What Makes Vietnamese So Chinese?

An Introduction to Sinitic-Vietnamese Studies

DRAFT
Table of Contents

dchph

(Continued)

V) HOW SOUND CHANGES HAVE COME ABOUT:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A) In search of sound change patterns:

We have learned some of paradigms of how sound change has come about from the experts as quoted above which appear to pretty much cover much of our argumentation throughout this paper. Now let's go to the specifics of the sound change business.

For better understanding of sound change patterns from C to V, you should first distinguish the sound change paradigms between SV and VS lexemes and recognize that their induced-drift shifts follow patterns of different models even if they originate from the same C words. Most of the time they are C loanwords which have been accentuated with a substratum of older layers of prior AC lexicons, not excluding basic vocabulary probably evolved from the same source or, in other words, being cognates as we have seen previously in Shafer's basic ST word lists. The underlined rationalization of this guideline is based on both historical records of ten centuries long of the Chinese occupation of the Annamese land and apparent linguistic evidence of C loanwords that had entered the V language en masse. This sound change phemomenon has evolved manifolds by drift and shift semantically and syntactically by leaps and bounces synchronically along the path of diachrony as mentioned above.

Another principle we should follow in this research is that, overall, Chinese-Vietnamese etymological work should be treated like that of translation. What we are actually looking into are equivalent concepts instead of word to word glossary. That is to say, a C character that appears in a V word may also serve as a syllabic stem in other word formation in V, hence, its etymon, a C cognate to those cited V words despite of its recurring frequency. For instance, 順 shùn (SV thuận) in 順便 shùnbiàn (sẵntiện, luôntiện) 'conveniently' apparently is an etymon for both 'sẵn' (available) and 'luôn' (conveniently) while 順 in 順利 shùnlì (suônsẻ) 'smoothly' and 孝順 xiàoshùn (hiếuthảo) ' filial piety' further gives rise to 'suôn' (smoothly) and 'thảo' (devotion). Restricting ourselves only to one -to-one relationship will certainly limit the ability in our search of many V words which have C roots appearing in different forms and guises. So let's not be so rigid to keep insisting on some word like 成 chéng (SV thành) to be the one and only for 'sẵn' (ready), since, being so, we will miss 成 chéng as 'xong' (finished).

The followings are expanded examples with dissyllabic words, partially structured with either a SV or SV element or both of each type. Dissyllabic forms arbitrarily chosen herein demonstrate best those phonetic discrepancies as described. Note that V usage of all these words might have changed a little or a lot, e.g. syncope, metathesis, in reverse order, localization, innovation, derivation, association, corruption, contamination, adaption, etc. In short, the new sound change may also be used to coin new words or add new meanings which likely have steered, either slightly or far apart, away from their original meaning even though most of the time there exist exact correspondences concurrently, phonetically and semantically, pointing directly to equivalents in C, mostly because they were late loanwords, such as

Just like the development of the C dialects, the path their speakers had gone through after they became parts of the later evolving Han Chinese 漢人 (Han or C for short ) nearly two and a half millennia ago after the Qin Dynasty, undoubtedly, is similar to that of the becoming of the modern V language having continuously and gradually formed over the time as it appears today. It is the ultimate result of inevitable cause and effect interactions between some ancient aboriginal substrate language and those dialect brought to the ancient Annamese (安南) land not only by the C conquerers and their soldiers but also disgruntled emigrants, disgraced officials in exile and the like, all having been of different mixed-race stocks for a substantially very long period of time. You may recall that the proto-Vietmuong -- descendant of the forementioned indigenous speech prior to its having broken apart and diverged into different branches -- might have already long existed long before the Han ever set their feet on the Annamese soil, known as Giaochi 交止 by that time, which then was situated further to the southwest far away from the NamViet (NanYue 南越國) State. That is to say, the view that the proto-Vietmuong had not evolved from the same source genetically as those of the ST languages as shared by many renown scholars may hold valid except for those of the later Muong and Vietic branches. Nevertheless, based on some of what appear to be cognates in the basic stock of both C and V, we could also safely speculate that their common share of basic words had been already widely used within the Vietmuong group before the emergence of other derived variants from the AC as results of later and more contacts with the Han advancing forces and new emigrants from the far north.

The onset of new vocabularies -- which could have eventually made a round trip finding its way back re-packaged under some other forms of speech used by native speakers in the China South 華南, that is, lexical variants of OC and of any periods thereafter found concurrently in use in V such as 為 wèi (elephant) for SV 'vi' (do, for, etc.) and VS 'voi', 虎 hǔ (tiger) for SV 'hổ' and VS 'cọp' and 'hùm', 唐 táng for VS 'đường' (road) and the replaced 道 dào (SV đạo) or 途 tú (SV đồ), 川 chuān and 江 jiāng (river) for SV 'giang' and VS 'sông', or 房 fáng (room) for SV 'phòng' and VS 'buồng', etc. -- might then have been already formed some time even before the Han annexed the state of NamViet, which earlier had been ruled by King Trieu Da (趙托 Zhao Tuo) of Qin 秦, or Chin origin, stretching all the way to the Annamese land located in today's Vietnam's Red River Delta. The whole region would fall under the Han rule thereon. The aforementioned split of the Vietmuong group into the Viet and Muong branches had their languages dispersed in different directions following migrating paths of their speakers, many to mountainous hideouts or others to the coastline settlements. (1)The linguistic split had given rise to the early Vietic language, and its descendant Annamese as recorded in history, which started to absorb the early AC linguistic elements, including basic vocabulary as attested in the classics of the Han Dynasty, e.g. 'carriage' 車 che (SV 'xa', VS 'xe'), 'indigo' 藍 lán (SV 'lam', VS 'chàm'), 'earthnut', 'fall' 落 luò (SV lạc, VS 'rơi'),'net fishing', 'fishing net' 羅 luó (SV la, VS 'chài' and 'lưới'), 'bamboo basket' 籮 luó (VS 'rỗ'), etc.. The similarity among those basic words as such between the V and C has been the subject of investigation of this paper hitherto with evidence of their being cognate if it is so even though we so far have had no V historical written records of how the archaic Vietic language had been spoken prior to its blend of AC more than two millennia ago. For that reason, we actually can only work on the framework of ancient C linguistic records. [ See Bo Yang for C history, Wang Li OC and vernacular V, Li Fang-Kuei OC reconstruction, Kargren for pioneering in OC historical phonology, Pulleyblank for phonology of Early Mandarin, Schuessler for Qin-Han phonology reconstruction, Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典 for vernacular variants of many uncommon C characters which are cognate to many V words. ]

Certainly today's V is not a dialectal C. Discrepancies in what is spoken by the V people and what appears in C historical phonological records are the results of multi-tiered and multi-staged sound changes from C to V which are synchronically manifold and could have gradually occurred over a long span of timeline diachronically accentuated with of vernacular forms of different periods as appeared in older ancient lexical layers. Those ancient forms later might have competed against newer and more prestigious ones, i.e., SV from MC as having articulated in some learned circles. In terms of competence and performance depending on their usage, they could possibly have evolved into some familar words that we all seem to know too well, but actually not, such as some typical words serving multifunctionally, i.e., noun-verbs as co-locators, verbs or adverbs as particles, as exemplified below, which must have come from at least one or two northern vernacular C dialects, i.e., Mandarin of early and later periods. Also, other new lexicons could be considered later loans in addition to what could have been alterations of those very same words having already existed prior to phonological shifts with new colloquial usages and semantic adaptions.

Let's examine some of those derived variants of the same roots.

  1. 來 lái: lai (SV)
    1. lại: "come", variations: 來來來! láilái lái: "Lại đây nầy!" or "Tới đây!" (Come here!),
    2. lại (a grammatical particle): Màn lái! 慢來! "Chậm lại!" (Slow down!),
    3. 再 zài: lại as in 再來 zàilái! Làm lại! (Do it again!) (# 再來 zàilái can also be: "lặplại" (repeat!) or "trởlại" 'return')
    4. là: 本來 běnlái "vốnlà" (originally), 原來 yuánlái "nguyênlà" (initially), 一來.. yìlái "mộtlà"(firstly)... 二來..èrlái "hailà" (secondly)...,
    5. vậy (a grammatical particle): 你去那裏來? Nǐ qù nálǐ lái? "Mầy điđâu vậy?" (Where did you go?)
    6. đây: 上來 Shànglái! "Lên đây!" (Come up here!),
    7. nầy, nay: 後來 hòulái "saunầy" (later on), 素來 sùlái "xưanay" (from the start),
    8. làm, tới: 來一盃 Lái yī bēi! "Làm một ly!" (Let's have a drink!), 來不及 Láibùjí "Tới khôngkịp!" '(We, I, He..) cannot come (on time)' ~ "Làm khôngkịp" (It can't be done (on time)), 來唄 láibei! "Tớiđi" (Come!) ~ 'Làmđi!' (Go ahead!), 亂來 luànlái "làmcàn" (do things carelessly),
    9. nổi: 起不來 qǐbùlái "dậyđâunổi" (unable to get up),
    10. sau: 未來 wèilái "maisau" (in the future).
  2. 了 lē, liăo: liễu (SV)
    1. liễu: "finish, complete, fulfill" [ e.g. 了結 liăojié "kếtliễu" (finish) ],
    2. lấy: (a grammatical past tense marker of completed action) [ e.g. 他抱緊了我. Tā bàojǐn le wǒ. "Nó ômchặc lấy tôi." (He holds me tight.) ],
    3. nổi: (a grammatical particle indicating capacity or possibility) [ e.g. 忘不了 wàng bùliăo "Quên khôngnổi." (could not forget.) ],
    4. nữa: (ending particle as interjection, acknowldgement, future certainty), [ e.g. 我不再回來了! Wǒ bù zài huílái le! "Tôi sẽ không vềlại nữa!" (I will not come back again!) ],
    5. rồi: "already, done, complete" (a grammatical past tense marker of completed action) [ e.g. 忘了 wànglē "quên rồi!" (Already forgot!) ],
    6. rõ: "understand" [ e.g. 了解 liáojie "thấurõ" (understand) ], etc.
  3. 打 dă: đả (SV)
    1. đánh, quánh, đập, để: "beat, strike, operate" [ e.g. 打字 dăzì "đánhchữ" (typing) ],
    2. đòn: 挨打 ăidă "ănđòn" (get beaten up, be punished),
    3. tá: 一打 yī dá "một tá" (a dozen) [ This is a recent English loanword in C., earliest in the late of the Qing Dynasty, and, like other words, it was creeping into the V language naturally and dominantly to become an active word of the modern V.],
    4. từ: 打 dá (from) [ ~ @ 自 zì (SV tự), cf. 自打 zìdá # "từkhi" (since) ],
    5. ăncướp: 打劫 dăjié 'to rob' [ also, VS 'đánhcướp' ~ 'đánhcắp' | M 打劫 dăjié \ @ 打 dă ~ 'ăn' | M 劫 < MC kɛp < OC *kap],
    6. tínhtoán, toantính: 打算 dăsuàn (to plan),
    7. lậpcập: 打抖 dădǒu 'shaking' [ M 打抖 dădǒu \ @ 打 dă ~ lập (reduplicative) | ¶ d- ~ l-, @ 抖 dǒu ~ cập (reduplicative) | ¶ d- ~ k- ],
    8. cáđộ: 打賭 dădǔ (đảđộ) 'bet' [ 'cáđộ' ~> ® @ 打 dă ~ 'cá' (bet) ], etc.

What makes us posit such variant sounds for each C root? Evidences show that C and V phonological interchanges, as demonstrated by their phonetic shells, since synchronically they had occurred at different periods or evolved from different sources, were drastically altered beyond recognition, even with those of the MC ~ SV, for instance:

while, in fact, they follow well-defined patterns of sound changes from MC to SV which are diachronic and scholarly in nature having evolved from the official language spoken at the old-timed Chinese imperial court and among literati, in this case, the language of Chang'an from the 6th century onwards. These sound patterns have been identified and categorized based on a systematic phonological rule known as fănqiè 反切 (FQ), or phonetic spelling. It is from this old-timed spelling system that all the available C characters can be deciphered for its pronunciation in equivalent SV sounds. Regarding of how hundreds of these cultural and scholarly loanwords have enterd the daily speech of the common speakers of today's V is another matter for discussion. Specifically for this phenomenon of phonological sound changes, as mentioned earlier, there are always exceptions that reflect different dialectal articulation as well as historical periods, but in most of the cases their variants match what are recorded in ancient rhyming books which were later compiled and cited in the Kangxi Zidian 康熙字典 (See Kargren, Nguyễn Tài-Cẩn, Wang Li, Li Fang-Keui, et al.), for example,

To explore further the process of sound changes from C and V through drift, shift, innovation, localization, etc., for illustration I will examine in detail the example of côngcuộc, 'task' 工作 gōngzuò (SV côngtác) [ MC /koŋʷtzok/ | M 作 zuō, zuó, zuò < MC tzwʌk | for tz- cf. Cant /tzwʌk/ | Starostin: MC cʌk < OC *ɕa:k | FQ 則落 ] as I will do with some other cases throughout this paper because it involves also some common aspects of word formation in V with C material via sandhi process of assimilation (be reminded that the denotation of sandhi process of assimilation used here is to mean a linguistic rule of sound changes by assimilating the involved sound with those that are within the sphere of either meanings, sounds, or both of those words that carry some similar lexical contours, phonologically and semantically. This process sometimes is referred to by other authors as induced shift.) As in the case of côngcuộc, specifically, the interference of the preceding closed and rounded velar ending [-ŋʷ-] causes the initial of the next syllable [tz-] to change to [kw-] within dissyllabic forms. This process is further continued by V speakers by associating the morpheme [kwok] with an homophonous one cuộc (< SV cục), where it appears in variations of dissyllabic forms and has a close meaning as what appears in the compound côngcuộc, hence [koŋʷtzok] > [koŋʷkwok]. It is no doubt that many non-specialists of SV will be tempted to assign to cuộc , a C cognate of jú 局 right away. Also, it’s worthy to note that in V, except for the C original meaning of 'cuộc' as in (SV) thếcuộc 世局 shìjú (> cuộcđời) ‘life’, this compound usually is used only in the context côngcuộc xâydựng 建設工作 jiànshè gōngzuò ‘the task of building’ or côngcuộc tranhđấu 鬥爭工作 dòuzhēng gōngzuò ‘the fighting cause’ with the same meaning as côngtác (SV) while 工作 gōngzuò in modern M can also mean ‘job’, cognate to V côngviệc [ association with 公務 gōngwù (SV côngvụ) 'official business' ], for which the V việclàm (a localized alternation of the vernacular form 幹活 gànhuó as "làmviệc" 'to work' by means of metathesis) is the equivalent in both etymology and meaning. For that reason, we can assume that the formation of the word côngcuộc is a local development in V originated from 工作 gōngzuò and, yet, in the meantime, we can not exclude the possibility that 工作 gōngzuò can be the compound derivation of gōng 公 + jú 局 (hence, a doublet of 作) if we apply the sandi rule to the formation of this C compound even though this compound word appears not to exist in the C vocabulary as known to the author -- and if that were the case, then the scenario [koŋʷtzok] > côngcuộc is no longer a local development in V but a variation of the same C cognate.

Many V words are formed in the same manners and, being C loanwords for most of the cases, we can apply an analytic approach to trace down the etymology of VS lexicons by associating their meanings with other symnonyms with lexemes close in both phonological form and semantics, for example, 渾蛋 húndàn (SV hỗnđản) for 'khốnnạn' (son of a bitch) vs. 困難 kùnnan (VS khókhăn 'difficulty'), 要飯 yàofàn (SV yếuphạn) for 'ănmày' (beggar) instead of 'bớicơm' (fill up one's bowl with cooked rice), or 炸肉 zhàròu (SV tạcnhục) for 'chảlụa' (fried or cooked meat cake) instead of 'chảruốc' (fried meat), 肥肉 féiròu (SV phìnhục) for 'barọi' (bacon) instead of 'ruốcmỡ' (fat meat), and so on. The existence of such newly-formed derivatives allows us to further solidify our sandhi association principle for making etymological revisions of the same roots in innumerable cases where the one-to-one correspondences are no longer the cases.

As you will see the foundation for such revised reconstruction teleology is partially based on certain peculiar vocalism and articulation of V initials and finals that fit into the phonotactics utilized by the V speakers challenged by their competence and performance attested by AC phonological and rhymimg schemes as deduced from OC linguistic materials as well as recent discoveries and reconstruction work on Proto-C and OC by several renown linguists of our time. For example, one of the most striking peculiar labiovelar vocalism in modern V with those of finals -c, -ng which are preceded by a rounded vowel such as ɔ-, o-, u- or a medial -w-) in V orthography, i.e. [-uwk, -uwŋ, -owk, -owŋ] (characterized by the liabialization of the same ending consonants) appears to resemble so closely with those OC finals ending with labiovelars *-kw[kʷ], *-gw[gʷ], and labiovelar nasal *-ngw[-ŋʷ] (Li, along with some other linguists such as Pulleyblank, independently reached the same conclusion.) For illustration, the examples of 風 fēng and 心 xīn are sufficed:

Evidences for such reconstruction are atted in Shijing 詩經 (“The Book of Odes”) in which 風 usually rhymes with 心, 林, etc., all fitting into 侵 MC /tshjəm/ rhyme group and 東 MC djung [ < OC *djəŋʷ] (cf. SV lòng [lɔŋʷ]) (2), division III (having -j- medial). Yu Nai-yong (1985. pp. xiii, 277-79, 286) grouped it with the same classification but in class C (ending with -m). It is interesting to see that words ending with -ŋʷ in this class in V happen to be articulated with all initial consonants, so it is not hard to connect that with lòng [lɔŋʷ] or [lɔwŋm]. His reconstruction of PC and OC 風 as **pljom > *pljəm and 嵐 as **plom > *bləm is based on xiéshēng 諧聲 which shows two different initials in MC as [piuŋ] and [lam] respectively, all from

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

From the above view we can safely posit /*-jOm/ ~ /*-jOŋʷ/ interchange based on the hypothesis that during the sound change transition from OC *-jəm to MC -jung, it must have gone the through the process of labialization of the OC final to become /*-juŋʷ/ or /*-juwŋm/. It is interestingly enough that this phonemic feature still shows in the V language. Pulleyblank (1984) shared the same view when representing final /-uŋ/ as /-əŋʷ/ and he hypothesized that the OC final must have been pronounced as that of V ông [oŋʷ] and ong [əŋʷ], of which the final labiovelar is realized with double, labial and velar, articulation.(p. 123) On the other hand, for the MC period, Forrest noted that /-ung/ remained unchanged everywhere unless the preceding consonant is a labial P- in which case it is dissimilated to -ə- as 風 pronounced fēng in M. (p. 182.) The implication we can draw from Pulleyblank’s and Forrest’s views is that V giông might have evolved during the transitional period of AC (also known as Early Middle Chinese or EMC) where p- was palatalized and dropped from pjuŋʷ to become a glide j-, that eventually gave rise to [juŋʷ] > [joŋʷ] and further syncoped into [jõ] > [jɔ] as it appears in the last two forms in modern V. Of course, this process of sound change could also have gone differently from the one that would later have given rise to SV phong [fəŋʷ]. It was the same as in the case of 凡 fán to go one step further to become những and it is not hard to see that the initial of /juŋʷ/ was nasalized to /ɲjuŋʷ/, then the rounded vocalism was unrounded to become …j‚ ng like /ɲjəŋ/. This postulation is very likely because the V language has the tendency of resistance for /p-/ and substitutes it with /b-, ph-, h-, j-, nh-/ … or might have this initial palatalized to /t-, s-/ and the likes, and, sometimes, does this even with the rounded labiovelars being dropped to become /-w/ or /-o/. This phenomenon commonly has happened not only with V words of C origin but also within the C dialects themselves. Based on this deduction, we can assume with certainty that proto-Vietnamese (PV) and Old V -- oftentimes referred to as Old Annamese -- of giông might possibly have had similar sounds as those of lexicons in PC and OC. In the meanwhile the V gió might have been a local innovation or merely an alternation of the former by changing the labiovelar to -ɔ. An interesting thing is that in the form of SV phong [pfɔŋʷ], of which the initial is an alternation of b-, both labials, i.e., b- and f-, remained in the same word. Consecutive labial occurrence is regarded as a distinct feature of OC while VS giông reflects an OC linguistic feature of an ancient period that the C language had developed “its distaste for consecutive labials”, as Forrest put it, and modern VS also still keeps this linguistic feature.

The historically phonological correlation of V and C in the case of the ending /-juŋʷ/ syncoped into /-uw, -m, -Ø/, or /-ŋ/ ~ /-Ø/ for that matter, which could be expanded to many other cases such as 痛 tòng for 'đau' (pain), 捅 tǒng for 'đâm' (to stab), 夢 mèng for 'mơ' (dream), 明 míng for 'mai' (tomorrow), 星 xīng for 'sao' (star), 公 gōng for 'cồ' (female fowl), 羊 yáng for 'dê' (sheep), 蟲 chóng for 'sâu' (insect), 彤 tóng for 'đỏ' (red), 零 líng for 'lẻ' (odd), or 萍 píng for 'bèo' (duckweed), and plausibly positively the reverse such as 腹 fú (SV phục) for 'bụng' (belly), 抱 bāo for 'bồng' (carry in one's arms), 寒 hán for 'cóng' (freezing), 道 dào (SV đạo) for 'đường' (road), 林 lín for 'rừng' (forest), 葩 pā for 'bông' (flower), 打 dă for 'đánh' (stike), or 里 lǐ (SV lý) for 'làng' (village), demonstrates the relationship of both languages from which we can actually draw parallel lines for the historical development of both V and C. From this baseline we can actually reconstruct many OC initials and finals and build an analogy of the C ~ V sound change patterns which can eventually be used to find more V etyma of C origin and, for that matter, to recognize words resulted from multiple phonemic shifts such as those loanwords in VS which have been conveniently adapted to local speech habit, or phonotactics, as well as other factors due to its colloquial nature or linguistic substrate interference with the target language through imperfect learning or imitation, hence the so-called "competence and performance".

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

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B) An analogy of Vietnamese etymology:

Beside the similarity of innumerable basic words in V and C, throughout its history of development C has continuously influenced the formation of the V language remarkably for hundreds of years while the ancient Vietnam's land, i.e. Annam, was under the C occupation as a prefecture and its after-affects still continue on until present day, having left its traces clearly and notably in all contemporary V linguistic aspects. One way to identify their C traits in the V etymology is to utilize a new tool that I call the analogical method. It is based on a methodology that syntactic or lexical analogy, as have been widely used as a tool in historical linguistics, can be re-tooled and utilized to make use of many linguistic forms that have already been standardized, categorized, and tabulated in V linguistic works accomplished so far. For that matter, we must firstly see into it that they are in effect production of patterns and development of phonetic interchanges that resemble sound changes in loanwords and their induced shifts already existing and predominating in the V language, specifically. In the following and the next sections we will examine some patterns of sound changes that make many of those exemplified words listed throughout this writing candidate cognates with those related C words plentiful in the contemporary V language readily recognized in both layers of linguistic substratum and superstratum.

1) A corollary approach:

As literally signified by the terminology, the corollary approach utilized here is one among several analogical methods to establish linguistic attributes for etymological candidates by characterizing their lexical properties found to be similar based on their semantic peculiarities and characteristics of the very same nature and traits that have already occurred and existed in those words under examination. Let's use this corollary approach to examine only some of common words as they are selectively picked here for their notorious authenticity which is highly prone to controversy. For that reason, note that this is only an attempt to find the V etymologies of C origin by applying one among many techniques and methods along with their resulted works already made available to date by other authors at our disposal. In any case for those words that are not likely plausible cognates it does not mean that others ought to be also brushed underneath the same rug. Each etymon under scrutiny here should have its own merit as in the field of VS studies sound changes do not always follow strict rules that those of scholarly SV have gone through and all rationality discussed here following the principle of irregular sound change due to frequency. The important point here is that you will see what results and how I have come up with etymological hypotheses solely through reasoning and induction by using these tools.

Keep in mind that the examples cited below are arbitrarily chosen and not limited to what will be exemplified next, meant to be supplementary to what has been argued so far, for additional illustrations, not purposely to formulate any corresponding patterns as strict rules, which is another subject matter and need another book to categorize them. As we have seen how far V etyma have deviate from their C roots, they all seem to follow the irregularity rule which has been governed by competence and performance of the V speakers. If you accept this argumentation, you will understand why even patterns in regular SV sound changes as in 罷 bā giving rise to SV bãi, 偏 piān ~> SV thiên, 季 jì ~> SV quý, 郵 yóu ~> SV bưu, 攝 shè ~> nhiếp, and so on so forth.

 

  1. "răng" :

    It is mostly a corollary of those words in the same category that are related to C words, in this case, for body parts in V. They are tóu 頭: đầu 'head', 耷 dā: tai 'ear', mù 目: mắt 'eye', tóng 瞳: tròng 'eye ball', miàn 面: mặt 'face', dìng 顁: trán 'forehead', méimáo 眉毛: mi 'eye lash', méi 眉: mày 'eyebrow', bì 鼻: mũi 'nose', 頰 jiá (má) 'cheeks', hán 含: cằm 'chin', fá 髮: tóc 'hair', xū 鬚: râu 'beard', wēng 翁: lông 'hair', zuǐ 嘴: môi 'lips' (interchange with) wěn 吻 mồm 'mouth' (hence 'miệng), shǒu 手 tay 'hand' (interchange with zhăng 掌: tay 'hand'), 胳臂 gébi: cánhtay (arm), bēi 背: vai 'shoulder' (by innovation), hóu 喉: cổ 'throat', fèi 肺: phổi 'lung', yì 臆: ngực 'chest', xīn 心: tim, gān 肝: gan 'liver', shèn 腎: thận 'kidney', yāo 腰: eo 'waist', pì 屁 : đít 'buttocks', xiōng 胸: hông 'hip' (by innovation), wèi 胃 dạ 'stomach', pì 脾 tỳ 'spleen', fú 腹: bụng 'belly', tuǐ 腿: đùi 'lap', jiăo 腳: giò 'leg' (interchange with) zú 足 chân: 'foot', etc. What peculiar about these cognates as mentioned above are those words that have similar construction of the same linguistically semantic traits, for example, shǒubăn 手板 for bàntay '(a set of) hand' or jiăobăn 腳板 for bànchân '(a set of) foot', 腳脖 jiăobó for cổchân "the neck of foot" for 'ankle'. Of course, for those modern concepts, such as 'viêmgan' 肝炎 ganyán 'hepatitis', 'laophổi' 肺勞 feiláo 'TB', 'henxuyễn' 氣喘 chuănqì 'asthma', 'đầunậu' 頭腦 tóunăo 'ringleader', 'chạmtrán' 頂撞 dǐngzhuàng 'head on', etc., obviously they are recent loans.

    Phonologically, we have

    răng 牙 (tooth): nha (SV), yá (Mand.), ngah (Cant.), gheh (Hai.) [ M 牙 yá < MC ŋya < OC *ŋrya:| MC reading 假開二平麻疑 || ¶ y- ~ r- | cf. 芽 yá: măng (bamboo shoot) ]

    and the interchange between y- ~ r-:

    (i) Initial interchanges { ¶ y - ~ ng-, r- }:

    硬 yìng: rắn 'sturdy', 阮 ruăn (Nguyễn) ~ 元 yuán (a surname); 悒悒 yìyì: rayrứt 'uneasy'; 耀 yáo: rạng 'glowing'; 隐 yǐn (riêng) as in 隐私 yǐnsī: riêngtư 'private'; 夭夭 yāoyāo: rậmrạp 'bushy'; 蝇 yíng: ruồi (nhặng) 'flies', 崖 yá: rặng(núi) 'mountain range', 曰 yuè: rằng 'say that'; 焱 yàn: nóng 'hot' [ ~ modern Mand. rè 熱 ~> 'rát' (sore) ].

    Also, interestingly in the V southern Rạchgiá 'dialect' local people tend to substitute the initial sound r- with g-, e.g. 'găng' for 'răng', 'gô' for 'rô', 'gỗ' for 'rỗ', etc.

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

    打 dă: đánh (=> "quánh" /wajŋ/) 'strike', 嗎 mà: mắng 'scold', 得 dé: đặng (< được, /daek/ Hainanese) 'got', 月 yuè: nguyệt, giăng 'moon'; 曰 yuè: rằng 'that'; 俄 é Nga (Russia); 鵝 é: (SV nga) ngan, ngỗng 'goose'; 蛇 shě: rắn (SV: sà) 'snake'; 炸 zhà: rán 'fry'; 耀 yáo: rạng ' illuminate', etc.

    The relationship between 牙 yá (SV nha) for both 'ngà' and 'răng' -- of which the latter V might also have been a later derivation from 齖 yá (tooth) or 齡 líng (SV linh, 'instar') to differentiate 牙 yá as 'ngà' for ivory -- is fossilized in and go hand in hand with those C lexical mergers and dissyllabic compounds:

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

      • This induction is based on the hypothesis that "ngà" (ivory) and "răng" (tooth) are variations of the same root whereas, similarly, 牙 yá, 齒 chǐ, and 齡 líng are various forms and doublets in C. This view will certainly encounter resistance from opposite camp such as that of Tsu-lin Mei which, in great details, specifically posit 牙 yá as the sole phonetic value evolved from the equivalent of "ngà" for 'ivory' and affirm its Austroasiatic origin (See The case of "ngà"). In other words, from the view of our corollary approach the resconstruction issue may lie in the sound value of OC *ŋrya: as cognate to 'ngà', which could have have been derived from 'răng' or vice versa. In the meanwhile, 齡 líng (SV linh) and 齖 yá (SV nha) must be a much later development where, as we understand it, 牙 yá has overrun its derivative 齖 yá in popular use.

  2. "mặt" :

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

    and the interchanges { ¶ -Ø, -n, -ng ~ -t, -k } as in :

    吃 chì: ăn SV ngật 'eat' [ cf. 乙 "ất"], 咽 yàn: nuốt, 粉 fén: bột, 分 fēn: phút, 淡 dàn: nhạt, lạt; yùn 晕: ngất, mài 麦: mạch, mài 脈: mạch, mù 目: mắt, mò 默: mặc, máng 忙: mắc(~bận) (cf. wáng 亡: mất), mì 密: mật, mù 木: mộc, mò 没: một...

    and its compound dissyllabic words:

    • miànkǒng # 面孔 khuônmặt 'face',
    • miànmào 面貌 mặtmày 'countenance',
    • mấtmặt 沒面(子) méimiàn(zǐ) 'lose face',
    • mặtrước # 前面 qiánmiàn 'front',
    • mặtsau # 後面 hòumiàn 'back'
    • bềmặt 表面 biăomiàn 'surface' ...

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

  3. "cá" :

    We have 魚 ‘fish’ yú [ M 魚 yú < MC ŋʊ < OC *ŋha | FQ 語居 | MC reading 遇合三平魚疑 | According to Starostin : Sino-Tibetan fish. For *ŋh- cf. Xiamen hi2, Chaozhou hy2. | Protoform: *ŋ(j)a. Meaning: fish. Chinese: 魚 *ŋha fish. Tibetan: ɳa fish. Burmese: ŋah fish, LB *ŋhax. Kachin: ŋa3 fish. Lushei: ŋha fish, KC *ŋhà. Kiranti: *ŋjə\ . Comments: PG *tàrŋa; BG: Garo na-t<k, Bodo ŋa ~ na, Dimasa na; Chepang ŋa ~ nya; Tsangla ŋa; Moshang ŋa'; Namsangia ŋa; Kham ŋa:ɬ; Kaike ŋa:; Trung ŋa1-pla<ʔ1. Simon 13; Sh. 36, 123, 407, 429; Ben. 47; Mat. 192; Luce 2. | OC *ŋh- ~ k- (ca-) ],

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

    Also, from "cá" we have other dissyllabic equivalents:

    • dăyú 打魚: đánhcá 'net fishing',
    • diàoyú 釣魚: câucá 'fishing',
    • làoyú 撈魚: lướicá 'net fishing',
    • yúcì 魚刺: # xươngcá 'fish bone',
    • xiányú 咸魚: # cámặn 'slated fish',
    • fǔyú 脯魚: khôcá 'fish jerky',
    • mòyú 墨魚: # cámực 'cuttlefish',
    • jīngyú 京魚: # cákinh 'killer whale'...

  4. "lửa" :

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

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

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

      • and, of course, there is no doubt that we can find many dissyllabic words made up with 火 huǒ.

  5. "gạo":

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

    The interchange { ¶ d-, t- ~ g- } is scanty in C ~ V correspondences, except for probably a few words such as 陡 dǒu 'gồ' (precipitous), 逗 dòu 'ghẹo' (tease), 導 dào (SV đạo) 'gò' (to coach), 駝 tuó (SV đà) (camel) and 駝背 tuóbei 'gùlưng' (hunchback), 大膽 dàdăn (SV đạiđảm) 'cảgan' (dare to), 陶器 táoqì (SV đàokhí') for # 'đồgốm' (pottery), but for a historical linguist, it is not hard to see why both "gạo" and "lúa" could be variants of 稻 dào (SV đạo). However, it is likely that this is a loanword in C which had come from the south where rice planting originated, which is listed by Maspero (1952) as V and Thai cognates. The point to make here is that they were all evolved from the same root varying in sounds and conveying slightly the same connotation in different forms.

  6. "đất":

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

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

    tù 宊: đột; tú 圖: đồ; tù 吐: thổ; dú 毒: độc; dù 督: đốc; hù 忽: hốt; bì 畢: tốt, bì 必: tất; dú 櫝: tủ; dú 讀: đọc; táng 唐: đường; tán 談: đàm; tán 壇: đàn; tuǐ 腿: đùi; tòng 痛: đau; tóu 頭: đầu; tǎ 踏: đạp; tiáo 條: điều; diăn 點: điểm; shāo 燒: đốt ...

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

    • tǔdì 土地 (SV thổđịa) 'land' and dìdài 地帶 'stretch of land' we have 'đấtđai',
    • língtǔ 领土 'territory' # mãnhđất,
    • dìmiàn 地面 'the earth's surface' # mặtđất,
    • dìkuài 地塊 'a piece of soil' # cụcđất,
    • kuàidì 塊地 'a piece of land' khoảngđất,
    • dìyú 地域 'region' # vùngđất,
    • tiándì 田地 'farming land' ruộngđất,
    • tǔpì 土鼊 'beetle' # bọđất,
    • dìqíu 地球 'globe' # quảđất, etc.

  7. "đốt":

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

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

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

    { ¶ sh- ~ đ- }

    • 深 shēn: đậm (SV thâm) 'dark',
    • 生 shēng: đẻ (Hainanese /te/) 'give birth',
    • 首 shǒu: đầu (SV thủ) (~ 頭 tóu) 'head',
    • 盛 shèng: đựng (SV thịnh) 'contain',
    • 箸 zhú: đũa (Hainanese /du/) 'chopsticks',
    • 水 shuǐ: nước (SV thuỷ) [ cf. Viet-Muong 'đák', cf. 踏 tă > đạp] 'water',

  8. "con":

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

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

    • háizǐ 孩子 'children' concái,
    • yòuzǐ 稚子 'child' connhỏ,
    • chăngzǐ 長子 'eldest son' contrưởng,
    • fùzǐ 父子 'father and son' bốcon,
    • múzǐ 母子 'mother and son' mẹcon,
    • zǐsun 子孫 'children and grandchildren' concháu,
    • qízi 棋子 'checker piece' concờ,
    • dāozi 刀子 'knife' condao,
    • hóuzi 猴子 'monkey' conkhỉ, etc.

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

  9. "sao":

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

  10. "lá":

    We have 葉 yè 'leaf' (SV diệp) [ M 葉 yè < MC jep < AC *lhap < OC *lap < PC **lɒp | MC reading 咸開三入葉以 | Note: Most of the Tibetan languages carry the the sound near lá: Tibetan: ldeb 'lá, tờ', Burmese: ɑhlap 'cánhhoa', Kachin: lap2 'lá', Lushei: le:p 'búp', Lepcha: lop 'lá', Rawang ʂɑ lap 'lá' (used to wrap dumplings) ; Trung ljəp1 'lá', Bahing lab. Sh. 138; Ben. 70. In effect, we have well over one hundred words that register the pattern OC *l- > MC j-, | cf. 聿 yú => 律 lǜ. ].

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

    • 游 yóu: lội (swim),
    • 搖 yáo: lay (shake),
    • 腰 yāo: lưng (lower back),
    • 異 yí: lạ (strange),
    • 蠅 yíng: lằng (bluebottle),
    • 陰 yīn: lồn (female reproductive organ),
    • 離 lí: rời (leave),
    • 籬 lí: dậu (hedge)
    • 藥 yào (SV dược) 'medicine' ~ 樂 lè (SV lạc) 'happy', etc.

  11. "uống":

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

    12. In fact, with the exception of intimate relationship among many C dialects themselves for historical reasons, e.g. the evolvement of Cantonese or Fukienese prior to the of massive influx of Han and MC stocks where remnants of a larger substratum of aboriginal lexicons have been positively identified, remarkable linguistic closeness of V with some C dialects is noteworthy for their possible kinship rather than merely a loan relationship while in basic words, such as yú 魚 cá ‘fish’, yè 葉 lá ‘leaf’, miàn 面 mặt 'face', yǐn 飲uống ‘drink’, their resemblance is much closer than even those same words in MK or ST languages that have among themselves.

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2) Words of unknown origin:

Understandably, we cannot find all the V words of C origin by applying all the approaches and principles discussed here. Many words in V, except for those appear clearly loanwords such as "cápduồn" from an identifiable loan from the Khmer language, are questionable regarding their roots, which sometimes look like C, for instance:

However, no matter what, we can still have many of those words appear in solid context and some fixed expressions or compounds of which one of the syllabic words is either cognate or of C origin, for example,

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3) Questionable words of Chinese origin:

Except for those obvious loanwords from C as demonstrated by their closeness in both phonology and semantics, we still have a long list of words suggestive of C origin. Nevertheless, many of them, in addition to those items posited as the foregoing, at the same time, might be related with those of either the MK languages or unknown sources such as Malay, Thai, which make them dubious as C cognates, for instance:

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

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


 

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