I know this question isn’t strictly about the Chinese language, but I thought since there are so many experts on Chinese linguistics here, I might get a good answer! Please do let me know if there’s somewhere better to post!
First off, I want to say that the assertion that Vietnamese is especially different from Chinese, Japanese and Korean is a completely unsubstantiated statement on my part. I’ve been trying to explore Vietnamese phonology recently and not yet covered much ground, but so far have been surprised at the difference. I suspect the difference may be more pronounced in the Southern Vietnamese pronunciation, but I look forward to being corrected if it’s not the case!
Looking at examples of Chinese-derived vocabulary in Vietnamese, I do see a lot of very similar words (as expected). However, a lot of my exposure to such vocabulary has been based on spelling alone (so perhaps Vietnamese used to sound more similar to the others?), from which I presumed a higher degree of similarity. For example:
|PRONUNCIATION OF 國家|LANGUAGE|
|:-|:-|
|Guo Jia|Mandarin|
|Gwok Gaa|Cantonese|
|Kokka|Japanese|
|Guk Ga|Korean|
|Quốc Gia|Vietnamese|
I assumed that, like Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Korean, the initial consonant in 國 would be pronounced in Vietnamese with a velar plosive. From a Google search, it seems that this is the case in Northern Vietnamese, but actually a /w/ in Southern Vietnamese. What was the process that resulted in this pronunciation?
Similarly, in 家, the initial consonant is a velar plosive in all but the Mandarin pronunciation, where it was palatalised. In S. Vietnamese, ‘gi’ is pronounced /j/, which I assume was just one step further from palatalising the /k/. However, N. Vietnamese pronounces this as /z/ – where did this come from?
Another example is 實習:
|PRONUNCIATION OF 實習|LANGUAGE|
|:-|:-|
|Shi Xi|Mandarin|
|Sat Zaap|Cantonese|
|Jisshuu|Japanese|
|Sil Seup |Korean|
|Thực Tập|Vietnamese|
The initial consonants of both 實 and 習 are affricates/fricatives for all except Vietnamese.
Is Vietnamese an outlier among CJKV languages? Have sound changes affected it more than the others? Did timing of borrowings impact pronunciation? Or have I just inadvertently cherry-picked examples in unconscious bias?
Any information would be super appreciated!
​
Definitely r/asklinguists material here. Just hazarding a guess here: time period and region of Chinese influence, plus the underlying Austroasiatic phonological aspects of Vietnamese contrasted with the situation in the north.
Note that, some extremely ancient Chinese words, especially in southern topolects, are widely believed to have Austroasiatic influences. There was a lot of cross pollination linguistically very early on, which may contribute to larger divergence today. See 江 and compare proto-sino-tibetan with proto vietic (Austronesian) and proto mon Khmer (Austronesian) all similarly *kCo/u(nasal/velar)
Vietnamese has since changed phonologically significantly from theorized proto vietic *k-ro:Ng to sông
Note… Can’t type the velarnasal so just typed Ng here.
From the examples you’ve picked it looks like Vietnamese is closer to Cantonese than Cantonese is to Mandarin.
Hi, native Vietnamese here – and a linguistics enthusiast (not an expert of any kind so take it as my sharing) – the pronunciation of Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary (Hán – Việt) has its primary root in Middle Chinese (specifically the Tang period). We were (sadly) a part of Han Chinese for around a thousand years, so our language is heavily influenced by Chinese despite its Austroasiatic origins. Around the 10th century, we regained independence, when Vietnamese “broke away” from Chinese influence, thus led to the different development of phonology for Chinese words (which were “internalised” into our daily life as part of Vietnamese vocabulary).
As for your examples, the Middle Chinese initial of 國家 are both /k/, the difference lies in the vowels. Without going too detailed, 國 /kwək̚/ had its /kw/ preserved well into Middle Vietnamese (~17th century), upon which North-South distinction emerged and the South merged /kw-/ and /w-/ (which are pretty close in velar quality). 家 /ka/, on the other hand, went through quite complex changes, specifically for the k-a combination, which palatalised into /kja/, then dropped the k completely to /ʝ/ (“gi”) in Middle Vietnamese, then either softened to /j/ in the South or merged with d, r to a sibilant /z/ in the North. For 實習, there was an interesting change in Old Vietnamese (~15th century) that caused the sibilant initials /s/, /ɕ/ to become plosives /t/, /tʰ/ and distinguished quite a lot of Sino-Vietnamese words from their counterparts in other languages, as you might have seen with “thực tập”.
These phenomena are well-researched by historical linguistics scholars, if you are intrigued 🙂
You might find this thread useful.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/k48onx/a_question_about_sinovietnamese_readings_and/
As you noted, the Vietnamese qu is /kw/ in Hanoi. The dropping of the /k/ in Ho Chi Minh City is not so surprising given that both /k/ and /w/ are at least partially velar.
Also, be aware that in some Vietnamese dialects gi is pronounced as a voiced palatal plosive. I think that was the original pronunciation. That suggests it resulted from palatalization similar to how Mandarin ji emerged. The change to /z/ in Hanoi is interesting. (Also, Vietnamese gi when used to transcribe foreign words can be pronounced as a voiced postalveolar fricative.)
This is question is fine but I do also think it’s being a bit selective in what is considered to deviate from the norm. We could just as well ask why Japanese is so different from the others for dropping final ng in favour of a long vowel, or why Korean tends to replace f with p or why Korean and Japanese drop tone.
This would be an excellent question for r/asklinguistics
Immigration patterns from Southern China contributed to the language. There’s many Vietnamese words borrowed from Cantonese. Just like how Thai borrowed a lot from Teochew.
In my opinion, you should think less in countries. Chinese isn’t a language. Cantonese has many dialects. If something is “official”, it means a person decided about it. A person is always biased.
And then there are ancient colonisations, economics, evacuations which all influenced everything. The logic is almost gone.
Why is that even a surprise for 4 languages of 4 different language families?
Vietnamese is unique, but not for any of the reasons you’ve suggested.
The main difference between Vietnamese and the other sinosphere languages is the order of sino-xenic noun phrases.
You can see this in the name of the country:
共和社會主義越南
Where we would expect something like:
越南社會主義共和(國)
家 is palatalised in several Chinese varieties, based on Wikipedia it seems in Vietnamese this palatalised /c/ got voiced to /ʝ/, which then turned into /j/ or /z/ (maybe through /ʝ/->/ʑ/->/z/…?)
You may be interested in [this](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNPaJF2_7Q) video from a Viet perspective but like the others said, you’re better off asking a general linguistics sub.
If anything, I feel that Mandarin is also quite an outlier. When I encountered Cantonese, Korean and Japanese I feel that the pronunciation of Sino words are surprisingly similar. There are also many similar word-pairs between Cantonese-Vietnamese, and Cantonese-Korean.
By the way, you may want to include the Min Nan dialect into the comparison. Vietnamese and Min Nan words have many similarities.
Traveling in VN, I was surprised by how similar Vietnamese sounded to Cantonese. I don’t speak either, but recognize a few words–in particular I noticed that “Thank You” (感恩) was almost identical.
Eh, of course it looks weird, roman-izing words which bastardized it for use to read, especially Vietnamese which uses a french base instead of an english base. While mandarin uses a modified english base.
The current mandarin is prob the main outlier given it was developed last out of all the sino languages, the other languages had some type of connection with each other from other dialects or older ming mandarin, but then you have to dig deep on dialects of “each era”.
Well what about the almighty middle dialect? These words are probably northern
Maybe check Wikipedia?
>Northern Vietnam was primarily influenced by Chinese, which came to predominate politically in the 2nd century BC whilst central and southern lands were occupied by Chamic and Khmer empires. After the emergence of the Ngô dynasty at the beginning of the 10th century, the ruling class adopted Classical Chinese as the formal medium of government, scholarship and literature.
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Vietnamese_language
Other people know better and can answer on the actual processes but as someone who wonders the same as I delve more into this language, these differences aren’t unique and happen between western languages too.
• Variation between k and w exists, especially with kw sounds. It’s why “what” and Spanish “que” are actually related. With more aspiration you get h as well, and is why house and “casa” are also related.
• Sibilants and Ts is seen between German and English. German SS <-> English T.
• J and Z are similar enough. Even the Mandarin Zh sounds more like Z in southern languages, can be the same as J. Take away the initial sharpness and it easy to have shifts between J and Y, sometimes in the same language. In LA Spanish, Y sounds can be emphasized as J-like sound, especially since the J sound is the more standard version in Castilian Spanish.