, Annam-Muong, Vietnamuong, but these are commonly understood to refer to a sub-branch of Vietic restricted to Vietnamese and Mu?ng.)

Vietnamese was identified as an Austroasiatic language in the mid nineteenth century, and there is now evidence for this classification. Vietnamese has also large stocks of borrowed Chinese and Tai vocabulary, and is today a monosyllabic tonal language like Cantonese or Tai rather than a prototypical Austroasiatic language. For these reasons there continues to be resistance to the idea that Vietnamese could be more closely related to Khmer than to Chinese or the Tai languages. However, these typological similarities are considered superficial, the result of language contact, and can be traced back to a much more typical Austroasiatic pattern. Many of the Vietic languages have tonal or phonational systems intermediate between that of Viet-Muong and other branches of Austroasiatic, for example.

[04] www.vny2k.net/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese.htm Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies

[05] www.glossika.com/en/dict/dialectv.php by James Campbell;

Extract:

...it appears that Vietnamese' affiliation with Vi??-M??ng, Mon-Khmer, and Austroasiatic, may in fact be a faulty case.

Uwe 123.243.142.170 (talk) 04:21, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Vietnamese Is Sinitic: Haudricourt's postulated date of the 12th century is wrong

One or two comments are in order:

1.) The Chinese-look alike ChuNom characters are unintelligible even to CJK speakers. "Devilishly difficult", commented a linguist and historian (chujoe.net), as something extra was needed to accommodate for the tones.

2.) Using the linguists' reasoning to quantify the matter, the tones must have been completely formed at the latest by the time ChuNom was devised in the 9th or 10th century, that is, well before the 12th century. Haudricourt was wrong by a huge margin.

3.) Extract from "The birth of Vietnam", ISBN 0520074173, By Keith Weller Taylor, page 43

...the following non-Chinese words in the Min dialect of Fu-chien are shared with Vietnamese and other Austroasiatic languages: "shaman" (Vietnamese dong), "child" (con), "damp, wet moist" (dam), "a type of crab" (sam), "to know, to recognize" (biet), "scum, froth" (bot), "duckweed" (beo), "a kind of small fish" (ke). Furthermore, the earliest references to the Vietnamese language, in Chinese sources of the second century A.D., identify the Vietnamese word for "to die" (chet) as a "Yüeh" word and the Vietnamese word for "dog" (cho) as a "Nan Yüeh" word...

...Considering this evidence, we can reasonably assume that the ancient Vietnamese were part of a broad linguistic-cultural world that included so-called Yüeh peoples in southeastern China...

Notice that the earliest record showed samples of "Nan Yüeh" words to be mono-syllabic, a characteristic that remarkably has remained unchanged over time into the present days. The examples shown are all mono-syllabic. A poly-syllabic language may incorporate a number of mono-syllabic words (The term "poly" simply means a quantity greater than one, one/"mono" inclusively), but the poly-syllables would imply no requirements for the tone to be varied in order for the speech to be able to carry different pieces of information. Chances therefore are that such a language is non-tonal. That being the case, mono-syllables, even di-syllables if there are any such things, are a strong indication for tonality for the ancient language under consideration. Ancient Vietnamese has never been shown to be poly-syllabic, in fact.

In conclusion, it is remarkable to note that a tonal language (Vietnamese ChuNom) in borrowing the writing script from another highly tonal language (Chinese) still had to invent the extra something, in order to satisfy the tonal requirements for that language (Vietnamese). That does tell one thing very important: The tones were inherent to the Vietnamese language. Linguists do not have the means to reason beyond recorded history (Earliest reference: 2nd century A.D.) but ancient Vietnamese's tone-inherence was conceivably likely; More likely than not. Words may have been transferable across cultures through language contact, but Vietnamese cannot have originated from a same linguistic root with other non-tonal languages of the region.

Thuy Nguyen 115.130.3.183 (talk) 09:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

interesting is The post above by Thui Nguyen (Is this a he or a she?)

From the examples of Nan Yueh words known in the literature, the author did a good job, by pointing out that those words were all monosyllables, and therefore the language was most likely tonal.

clearly, she even implied the term "Ancient Vietnamese" to be as far back in time as the pre-NamYueh era, which is the most intresting part of her message. That is, Ancient Vietnamese had already been tonal prior to Chinese contactt. Some people reject the idea that Archaic Chinese was non-tonal. But, just for an instance, assuming that that it was non-tonal, then the tone acquisitions (if any such things did occur) have been mis-interpreted in the wrong direction hitherto. Did Middle-Chinese, 7th to 12th cent AD, acquire tones from NanYueh languages?

More arguments on the subject:

Cf. robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/the-classification-of-the-vietnamese-language published on January 10, 2009 3:24 pm

This guy Robert Lindsay at wordpress.com establishes that

(1) ...There has long been a line arguing that Vietnamese is related to Sino-Tibetan (the family that Chinese is a part of). Even those who deny this acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount of borrowing from Chinese (especially Cantonese) to Vietnamese. This level of borrowing so long ago makes historical linguistics a difficult field...

(2) ...The cognates (between Vietnamese and Chinese) look like Chinese... ...Problem is, they look too much like Chinese. They look more like Chinese than they should in a genetic relationship. Further, they look like Chinese and only Chinese. Looking for relationships in S-T (Sino-Tibetan) outside of Chinese, and we find few if any...

(3) ...There seem to be way more cognates with Chinese than with Mon-Khmer. So many more, that the case for Vietnamese as AA (AustroAsiatic) looks almost silly, and you wonder how anyone came up with it...

having gone that far, this guy Robert Lindsay is open minded about Vietynamese being related to Sino-Tibetan.

Uwe 203.58.21.26 (talk) 08:24, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

"Did Middle-Chinese 7 th to 12th cent acquire tones from NanYueh language?"

Uwe, the post above only claimed tone inherence. The rest is your speculations. Don't speculate things. Leave it to the experts.

The post above by Thuy Ngyen is essentially a repeat from vny2k.com/vny2k/SiniticVietnamese5.htm "That is what Henri Maspero (1912) proposed in his research that tone is an inherent feature of languages and cannot be derived from non-tonal elements; a corollary of this view is that tonal languages could not be genetically related to languages which lacked one." "If Vietnamese is characteristically a non-tonal language inherently, as opposed to genetically per se, it would have intrinsically had no need to accentuate any foreign words with tones." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.107.4 (talk) 01:09, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The Map

The map is quite missleading in my opinion. It gives the impression that Vietnamese is a major language in countries like the USA, Australia and France, which it is not. Aaker 18:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The map is labeled "major Vietnamese-speaking communities", not "countries where Vietnamese is a major language". The countries colored in the map all have substantial Vietnamese-speaking populations. DHN 19:49, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Pronouns "Tao" and "May"

First time user here, so please accept my apologies for any unwitting breaches of etiquette.

The description on this page of "Tao" and "May" is somewhat inaccurate. It's a little better on the "Vietnamese Pronouns" page, but still doesn't really cover it.

Here, they are listed as:

Tao: I (speaking to subordinates, or extremely informal) Mày: you singular (to subordinates, or extremely informal)

Here in Hanoi, or at least the middle-class part of it I inhabit, "Tao" and "May" are highly pejorative.

Very close friends use them, in much the same way that in Britain very close friends may call one another "wanker" or similar (i.e. the insult is used to show the strength of the friendship, that the bond is far stronger than mere insults could disrupt), but outside of a very strong friendship, use of "Tao" or "May" shows extreme anger/displeasure, and I've certainly never heard it occur except in vicious arguments.

This is a minor point of course, but as the article stands an unwitting reader could get the impression that these pronouns aren't loaded. I think the article could benefit from a note somewhere pointing out (for the benefit of non-Native Vietnamese speakers) that it's best not to use them as they do carry the potential to cause offence.

Thien Dylan 05:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation guide

the following is a pronunciation guide, which I originally added to the article long ago. However, it should probably be moved to wikibooks as it is rather pedagogically oriented. Although this article lacks a spelling-to-sound correspondence mapping and Vietnamese alphabet does not have a complete explanation of the mapping, this information should be added in a way that is not like a pronunciation guide, I think. So, I removed it. – ishwar  (speak) 17:29, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

{start cut&paste}

====Simplified pronunciation guide====

At the beginning of syllables, sounds are pronounced as in English except for the following:

• c is like English k (and never like English c in cede or s in seed but c in code).
• ch is like Mandarin zh, similar to the j in English jar. (but never aspirated, as in English ch)
• Northern d is like English z. Southern d is like English y.
• đ is like French or Spanish d (except with the air being sucked inwards).
• g is like Dutch g or modern Greek gh (Γ).
• Northern gi is like English z while Southern gi is like English y.
• kh is like German or Scottish ch or Arabic or Persian kh.
• ng is like Korean ng (ㅇ) or English ng (without a g sound at the end)
• nh is like Portuguese nh, Spanish ñ, or French gn.
• ph is like English f.
• Southern qu is like English w. (Northern qu is the same as English qu (or kw)).
• Northern r is the same as English z. Southern r is variously like
  • a) English r or
  • b) French g or
  • c) Spanish r or
  • d) Spanish rr.
• Southern s is like English sh. (Northern s is the same as English s).
• t is like French or Spanish t or like Mandarin d (or like English t after s or English d at the beginning of words).
• th is like Hindi th (थ) or like English t at the beginning of words.
• Southern tr is like Hindi ṭ+ṣ (ट+ष) or like English tr with the tongue tip curled backwards.
• x is like English s.
• Southern v is like English y. (But, Northern v is the same as English v.)

{end cut&paste}

footnotes

the < ref > footnotes are not working right. the numbering is off by one number. anyone know why? – ishwar  (speak) 17:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

nevermind, i figured out how to fix it. Although I removed a note to do so. Maybe something changed in the behaviour of < ref >? – ishwar  (speak) 18:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Doubt

One can usually distinguish between a native Vietnamese word and a Chinese borrowing if it can be reduplicated or its meaning doesn't change when the tone is shifted.

For someone still not well-acquainted with Vietnamese, this is a tantalizing yet poorly explained piece of information. Could anyone here ellaborate? If the meaning doesn't change when the tone is shifted, then what is the origin of the word? Native Vietnamese or Chinese?189.7.125.222 (talk) 08:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Generally, native Vietnamese words will retain their meanings when their tones are shifted. Sino-Vietnamese words will change their meanings. DHN (talk) 19:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. I guess this info could be included in the article.

Syntactic classification (Grammar section)

Is Vietnamese analytic or isolating? These two terms are not identical. (I would edit it and choose the right one, only I don't know much about Vietnamese.) 89.138.151.18 (talk) 10:43, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

triphthongs

I added semivowel diacritics to the triphthongs per the description in the article. Please check I got them right. Also, the triphthong article lists the additional triphthongs [ui̯ʊ̯] as in khụyu 'to fall on one's knees' and [uɛ̯ʊ̯] as in quẹo 'to turn/twist'. This violates the phonotactics described in this article. Could someone check this too? Thanks, kwami (talk) 22:21, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think quẹo contains a triphthong, since qu is considered the consonant part and ẹo is the vowel part, but I'm not a linguist. DHN (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an unreliable, biased and misleading source of info

While this (web)page or similar may not be forums for general discussions about Vietnam, it should not be a vehicle for worldwide-distributing false and biased information about the subjects either.

Wikipedia aiming for Reliability, Neutrality? DHN messages have been counter-acting exactly that.

Quoted from Talk:Vietnamese people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

a.) DHN responding to user:leaki, on the origin of the Vietnamese people: They are Mon-Khmers who were Sinisized, not the other way around. DHN 19:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

b.) DHN responding to Le Anh-Huy's message of 07:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC), despite Le Anh-Huy clearly stating "I am of Vietnamese origin myself on both sides": ...You have European traits because somewhere you had a (white) European ancestor(s), which is not documented in your family history for various reasons including taboo... 13 Sep 06.

c.) DHN's "scientific" claim of genetic make-up for Vietnamese of Chinese origin: Of course there are Vietnamese who are classed as ethnic Chinese, but many of these are genetically less than 50% Chinese, and in fact predominantly Vietnamese genetically, and morphologically resembling the Vietnamese. 13 Sep 06.

d.) DHN is the idiot who originally wrote this article. DHN 01:20, 19 November 2006 (UTC).

e.) DHN's assessment of Vietnamese anthropology: I have serious doubts as to whether Eugene Trinh is really Vietnamese. DHN 06:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

Quoted from Talk:Yue (peoples):

f.) DHN casting doubt on Vietnam's history: Luoyue: Could someone tell me who the ?? (Luoyue) people are according to Chinese sources? Vietnamese sources hold that the Vietnamese people are the descendants of the L?c Vi?t (??) and Âu Vi?t (??) (hence An Duong Vuong's kingdom Âu L?c), and people such as the Trung Sisters were from the L?c clan. DHN 23:20, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

One messge from DHN more bizarre than another. Bizarre is an understatement.

DHN considers himself a Khmer, everything is Mon-Khmer to him. And he carries that Mon-Khmer attitude of his across everything, over a broad spectrum of issues, from the Vietnamese culture to their language and even anthropology. He even doubts Vietnam's history! Such a solid record of offences!!! DHN's messages have significantly contributed to all kinds of misperception of Vietnamese. That, DHN is a self-confessed idiot, is his only defense, which however does not change the nature, nor the severity of his offences. DHN should be banned from making any further comments on Vietnam. And China.

Wikipedia allowed such bizarre statements to be published. Obviously, Wikipedia is an unreliable, biased and misleading source of info, it shows. Wikipedia webpage on the Vietnamese language is no exception.

T.Vd./ 203.221.208.128 (talk) 03:11, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

What are you trying to prove? You seem to have put words in my mouth that I have never uttered. Perhaps you should look at the history to see exactly who said what. DHN (talk) 04:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages are for discussion on the content of the articles, not gossip about people's reliability. If you have a problem with statements made in the article, then we can discuss them. Otherwise this is pointless. kwami (talk) 08:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean, Kwami? We know that clearly, don't need say again and again. ArmorKing (talk) 12:21, 30 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nnq2603 (talk • contribs)

Where did Kwami say that again and again? And if you knew that, wouldn't you just have shut your mouth already? I don't understand why all this drama over a user flew to an Asian language talk page on a free online encyclopedia. Alright... Lady★Galaxy 21:48, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I am also sensing these repeated misleading information. Where are the references? They all seem to be unsubstantiated and contradictory opinions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.179.213.243 (talk) 12:31, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

People do not agree that 150 years of Mon Khmer identification of Vietnamese. 150 years of doing wrong thing. By citing showed Mon-Khmer biasing source of references of Alves Mark in the main page. And by support for Mon-Khmer publicely, the author of the main page is violated the principal of Wikipedia of Neutrality. Peter Nguyen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.58.21.26 (talk) 00:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Vietnamese language and computers

I had read through this article thoroughly, but I couldn't find anything on how exactly the Vietnamese are able to input Vietnamese text onto the computer. I know that Chinese, Japanese, and Korean have their own: Chinese input method, Japanese language and computers, and Korean language and computers. I tried to search for a Vietnamese one, even looked in the keyboarding articles... but nope, nowhere to be found. I know it can be done because I have seen Vietnamese webpages, the Vietnamese Wikipedia, and even Vietnamese posting on forums. Can anybody tell me how they get the Vietnamese text onto the computer? My dad is wondering as well. Thanks in advance. Also, maybe it should be tossed into this article or a new one should be created with that information along with its counterparts. Lady★Galaxy 21:52, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Read Vietnamese language#Computer support and Vietnamese alphabet#Computer support. DHN (talk) 00:48, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, I see now. Thanks! Lady★Galaxy 03:15, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Regional variation in grammatical words

What is the 'Regional variation in grammatical words' section suppose to convey? Is it spelling or pronunciation differences? If the latter it should be better noted that is the case. To me it looks like it's trying to document phrase with correct chu tie^'ng Vie^'et (spelling) differences.

If the latter than the spelling of several of the Southern words are misspelled. I don't care if its claimed this table is from "Hoa`ng (1989)" - that is a reference I cannot find access to, but I do know Vietnamese spelling. Perhaps the person that copied the stable from Hoa`ng (1989 mis-understood the information there?

Dr unix (talk) 03:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

You can't discount a source just because you can't access it. DHN (talk) 05:17, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

After The Fall of Saigon

Perhaps there should be mention that the use of words were changed after the Fall? For example commonly used words such as "Đại Hàn" (Korea) became commonly "Hàn Quốc" instead. Or "Á châu" (Asia) became "Châu Á". Basically the Vietnamese Communists decided to change the language to "change" the history of Vietnam. Like they did the flag. A lot of the time, they reversed the order if they couldn't find substitute words, as the examples above. Other times they found words similar and changed the words completely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.138.214.66 (talk) 06:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Ref. № 16

"^ As can be seen from the correspondences in the table, no Vietnamese dialect has preserved all of the contrasts implied by the current writing system. " -- The said table clearly contradicts the statement, showing that the North-Central consonant contrasts exactly correspond to the orthographic ones. I'm deleting it. Besides, it would be advisable to add some remarks on the N-C pronunciation of [ɟ]. 89.231.110.85 (talk) 16:58, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

tone mark in Vietnamese?

What is "tone mark" in Vietnamese? Chinese: 声调符号 --Anatoli (talk) 01:48, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Dấu thanh. DHN (talk) 08:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

A tone mark is tonal language that is used to denote six distinctive tones <gallery> <gallery>

Word play

I'm not sure if the section on word play is pertinent enough to be in this article. If it is a serious phenomenon like French Verlan, it should have an article of its own. --N-k (talk) 14:30, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Dictionary?

Does anybody know a Vietnamese-English or English-Vietnamese dictionary (in the size of about 30 000 entries), which gives not only the Vietnamese words but also grammatical information? In particular I want it to tell whether the nouns are generic (i.e. requiring classifiers to be added in certain circumstances) or specific (i.e. not requiring a classifier). --83.254.169.124 (talk) 22:41, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Misstake Vocabulary

The words in orange belong to the Vietnamese native vocabulary while the ones in green belong to the Sino-Vietnamese. "Mẹ tôi thường ăn chay ở chùa mọi thủ nhật" is mistake. "Mẹ tôi thường ăn chay ở chùa mọi chủ nhật". 常 = thường, Hán-Việt (Sino-Vietnamese). 每 = dual purpose, "mỗi" in Hán-Việt=Sino-Vietnamese, "mọi" in Nôm=Vietnamese. 主=dual purpose, "chủ" Hán-Việt, "chúa" Nôm. 日 = nhật , Hán-Việt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.24.75.26 (talk) 13:57, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

grammar

in that "grammar" topic there is this part

Tôi thích con ngựa đen. I (generic) like classifier horse black "I like the black horse." Tôi thích con ngựa đen. I (generic) like focus classifier horse black "I like that black horse."

so im just asking if it is really necessary to have the same sentence two times..dint have the balls to erase it by myself so nobody would get angry on me just saying

That was due to a vandalism. I've reverted it. DHN (talk) 19:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

French

There seems to be a lot of focus on French in the article. Sure, there are a few dozen loan words for things like ice cream, cheese, milk, catalogue, and battery. But this is very minor compared to vocabulary from Chinese. The Vietnamese alphabet makes the language look a bit like French, but it is actually based on Portuguese and was created by the Jesuit missionaries. When China disestablished Classical Chinese, the logic for Vietnam using this language disappeared. The colonial authorities tried to get the Vietnamese to learn French instead. So the adoption of alphabetic script was less as a French influence than as a reaction against French influence. Kauffner (talk) 08:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

hi, yes. Cream -> kem, yes; ice cream = "nước đá", no ; cheese = pho mát, no; milk = sữa, no; catalogue -> "ca ta lô", yes; battery -> pin, yes.... "cờ lê", "mỏ nết", "tô vít", choòng, "ê cu", "quy lát"... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.24.75.26 (talk) 14:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

pho mát might come from french fromage. 65.50.74.8 (talk) 05:36, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

bilingual Vietnamese dictionaries in Chu Nom and Quoc Ngu

If anyone needs such a dictionary, to put in a further reading section or something else, its here at Talk:Chữ_nôm#bilingual_Vietnamese_dictionaries_in_Chu_Nom_and_Quoc_Ngu.

Rajmaan (talk) 09:16, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Public domain Materials and sources on Vietnamese
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
DICTIONNAIRES graimmares Annamite http://books.google.com/books?id=H7s_AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=nUNAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=m40yAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=gsXlAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=B-QNAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=yYMvAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Dialogues cochinchinois http://books.google.com/books?id=eI80AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Dialogues cochinchinois: expliqués littéralement en français, en anglais et en latin, suivis d'une étude philologique du texte et d'un exposé des monnaies, poids, mesures et divisions du temps en usage dans la Cochinchine Author Abel Des Michels Publisher Maisonneuve, 1871 Original from the University of California Digitized Jul 15, 2010 Length 212 pages http://ecrivn.free.fr/fr/part1/alphabetiques/adr-dico3.html Grammaire annamite, vocabulaire français-annamite et annamite-français  http://books.google.com/books?id=PKQTAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Grammaire annamite, suivie d'un vocabulaire français-annamite et annamite-français Author Louis Gabriel G. Aubaret Published 1867 Original from Oxford University Digitized May 12, 2008     http://books.google.com/books?id=z3ULAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Nouveau vocabulaire français-tonkinois et tonkinois-français Author Paul Émile Emmanuel Auguste Crépin Bourdier de Beauregard Publisher A. Challamel, 1900 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Aug 31, 2006 Length 192 pages http://books.google.com/books?id=nWg4AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Manuel de conversation franco-tonkinois: sách dã̂n đàng nói truyện bà̆ng tié̂ng phalangsa và tié̂ng annam Author Cõ Ân Publisher Imprimerie de la Mission, 1889 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Jun 25, 2007 Length 452 pages http://books.google.com/books?id=k51rAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Manuel franco-tonkinois de conversation spécialement à l'usage du médecin: précédé d'un exposé des règles de l'intonation et de la prononciation annamites Author Paul Gouzien Publisher A. Challamel, 1897 Original from the University of California Digitized Feb 11, 2008 Length 174 pages http://books.google.com/books?id=gsXlAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Grammaire de la langue annamite Author Louis Gabriel Galdéric Aubaret Publisher Imprimerie impériale, 1864 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Oct 20, 2009 Length 112 pages http://books.google.com/books?id=HdQuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Lexique franco-annamite Authors H. Ravier, J. B. Dronet Publisher Imprimerie de la mission, 1903 Original from Harvard University Digitized Oct 16, 2008 Length 534 pages http://books.google.com/books?id=8aYTAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Notions pour servir à l'étude de la langue annamite [by] J.M.J. Authors J M. J, Langue annamite Publisher Imprimerie de la Mission, 1878 Original from Oxford University Digitized May 12, 2008 http://books.google.com/books?id=2kg0AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Petit dictionnaire Français-Annamite Western books on Asia: Southeast Asia Authors J. B. Petrus Trư-ơ-ng-Vinh-Ký, Pétrus Jean-Baptiste Vĩnh Ký Trương Publisher Imp. de la Mission, à Tân-Dịnh, 1885 Original from the University of Wisconsin - Madison Digitized Jul 30, 2012 Length 1192 pages Subjects French language http://books.google.com/books?id=QcMVAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Nam ngử thích tây tổng ước Author J.-F.-M. Génibrel Edition 2 Publisher Imprimerie de la Mission à Tân-Dịnh, 1906 Original from Harvard University Digitized Feb 21, 2008 Length 812 pages Subjects Vietnamese language http://books.google.com/books?id=1i5kAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Dictionnaire annamite Author Tịnh Paulus Của Huình Edition reprint Publisher Khai Trí, 1895 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized May 14, 2008 Subjects Vietnamese language http://books.google.com/books?id=iMMuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Tự vị Annam-Pha lang sa Author J. M. J. Publisher Imprimerie de la Mission, 1877 Original from Harvard University Digitized Oct 16, 2008 Length 916 pages Subjects Foreign Language Study › Southeast Asian Languages Dictionnaire annamite-français, comprenant: 10 tous les caractères de la langue annamite vulgaire, avec l'indication de leurs divers sena propres ou figurés, et justifies par de nombreux exemples; 20 les caractères chinois nécessaires à l'étude des Tú Thu, ou Quatre livres classiques chinois; 30 la flore et la faune de l'Indo-Chine By J. F. M. Génibrel http://books.google.com/books?id=IcMuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Title Dictionnaire annamite-français, comprenant: 10 tous les caractères de la langue annamite vulgaire, avec l'indication de leurs divers sena propres ou figurés, et justifies par de nombreux exemples; 20 les caractères chinois nécessaires à l'étude des Tú Thu, ou Quatre livres classiques chinois; 30 ... Author J. F. M. Génibrel Edition 2 Publisher la mission à Tan Diny, 1898 Original from Harvard University Digitized Oct 16, 2008 Length 987 pages Subjects Vietnamese language dictionnaires et des grammaires Annamite Dictionnaire annamite-français https://archive.org/details/DictionnaireAnnamiteFrancais https://archive.org/details/DictionnaireAnnamiteFranais2 https://archive.org/details/DictionnaireAnnamiteFranais1 Dictionnaire annamite-français : (langue officielle et langue vulgaire) https://archive.org/details/dictionnaireanna01bone https://archive.org/details/dictionnaireanna02bone Dictionnaire Franco-tonkinois https://archive.org/details/DictionnaireFranco-tonkinois https://archive.org/details/manuelfrancoton00gouzgoog Phonétique annamite (dialecte du Haut-Annam) https://archive.org/details/phontiqueannami00unkngoog A dissertation on the nature and character of the Chinese system of writing : in a letter to John Vaughan, Esq (includes Vietnamese dictionary) https://archive.org/details/dissertationnatu00duporich Les Égyptiens préhistoriques identifiés avec les Annamites d'après les inscriptions hiéroglyphiques (1905) (not accepted by historians) https://archive.org/details/lesgyptiensprhi00freygoog https://archive.org/details/lesgyptienspr00frey

Rajmaan (talk) 21:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Map of natively Vietnamese-speaking areas in infobox

"Natively Vietnamese-speaking areas.png" is fake image, you can see[2]

Province	Total 2009	Vietnamese (Kinh) people 2009	Page
Kon Tum	430,133	201,153	197
Gia Lai	1,274.412	713,403	198
Dak Lak	1,733.624	1,161,533	200
Dak Nong	489,392	332,431	201
Lam Dong	1,187,574	594,358	203
Kien Giang	1,688,248	1,446,455	220
Bac Giang	1,554,131	1,356,012	166
Thai Nguyen	1,123.116	821,083	162
Tuyen Quang	724,821	334,993	152

--123.17.228.42 (talk) 09:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not "fake". If you have a better map, let's see it, but stop disrupting the article without sourcing. — kwami (talk) 12:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

You make a fake map from an unreliable data, why don't you feel shame about it?--113.168.189.47 (talk) 10:25, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

In term of ethnicity, Dak Lak Province was 66,99% Vietnamese people, but in Kwamikagami's fake image, this province is shown with entirely yellow.--113.168.189.47 (talk) 10:33, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Where is your source? I think you're vandalising the article with a fake image. --113.168.189.47 (talk) 10:37, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't play dumb. You found the source. — kwami (talk) 11:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The source from General Statistics Office Of Vietnam [3], Where is your soure?. Australia, US don't speak English?--113.168.189.47 (talk) 13:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The source is almost certain the language maps here ethnologue, but the explanation of how the maps were made is certainly not obvious or easy to follow. WilyD 14:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted the insertion of a newly created map. The new map claims to have followed Vietnamese government census information. Set aside, for a moment, the reliability of that source (e.g. who does the Vietnamese government consider Kinh, etc), the bigger issue is that it colors in each entire province based on the number of Vietnamese people living in that province. The problem with that approach is that that number gives no indication whatsoever of how the people are distributed within that province. For example, the map I reverted would lead the reader to believe that the mountainous central area of the Vietnamese/Cambodia border is >95% ethnic Vietnamese, which is just not the case.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 17:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

But I think it's better than linguistic map without source. Do we need to remove old map?, an image without specific source and shown with entirely yellow for a province was 67% Vietnamese people?. --Thainguyencc (talk) 17:32, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that Thainguyencc is continuing an edit war that is currently under discussion at the 3rr noticeboard and is currently at 5 reverts of this content. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 17:34, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I replaced by a new map, and added source, not revert.--Thainguyencc (talk) 17:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

No what you are doing "An editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page—whether involving the same or different material—within a 24-hour period. An edit or a series of consecutive edits that undoes other editors' actions—whether in whole or in part—counts as a revert." a key part in the policy which you may want to read WP:3RR Hell In A Bucket (talk) 17:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

They reverted nine times altogether; now blocked 48 hrs. And they saw the source when they tagged the map for verification. — kwami (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Although I can speculate, the map doesn't say if red or white shows the speakers. And the caption is wrong! There's no China on the map! --2.245.95.177 (talk) 16:53, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2014

113.188.40.197 (talk) 13:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not requested a change.
If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to any article. - Arjayay (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Diacritical marks, what does the map in the infobox actually depict?

I came here because I was curious about the numerous diacritical marks present in Vietnamese words. After looking through the whole page and finding nothing giving any information on this, I stumbled across a link to the page on the Vietnamese alphabet, which appears to have the information that I was looking for (although I still have trouble understanding it; I guess linguistics isn't a strong point of mine). It seems to me that since these marks, although they are part of the written language, are important to how the words are actually spoken...isn't that relevant to the page on the spoken language as well? Shouldn't it discuss how these marks modify the tones to influence the meaning of the word? A person not knowing the language could come here hoping to learn about it, but if he doesn't know what the diacritical marks mean, how is he going to accurately read the Vietnamese words given as examples? He ought to know how to properly pronounce them to get the most advantage out of the article. I think at least a general summary and an obvious direct to the page on the alphabet for more information would be a good idea.

And while I'm here, I'm curious about the map showing "Natively Vietnamese-speaking (non-minority) areas of Vietnam": on my screen I'm seeing a map that shows roughly 1/3rd of the area of Vietnam in green, the rest in white. First, what does the green indicate? I'm assuming that's the area where native Vietnamese is spoken, but it doesn't say. It also doesn't say what "natively-Vietnamese speaking" means...as far as I can tell, the map is saying that Vietnamese is only "natively" spoken along the coastline for the most part; not sure if this means that the other 2/3rds of the country speak a different language or what. A map showing more than "black and white" (shades would be better) depicting regional variation would be more useful. Also, an description of exactly what is being shown would help. Wikipedia ought to be informative to people who don't know anything about the subject; I, personally, don't know anything about the Vietnamese language, and that map doesn't tell me anything at all. I really have no idea what it's showing me, and what I think it might be showing me doesn't make any sense: why is most of Vietnam not "natively Vietnamese speaking"? Is it saying that these areas historically didn't speak Vietnamese, until it spread as the region unified and became a nation, after the French were defeated? That would make more sense, but you can't expect a person to just know that when they look at the map. AnnaGoFast (talk) 22:55, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Anna. You must have missed the Vietnamese language#Tones section in this article. It includes a table with a column labelled "Diacritic" and gives a brief overview of the tones they represent. Matters of orthography are usually addressed in detail only in a language's alphabet article, which, in this case, is linked many times throughout the article. Also, technically, the diacritic marks don't "modify the tones to influence the meaning of" a word; the tone is just as much a part of the word as a vowel or consonant and the diacritic marks reflect the tone of the spoken word.

As for your second question, there is a map just below the map you mention that gives percentages of Vietnamese people (i.e. native Vietnamese speakers) in each province. As to why they are distributed this way, the Vietnamese language#History section (particularly, the second paragraph) gives a brief overview. You can read more at History of Vietnam and Demographics of Vietnam, but, in short, as the Vietnamese people/language/culture moved south from their historic origins, they took over the fertile lowlands and coastal areas, and pushed the mostly Mon-Khmer and Chamic indigenous groups into the highlands. The southern Mekong Delta region, the last to be conquered by the Vietnamese, formerly was part of the Khmer Empire and is today still home to over a million Khmer (see Khmer Krom).

Lastly, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anybody can edit. Please feel free to be bold and make any improvements you feel are necessary.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 05:51, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

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Is Vietnamese still spoken by the Gin people in Guanxi?

I've just reverted an edit that removed "Guanxi, China" from the infobox's "native to" list, because the edit contradicted the body of the article, which states that Vietnamese is spoken by the Gin people (descendants of the ethnic Kinh). However, Gin people suggests that the language has been largely lost among that population, supplanted by Cantonese and/or Mandarin ... or perhaps it's making a resurgence? I'm not sure which of the sources provided is the most credible, or how much the age of each source should be weighed.

Basically, should the Vietnamese language page indicate that Vietnamese is spoken natively outside of Vietnam? Should "native to" even indicate countries? (Perhaps it would be better to link to ethnic groups, e.g. "native to: Kinh, Gin", though this opens the question of how to handle the various non-Kinh ethnic groups that live in Vietnam, many of whom speak Vietnamese as an L1).

Jake-low (talk) 09:34, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

The references cited in Gin people#Language are contradictory. Olson (1998) says they speak Cantonese, but Tsung (2014) cites an early-80s study saying one third of them spoke Chinese dialects only, one third were bilingual, and one third (mainly old people and children under 7) spoke Vietnamese only. (That would indicate that the language in most homes is Vietnamese, and children learn Chinese when they enter school.) She also cites personal observations from 2012 indicating that the language is undergoing a revival.

The |states= field should be used for countries. There's a separate |ethnicity= field for ethnic groups. Kanguole 12:39, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

multiple analyses of vowels

I think some improvements need to be made to the section on vowels; different authors have published contradictory analyses of the vowels in Vietnamese (even when we constrain ourselves to only look at the Hanoi dialect). Currently it's not clear to me what author's interpretation is being used in the main section of the article (although I guess it's not Thompson, see note 28).

Is there a modern consensus in the linguistics community about the vowels of (Hanoi-dialect) Vietnamese? If so, we should include that vowel chart, with a high quality citation to back it up. (Note: I don't mean to diminish the importance of phonetic analysis of other dialects; however, I'm under the impression that the Hanoi dialect is regarded by the Vietnamese government and by the learning community as 'standard').

The problem is also present in Vietnamese phonology, where in my opinion the matter is even more unclear, because of the degree of footnoting and sidenoting. It's not that I think this information is unimportant, but I worry that a non-expert reader who arrives at the article wondering "what are the vowels in Vietnamese?" will come away confused.

@Togira Ikonoka 123: I hope you'll comment here; your recent edit suggests to me that you are more knowledgable than I am about this topic, but without a citation I felt it best to revert it until we can discuss further. Jake-low (talk) 13:23, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@Jake-low: Sorry for not adding citation. I will add them as soon as possible. Togira Ikonoka 123 (User:Togira Ikonoka 123) 14:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

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Some remarks on the article Vietnamese language

Dear author(s) ,

I have some remarks concerning the article Vietnamese language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language

1) Section Language variation, in the penultimate sentence: "Most Southerners, when singing modern/old popular Vietnamese songs or addressing the public, do so in the Standardised accent if possible (which is Northern pronunciation). This is true in Vietnam as well as in overseas Vietnamese communities."

My remarks: Northern pronunciation is not a standardised accent, even if in case of singing modern/old popular Vietnamese songs northern pronunciation is used. Popular south vietnamese opera NHẠC CẢI LƯƠNG is only sung in Southern Vietnamese. Popular south vietnamese folklore DÂN CA MIỀN NAM is only sung in Southern Vietnamese.

Northern pronunciation is not a standardised accent, even though in case of addressing the public, unless peope adressing the public are northern vietnamese speakers.

Please remember:

Vietnam has more or less three main dialects (north, central, south). All 3 dialects are equal value. None of the 3 dialects is a so called standardised dialect! The notation "standardised" is either a product of a non-vietnamese speaker or of the Hanoi regime trying to suppress totally the central and the south dialects!

By the way: It should be very interesting to explore/investigate, why modern (I guess, you mean western style-based music) songs are performed in northern vietnamese, although in the north vietnamese dialect words are pronounced differently than in the written form, e.g. ra and da are pronounced as za, trang is pronounced as chang. See also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/Vietnamese.

2) Reference Number 40: "In southern dialects, ch and tr are increasingly being merged as [c]. Similarly, x and s are increasingly being merged as [s]."

My remarks: It is absolutley incorrect. South vietnamese people still pronounce ch and tr differently. So they prounounce "chanh" differently that "tranh". Only in north vietnamese dialect "chanh" and "tranh" are pronounced identically. This is easy to understand: Children are learning the pronunciation from their mother. Therefore the notation "mother tongue". Vietnam has more or less 3 main dialects. So more or less 3 different mother tongues.

So: Please do not not mix up the 3 mother tongues. Each Vietnamese should keep speaking his own dialect, no dialect is "better" that the other, all 3 dialects are equal value. But there is only one written form of vietnamese language. That is the main issue!

3) Reference Number 41: "In southern dialects, v is increasingly being pronounced [v] among educated speakers. Less educated speakers have [j] more consistently throughout their speech."

My remarks: I am sorry. It is simply hard, if you are writing "educated speakers are pronouncing v like [v] and less educated speakers still use [j].

Counter question: Would anyone say, North Vietnamese people are less educated that South Vietnamese people, since in north dialect e.g. the words "trung" and "chung" are identically pronounced as "chung", and in south dialect "trung" and "chung" are pronounced differently, as exactly as in written form?

I would say: No.

It is not a question of EDUCATED or LESS EDUCATED. I would say, it is an INSULT, when writing less educated speakers are pronouncing v as [j].

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely yours, Beautiful Bavaria (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2020 (UTC) Beautiful Bavaria (talk) 17:56, 16 October 2020 (UTC) Beautiful Bavaria (talk) 15:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Some remarks about the section Consonants/Table Regional consonant correspondences/syllable-initial "tr"

The mapping of "tr" to "[ʈ] is not correct. Why? Because in central/south vietnamese dialects "tr" is pronounced in such a way, that one can hear out/identify the letter "r". And therefore that cannot be mapped to [ʈ].

Please hear the sound of [ʈ] by checking out the link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA

Section Main Symbols, row [ʈ] (About this soundlisten) Hindi ठग [ʈʰəɡ] (thug) "thief" Like [t], but with the tongue curled or pulled back.

So the best mapping of "tr" is [tr], even though [tr] is not defined as IPA symbol.

By the way: IPA can definitively not provide all symbols mapping to any pronunciation of the languages in the world. Sometimes it fits. Sometimes not. Like in that case.

So, it does not make any sense to try defining IPA symbols, just for getting "full" mapping.

If we do not find any IPA symbol corresponding to the pronunciation, either a new IPA symbol could be defined, or better, we should decide to let it be. Beautiful Bavaria (talk) 10:47, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Varieties

None of the sources cited actually group the varieties in this manner - anyone with some knowledge of Vietnamese accents would immediately separate the Hue variety (which in fact is closer to the Quang Binh, Quang Tri varieties) and the Quang Nam variety. Could someone cite the sources properly and please fix this? 140.180.22.185 (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The 'Regional consonant correspondences' table gives northwestern 'd' as [ɟ] and 'gi' as [z], but the 'Middle Vietnamese' table suggests they should be reversed, giving [ð] for 'd' and [ʝ] for gi, and convincingly explaining why those characters were chosen for their values. Surely ʝ-->ɟ and ð-->z is more plausible than the other way round. Someone should check this against the sources. 46.186.37.98 (talk) 17:15, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Please see my discussion below regarding this as a new section. ElkandAcquerne (talk) 23:52, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Table North-central for 'd and 'gi'

I am looking at the original source of Alves 2007, on page 3, I am not sure these two phonemes are reversed. It does have [ɟ] for d and [z] for 'gi' for North-Central. The examples on page 5 have these sounds with the letters of Nghi Ân: 'd' as [ʐ] and 'gi' as [j]. So it should be 'd' as [z] and 'gi' as [ɟ]? However another dialect source for Thanh-Chương from Alves and Nguyễn, 2007 has [z] for 'gi' and [j] for 'd' on page 4. A third source for the Phong Nha variety by Alexis Michaud et al. from 2015 has [ð], [ʑ] and [ɗ] (and others such as [t] and [tʰ]) for 'd' while [ʑ], [c],[ʈ] and [ʂ] for 'gi'. Perhaps for now it is better to just have "varies" until we can get more clarification. For the Vinh variety, according to the source A Vietnamese Reference Grammar by Laurence C. Thompson 1987, 'r' is [r] while both 'd' and 'gi' are [z] (page 82). I will find more sources. ElkandAcquerne (talk) 16:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

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Sinoxenic characters

In the modern Vietnamese language, the Chinese-derived writing system is no longer relevant, and hasn't been in use for almost a hundred years. Cocacolakogas seems to be on a quest to add "Chu Nom" characters onto articles about modern Vietnamese topics. This is misleading at best and POV-pushing at worst. Chu Nom has never been standardized so any characters they add about a modern topic is original research. The few Vietnamese people in China who might still use it should make no difference; they are a tiny minority of all Vietnamese speakers, and sources mention that their primary language is Cantonese, not Vietnamese[4]. DHN (talk) 06:40, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@DHN: Agree, using Chu Nom characters in the lead and infobox creates undue weight. This also pertains to other articles about modern Vietnamese topics, including Bạch Long Vĩ Island, where the Chinese name is mentioned for historical reasons. –Austronesier (talk) 08:49, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Taolabomay: As discussed above, quốc ngữ is the sole writing system for the vast majority of Vietnamese users for almost 100 years. Adding any other writing system in the lead is undue weight, not to mention original research (since these are new terms that were not in use 100 years ago). DHN (talk) 08:08, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree that including forms in other writing systems in the lead is undue weight. The OR issue is also a concern: are forms like 㗂越 (for Tiếng Việt) even attested in the Nom corpus? Wikipedia (English or Vietnamese) is not a reliable source. Kanguole 10:35, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

The thing is, Kinh people actually still use Chữ Nôm as their main writing system while Vietnamese people have largely forgotten it, so there is a modern enclave where it's still used. As for it being "almost 100 years", Hán-Nôm was still used into the 1940's and appeared on North Vietnamese banknotes until the early 1950's. After 1954 it's largely irrelevant to Vietnam, but it's still used by the Vietnamophone Kinh people in the People's Republic of China. --Donald Trung (talk) 10:18, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

According to the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, vol. 6, p. 454, the Gin minority now speak a variety of Yue Chinese, but have songbooks and scriptures written in Nôm. Kanguole 11:00, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Are forms like 㗂越 as verified on the Nom dictionary, you can look up the dictionary yourself Taolabomay (talk) 11:55, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

In which dictionary did you find 㗂越 (rather than just 㗂)? Kanguole 12:50, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

I found it at the Vietnamese Nôm Preservation Foundation website and here is its link, you can refer to: http://www.nomfoundation.org/nom-tools/Nom-Lookup-Tool?uiLang=vn Taolabomay (talk) 16:11, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

This has entries for 㗂 and 越, but no evidence for the combination 㗂越. Kanguole 16:23, 29 July 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more appropiate to change AD (annus Domine) to CE (Common Era)?

I've noticed while reading, that most dates are noted using AD instead of CE, which is an outdated style and inappropriate for Vietnam since only approximately 6 % are Catholic. So, shouldn't we change AD to CE? And does anybody know, just by chance, what calander is used in Vietnam? Lenni2004 (talk) 08:32, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Writing systems

I have again reverted the addition of Chữ Hán to the "Writing systems" field of the infobox. A writing system is not just a collection of symbols, but also the conventions by which those symbols are used to represent the language. Chữ Nôm was a system for writing Vietnamese using Chinese characters for Sino-Vietnamese loans and some native words, and many characters invented in Vietnam for other words. The Chinese script was used in Vietnam, but to write Chinese rather than Vietnamese. Kanguole 13:54, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

It seems that you do not understand very well the writing systems of the Vietnamese people.It's as simple as this, Chữ Nôm is used to write pure Vietnamese words, and Chữ Hán are used by us to write Sino-Vietnamese words that are not Chinese as you think, and to write a complete Vietnamese text, we have to use all of the two system of characters to form Hán Nôm. Choixong di (talk) 16:45, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Chữ Nôm refers to the whole writing system, using both Chinese characters and locally created ones in a particular way. If you look at the Tale of Kiều example of this system in the "Writing systems" section, you will see Chinese characters being used both for Sino-Vietnamese words and for native Vietnamese words, and locally created characters being used for other native Vietnamese words. Kanguole 17:52, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Um, that's what I meant, but just now, you said "The Chinese script was used in Vietnam, but to write Chinese rather than Vietnamese" your first answer and your next answer you don't seem to match very well, what do you mean? Choixong di (talk) 18:33, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure you know that Vietnamese intellectuals wrote most prose in Chinese until the early 20th century. Kanguole 18:40, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

they write in Chữ Hán and read in Sino-Vietnamese, I already told you this Choixong di (talk) 00:04, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

They wrote in the Chinese language. When they read out the text, they used Sino-Vietnamese pronunciations for the characters. Other users of literary Chinese could also read their works, though they would use different pronunciations. Kanguole 11:08, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Um, you mean Vietnamese people write in Chữ Hán also means they write in Chinese language, so Japanese people write in Kanji and Koreans write in Hanja then both are considered to be written in Chinese language right? Choixong di (talk) 16:46, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

What language do you think Việt Nam vong quốc sử was written in? And Koreans did do most formal writing in Chinese until the late 19th century. It's not possible to write Korean in hanja (ignoring the ancient Idu, which was very awkward and saw limited use). Kanguole 17:35, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

I think the confusion might arise from a narrow definition of Chữ Nôm as only comprising innovative characters for native Vietnamese words. But Chữ Nôm is usually described as a writing system; this writing system consists of innovative characters which are the hallmark of Chữ Nôm, but also characters that are identical to Chữ Hán characters (mostly for nativized loanwords, I guess). So a text written in Vietnamese in the Chữ Nôm writing system will inevitably contain characters that are also used in Chữ Hán writing, but it's still Chữ Nôm. This is what I have gathered from elementary sources such as Đình Hòa Nguyễn's chapter about Vietnamese in Comrie's The World's Major Languages. –Austronesier (talk) 17:38, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Sino-Vietnamese words were written with Chữ Hán, but the Vietnamese language cannot. Kanguole 18:44, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Suoperidol: The answer to "How are Vietnamese documents and documents written over thousands of years?"[5] is that there are not thousands of years of writing in the Vietnamese language – Vietnamese intellectuals did all their formal writing in literary Chinese until the early 20th century. It wasn't possible to write in Vietnamese until the Nôm script was created.

In addition, this edit replaced an accurate description of Nôm, per the sources and the rest of the section, with an inaccurate description. Kanguole 08:41, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: So from this point of view, the Japanese kanji and Korean hanja systems are also not used to record those two languages, so why are they still included in the Korean language article and the Japanese language article on wikipedia? Suoperidol (talk) 09:34, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

You have not responded to what I wrote above. Japanese and Korean are different articles that are not our concern here – we are talking here about Vietnamese, and should follow what the sources say about this language.

I repeat that your description of Nôm is inaccurate, contradicting the sources and the rest of the section. For example, it does not cover the usage of an unchanged Chinese character 些 to write the native Vietnamese word ta 'our'. Kanguole 10:13, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: I already replied, I give examples of languages ​​that have a similar relationship with Chinese as Vietnamese and Chinese, and from your point of view, Chinese characters are not used to record those languages? The use of an unchanged Chinese character to write the native Vietnamese word is just one way to create Chữ Nôm, you can't take the minority to represent the majority, the word "ta" even has 3 writing style Suoperidol (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Old Japanese was written with the Man'yōgana script; modern Japanese is written with a mixed script; Old Korean was written with the Idu, Hyangchal and Gugyeol scripts; until recently, Korean was written with a mixed script; the pre-20th-century writing system for Vietnamese was Chữ Nôm. (Of course, all of those places also used literary Chinese, written with Chinese characters.)

Check the sources. Chữ Nôm refers to the writing system as a whole, not just the symbols, but how those symbols are used to represent the Vietnamese language. Chinese characters do not constitute a writing system that can represent Vietnamese. Kanguole 15:58, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: The writing systems you talk about are still basically Chinese character. The Man'yōgana writing system is still Chinese character, but they are used to denote both original Chinese words and Old Japanese words with similar meanings. The Korean Indu and Hyangchal writing systems are similar to some methods of making Chữ Nôm, using Chinese characters to record native words, and even Koreans assume these are Korean readings of Chinese characters. As for the Gugyeol system, they are just the classical Chinese reading of the Koreans, similar to the Văn ngôn system of the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese writing system before the 20th century is Chữ Nôm and Chữ Hán, they are used mixed together, the Hán writing (Văn ngôn) of the Vietnamese can be considered as a script similar to Gugyeol you just gave as an example. Chữ Hán without forming a writing system that can represent Vietnamese, then how can Hanja and Kanji become a writing system that represents Japanese and Korean? Suoperidol (talk) 16:47, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Your descriptions of all of these systems are incorrect. They are all based on Chinese characters, but in characterizing them as "basically Chinese character" you are leaving out the essential characteristics that make each of them function in different ways.

More to the point, the text you are pushing diverges from how linguistic sources describe the Nôm script. In this edit, you removed

Vietnamese was historically written using Chữ Nôm, a logographic script using Chinese characters (Chữ Hán) to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, together with many locally-invented characters to represent other words.

which accurately summarizes the corresponding section of this article and the cited source (Li pp102–103) and replaced it with text that does neither. More sources can be found in the body of the article and subarticles, e.g.:

• DeFrancis, Colonialism and language policy in Viet Nam pp24–25
• Nguyễn Ðình-Hoà, Vietnamese pp7–8
• Trần Trọng Dương, "Graphemic borrowings and transformations from Sinitic" pp45–49

Kanguole 09:44, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, it would be akin to saying that "Latin, Etruscan, and Cyrillic are just different versions of the Greek alphabet". Nationalism has essentially blinded many people from seriously debating these topics in Korean and Vietnamese history. Chữ Nôm are based on Chinese characters in the same way that the Cyrillic alphabet is based on the Greek alphabet, it is different enough to be considered its own writing system, we don't call Cyrillic a "locally invented Bulgarian version of the Greek alphabet". --Donald Trung (talk) 10:14, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Just a thought: why don't we make it simple and follow good sources like Thompson (1991, s. Bibliography) or Brunelle (2015) ("Vietnamese (Tiếng Việt)", in: M. Jenny & P. Sidwell (eds.) The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages, Brill) who just say that Vietnamese was written in a Chinese-derived script called Chữ Nôm? Remember, this is the lead-section, so we can actually do without cumbersome details such as the fact that some characters are identical to Chinese characters, while others are innovated. And if there is consensus that we need to do so, do we then really need to confuse our readers by (IMO unduly) mentioning the Vietnamese name for the script that is used to write Chinese when this article is about Vietnamese?

I am aware of the fact that some authors restrict the term "Chữ Nôm" to only designate the innovated inventory in Chinese script-based Vietnamese writing, but this is not common usage. –Austronesier (talk) 12:10, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Quotes from the works mentioned earlier:

Brunelle (2015): Paradoxically, the largest Austroasiatic language is typologically very divergent from its Austroasiatic neighbors because intensive contact with Chinese dramatically restructured its lexicon and affected its phonology. Vietnamese was also written in a Chinese derived script, chữ nôm, from the 14th to the early 20th century, but is now exclusively written in quốc ngữ, a Latin script developed by Portuguese Catholic missionaries from the 16th century and first fully codified in Alexandre De Rhodes (1651)’s Vietnamese-Latin-Portuguese dictionary (p. 909).

Thompson (1991): The system of chữ nôm makes use of Chinese characters, either simply or in various combinations not occurring in Chinese writing. Sometimes the Chinese writing is used unchanged to suggest either the meaning or the pronunciation of a Vietnamese syllable. (Typically each Chinese character represents a syllable.) However, a large proportion of the characters combine two or more of the original Chinese elements together, one part suggesting the meaning, another the pronunciation (p. 53).

So these sources refer to the script as Chữ Nôm in its entirety, not just the part of the inventory that is has been innovated. Consequently, characters that happen to be identical to their counterpart in Chữ Hán are nevertheless an integral part of Chữ Nôm. Just like Latin capital "A" is part of the Latin alphabet, and not a Greek letter in a "hybrid" alphabet, even if the Latin latter hasn't changed the shape taken from its Greek source. –Austronesier (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: hm, isn't it on Man'yōgana's wikipedia page that this "is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language"? In Idu's wikipedia page, doesn't it say that this "is an archaic writing system represents the Korean language using Hanja"? And if the Hyangchal and Gugyeol system are really two types of script, then why can't the names of the two Hyangchal and Gugyeol be written by those two types of script but must use Hanja and Hangul? Put those aside, in your opinion, you think that because until recently, Korean was written with a mixed script, so Hanja was included in the list of Korean writing systems, not until recently Vietnamese was also written in a mixed script of Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm, so at why not add Chữ Hán to the list of Vietnamese writing systems? Suoperidol (talk) 15:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a source that calls the Chinese-derived pre-Quốc ngữ writing system of Vietnamese (= Chữ Nôm) "mixed" or "hybrid"? A source, and not just musings based on analogies drawn from other WP articles? –Austronesier (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier: No, I mean that in the past, Vietnamese people used a mixture of both Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm to form Hán-Nôm, but I don't say that Chữ Nôm is a mixed script Suoperidol (talk) 16:02, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

So, you still don't have a source for that opinion of yours that "Vietnamese people used a mixture of both Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm" when I have presented you two sources that state the opposite? And based on an unsourced opinion, you keep on re-reverting (= edit-warring) and inserting unsourced material to the infobox that isn't supported anywhere else in the article by a reliable source either?

Here's another long quote from a source cited in the article (DeFrancis 1977):

The result was a new script, Chinese in appearance and yet not Chinese, which came to be called Chu Nom or simply Nom in Vietnamese [...] This writing consists of two main categories of characters. One comprises what may be called 'simple borrowings'. Characters in this category are borrowed from Chinese for their phonetic value to represent Vietnamese words with more or less the same sound. Some of these 'simple borrowings' are used to represent words of the same meaning, and indeed many were loan words from Chinese in the first place [...] The second category comprises what may be called 'composite creations'. These are new Nom characters made by combining two Chinese characters (p. 24–25).

See, there is no mention of a "mixture" of Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm, but two basic categories of characters that make up the Chữ Nôm script. –Austronesier (talk) 20:26, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I have given three more sources for the same point above.

In addition, Nguyễn Đình Hoà "Graphemic borrowings from Chinese: the case of chữ nôm – Vietnam's demotic script" discusses some of the many classification schemes for characters used in the Nôm script that have been proposed. Those of Nguyễn Tài Cẩn and Lê Văn Quán make a primary distinction between borrowed and newly created characters (like DeFrancis above), with the former including characters for SV words, characters chosen for sound and characters chosen for meaning. Nguyễn Ngọc San makes a primary distinction between phonetic and non-phonetic characters, with characters for SV words buried deep within the former. Kanguole 22:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier: The author doesn't mention it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, Vietnamese people who don't know to write a traditional written text with the same content as the Chữ Quốc ngữ must use both Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm, forming a mixture of Hán - Nôm to write, I thought you must know this already. Not to mention the part you quoted is that the author is talking about the formation and development of Chữ Nôm, then of course the author will not mention mixed writing Suoperidol (talk) 02:32, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

The passage quoted by Austronesier is so clear that further explanation seems pointless, but I will try. The author is talking about the whole script or writing system for Vietnamese, which he says is called Chữ Nôm. He says that this script uses two kinds of characters: unchanged Chinese characters and new creations, with the former including characters for Sino-Vietnamese words. This is typical of the treatment in linguistic works, of which several are cited above: Vietnamese texts were written using a writing system, Chữ Nôm, which employed characters of various kinds. It directly contradicts your assertion that Vietnamese was written with two writing systems. It this point, you would need to produce expert sources saying that The Tale of Kiều, for example, was written in two scripts. Kanguole 08:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: "Characters in this category are borrowed from Chinese for their phonetic value to represent Vietnamese words with more or less the same sound", did you not read carefully or did you not understand? The author mentioned that these characters were borrowed from Chinese to have phonetic value to represent Vietnamese words with more or less the same sound, but did not say that they represent Sino-Vietnamese words. Or do you mean this paragraph: "Some of these 'simple borrowings' are used to represent words of the same meaning, and indeed many were loan words from Chinese in the first place", Hmm, I didn't understand what the author meant when I wrote the paragraph. By the way, the author is mentioning that some words represent synonymsinclude both pure Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese words right? Erm, you know that Tales of Kieu takes its plot from the Chinese novel Jin Yun Qiao right? Then surely you know that Mr. Nguyễn Du did not change the character's name, right? We can see with the naked eye that the names of characters such as Thúy Kiều 翠翹, Kim Trọng 金重, Thúy Vân 翠雲, Vương Quan 王觀,... are all in Chữ Hán. Suoperidol (talk) 17:07, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I hope that you now understand that quotation, and that it supports the text you removed and contradicts your position. Several other expert sources mentioned above say the same.

By the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy, this is where you need to produce expert sources supporting your assertion that these Vietnamese-language texts were written in two scripts. Kanguole 18:03, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole:

A person who is fluent in Chinese and Chinese characters who does not know Vietnamese and cannot read Nom literature (such as a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or even Western scholar) when looking closely at a text of a Nom work, it is completely possible to recognize which characters are familiar Chinese charactersand which characters are "strange" characters that they have never known.

(Hán Nôm Magazine; No. 6(79); P.5-20), Is this enough for you to know that in Nôm literature works still use Chinese characters? Suoperidol (talk) 19:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

No, this is certainly not enough. All sources we have provided explicitly tell you that Vietnamese was written in Chữ Nôm script before the introduction of the modified Latin alphabet. The Chữ Nôm inventory comprises characters that are were taken over unchanged from the Chinese script – yet the writing system is Chữ Nôm. So deliver a source that explicitly says that Vietnamese was written in Chữ Hán and Chữ Nôm. Otherwise, you are disruptively defending the introduction of unsourced content in Wikipedia. –Austronesier (talk) 20:14, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I have added explicit source to the page Suoperidol (talk) 07:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

You have misread the first source (which is not by Sercome, the book's editor, but rather Phan Le Ha, Vu Hai Ha and Bao Dat). Here is the quoted statement with a bit more context:

Up until the 13th century, 'Chinese with its Han script was used as the [only] official language' in Vietnam (Pham 1991, 1994; cited in Do 2006, p. 2). In the 13th century an adapted writing system known as Nom was initiated making use of new phonetic elements to denote the tones in the Vietnamese language. ... In the 17th century a number of European Jesuit missionaries travelled to Vietnam to spread Christianity. To facilitate communication for this mission, they initiated the creation of a coding method to record the Vietnamese phonetic system in Romanized script, called Quoc Ngu. With this addition, up to the early 20th century in Vietnam, there co-existed three writing systems in the administration comprising Han, Nom, and Quoc Ngu.

That is, three writing systems: Han for Chinese, Nom and Quoc Ngu for Vietnamese.

The second source (Hannas) merely states that Nom was based on Chinese characters, which is not in contention. Kanguole 08:05, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: Maybe the first source I am wrong but the second source is not, the author also talks about the use of Chinese characters to record Vietnamese, this will not be disputed if you do not think that the author is only talking about Chữ Nôm based on Chinese characters Suoperidol (talk) 11:22, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

"Maybe" you are wrong? The first source you cited actually contradicts your position.

So does your second source (Hannas). After the introductory sentences you quoted, we find more detail:

The application of Chinese writing to Vietnamese, called chữ nôm ("southern writing," nôm < nam) as distinct from chữ nho ("writing of the scholars," i.e., classical Chinese), differed from its application to Korean and Japanese in three other respects.

Since you're having trouble reading these sources, perhaps it would be better to bring them here rather than pasting them straight into the article. Kanguole 12:20, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I would also add that on English-language Wikipedia, Vietnamese-language words need to be tagged with {{lang|vi}} and English-language explanations are more accessible to the readership. Kanguole 12:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Kanguole: ? It seems that the part you quoted has nothing to do with your point of view, if not a contradiction. Suoperidol (talk) 20:03, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

It says that Vietnamese was written with one script, chữ nôm, not the two you have been claiming. Kanguole 20:19, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Your latest source[6] is an aside in a chapter "English in Vietnam". As the title indicates, the topic of the source is not the Vietnamese language or its scripts. It is not an expert source on Vietnamese writing systems, and makes a series of errors: Vietnamese was not written at all during Chinese rule (with Chinese characters or anything else), and chữ Nôm is not Sino-Vietnamese. Kanguole 08:45, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

@Suoperidol: When you do your Google Books search for Vietnamese writing system before the 20th century, you get back books on a variety of subjects, from traditional medicine to travel guides to linguistics. Just being books does not make them reliable sources for a particular claim: one must weigh their authors' expertise in the subject area of the claim. In-depth treatment in an academic book of paper about the Vietnamese language or writing system is obviously much more reliable on that topic that a passing remark in a work about something else, be it traditional medicine or the modern use of English in Vietnam. There is much more on this at Wikipedia:Reliable sources.

In addition, relying on searches in this way makes it easy to miss the context of the statement, e.g. whether it is a passing remark or an in-depth treatment, what the author means by the terms they are using, even who is the author of the statement being quoted. For example, some of the quotations you've used have come from separately authored chapters of books, and you have missed the title (and therefore topic) of the chapter being cited and its author(s), incorrectly attributing the remark to the editors of the book. Kanguole 22:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

The latest source is another example of a passing remark in a book about another topic, this time the history of warfare in Vietnam. Again, this is not an authoritative source on Vietnamese writing systems, in contrast to the half-dozen linguistic sources discussed above. Kanguole 17:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I should add (to do justice to the source) that Tucker (1999) actually does not make wrong claims. He talks about writing systems but not about which languages were recorded by them. The unmodified Chinese writing system obviously continued to be used in independent Vietnam, but NB to write Chinese, as all expert sources confirm.–Austronesier (talk) 17:58, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The latest source is another passing remark, this time in a section about the modern Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet in a survey of the writing systems of the world. This is a tertiary source, drawing on the expertise of subject specialists. The author is clearly not an expert in the history of Vietnamese writing, and it is unsurprising that he makes errors. But surely you know that "an official version used in government (chữ nho 'learned script')" was literary Chinese. Kanguole 10:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course, it is used to write in the Chinese literary style, but isn't it also used in the local style? In your opinion, Kanji and Hanja are just Chinese literature Suoperidol (talk) 09:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Your question is unclear. The issue is what language chữ nho documents are written in, and the answer is Chinese, not Vietnamese. (There is also a long history of Chinese-language texts created in Korea, and to a lesser extent Japan.) Kanguole 09:31, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I have reverted again yet another attempt[7] to introduce the spurious claim that chữ nho (= Chữ Hán) was used to write Vietnamese. The source cited to back up this claim (Li 2020, btw a solid expert source of the kind we need here), however, does not say anything in support of it. To the contrary, Li goes at length on pages 101–102 to describe how chữ nho and the language written in it (= Classical Chinese with a particular local pronunciation) were used for administrative and scholarly purposes until the 19th century: "chữ nho was not just a script or a set of characters but should be more accurately understood as a written language, that is, Classical Chinese, encoded in the Chinese script" (emphasis added). Only at the end of the section that deals with chữ nho and the Chinese language, Li transitions to the following section that covers Chữ Nôm (emphasis added): "A modified script based on the Chinese writing system came into existence and began to be used to write the Vietnamese language". That "modified script", obviously, is Chữ Nôm. –Austronesier (talk) 08:08, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

C1 and C2 tones swapped

This article says that hoi is C2 and nga is C1, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_phonology#Tone has it the other way round (C1=hoi, C2= nga) on multiple occasions. Which article is right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.114.245.42 (talk) 17:07, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

j

what happened to the proto viet muong phoneme /j/? (it says there that it merged with d (/z/) but later in middle vietnamese section it says it has dissapeared). please clarify 2A00:23C7:5882:8201:B1D4:4AD0:AB80:E5C9 (talk) 16:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Old tone classification

There’s a myth that Chinese-based tone names have meaning; they don’t. Like Vietnamese tone names, Chinese tone names are self-referential (and therefore spelling the fourth class “rù”, i.e., in Mandarin, is an oxymoron) and don’t have intrinsic meaning. 仄 simply means any tone that’s not 平 (meaning any tone in the first class; it does not really mean “level”) and does not really mean “sharp”.—al12si (talk) 18:38, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Injunction added to the lead

I have again reverted the addition of the following to the lead:

Transliteration from modern Vietnamese into chữ Nôm or Han script is highly discouraged, because many words now don't have a Nôm or Chinese counterparts.

While I agree with the sentiment, it is out of place in the lead, which is supposed to be a summary of the key points of the article and an overview of the subject. It is hard to imagine an overview of the language published anywhere else including such a statement.

It reads like a Manual of Style injunction directed at Wikipedia editors in support of edits like this[8]. I would suggest that an appropriate place for it would be somewhere in WP: space. Kanguole 17:46, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Hmm... where should I put that sentence in then? Maybe at the "Chữ Nôm" section? I think it is necessary to say so somewhere in the article because as a native Vietnamese, seeing people putting both the Vietnamese and Nôm name is extremely annoying and puzzling, because that's not how Vietnamese works. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:50, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Your beef is with Wikipedia editors. You should direct this at them, not the readers, who would never think of using an obsolete script. There is no Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Vietnam-related articles, but maybe there should be one. Kanguole 18:00, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

This isn't correct, I am vietnamese and we don't write like that

That's not the right way to write tones

not correct!!! TommyOrVarnt (talk) 03:15, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

@TommyVarnt What writing are you talking about? That's just a visual representation of the tone countours. DHN (talk) 17:59, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

i thing you need find more information with Learn Chinese-Vietnamese or Nom 2405:4802:905A:4C60:6C95:EBEB:25F3:208F (talk) 17:30, 13 September 2023 (UTC)